Pro sports Black Lives Matter boycotts should be supported

A Fred VanVleet card.

    Black Lives Matter and it is a good thing boycotts are happening in the professional sports world in North America to support this movement.

    If you watch television news channels or check out social media lines over this past week, it is unfortunately apparent that racism is alive and well most noticeably when it comes to African-Americans in the United States.

    At times, it feels like things are so bad on this front one wonders if society in North America has advanced since the 1960s and the days Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were leading civil rights movement rallies. On another sad note, history records both men were assassinated with Malcolm X and King Jr. dying in 1965 and 1968 respectively.

    In the current day, the unjust deaths of Breonna Taylor in March and George Floyd in May at the hands of police in the states of Kentucky and Minnesota respectively ultimate caused the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement. Taylor and Floyd are both of African-American decent.

    On Sunday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake, who is also of African-American decent, took seven bullets in the back from police in an incident that was captured on video and circulated by various media agencies. Three of Blake’s sons witnessed the incident as Blake was shot leaning into the driver’s door of his SUV.

    Blake had warrants out of his arrest based on charges of third-degree sexual assault, trespassing and disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse, but it is unclear if police were aware of those warrants at the time of the shooting. Those warrants were vacated on Friday.
    On Tuesday, Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr., announced that Blake Jr. was paralyzed from the waist down and that doctors do not yet know if it would be permanent.

    Also on that same day, the United States Department of Justice announced there would be an investigation into that shooting and the investigation will look into whether Blake’s civil rights were violated.
    Rusten Sheskey was identified as the police officer as the shooter. He along with Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek were all by Friday placed on administrative leave by the Kenosha Police Department because of their involvement in the shooting of Blake.

A Norman Powell card.

    The Blake shooting led to the professional athletes protesting systemic racism and police brutality by boycotting games. The boycotts in the NBA started on Wednesday and were slated to run through to Sunday. Action in the NBA playoffs is set to resume Saturday.

    The WNBA postponed all its games on Wednesday and Thursday.

    A number of MLB games were postponed from Wednesday through Friday. A total of five out of six MLS games were postponed on Wednesday.

    The NHL postponed all its games on Thursday and Friday. The NHL Playoffs are slated to resume on Saturday.

    In the NFL, a number of teams have cancelled practices starting with the Detroit Lions on Tuesday. A total of nine teams cancelled practices on Thursday.

    Tennis star Naomi Osaka pulled out of her Western and Southern Open semifinal match on Thursday in Mason, Ohio, to take a stand for the Black Lives Matter movement.

    Following Osaka’s decision to walk out, the U.S. Tennis Association, Women’s Tennis Association and the men’s ATP Tour announced all semifinal matches set to take place on Thursday would be postponed.

    While those that don’t like the Black Lives Matter movement have argued Blake’s arrest warrants were reason to side with the arresting officers, they totally miss the point.

    The overall bottom line is that in the United States there has been a problem where police services in general in that country have harassed African-Americans who haven’t done anything wrong.

    Over the last three days, numerous stories have been told by African-American professional athletes about the racism they’ve faced in their lives and unjust encounters they have had with the police mostly in the United States.

    Unfortunately, sharing these experiences has brought out some of the worst in the general public. On Thursday, Claire Hanna of CTV Regina produced a story about Jordan Reaves, who is a Canadian, and Chad Geter of the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders navigating racism for supporting the professional sports boycotts.

    On Friday, Roughriders receiver Shaq Evans voiced his disappointment on Twitter about how some in Saskatchewan have put down the Black Lives Matter moment and the professional sports boycotts. He said he wondered if he still wanted to play in the province.

    About three hours after that Twitter stream, Evans put out an apology for potentially offending all the good people in Saskatchewan.

    All three are African-Americans.

Jordan Reaves in action with the Roughriders in 2018.

    Back on Tuesday, guards Fred VanVleet and Norman Powell, who are both African-Americans, of the defending NBA champion Toronto Raptors talked about their frustration with continuing systemic racism and police brutality and talked about boycotting games.

    On Wednesday, The Milwaukee Bucks were the first team to take action when they elected to not take the floor in the NBA bubble at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida, for Game 5 of their first round NBA playoff series against the Orlando Magic. The rest of the sports boycotts followed.

    The NHL took criticism for not boycotting it playoff games on Wednesday. On Thursday, the NHL players lead the charge in joining the other professional leagues in North America in boycotting games.

    All the players from the four remaining teams in the Western Conference post-season bracket appeared at a press conference in the Edmonton bubble on Thursday. Veteran Vegas Golden Knights right-winger Ryan Reaves, who is Jordan’s older brother, spoke about the importance of including all allies in the Black Lives Matter movement hinting people make realizations at different times depending on their backgrounds.

    “There’s a lot of white athletes in here,” said Reaves. “I think that’s the statement that’s being made now.

    “It’s great that the NBA did this and MLB and the WNBA – they have a lot of black players in those leagues. But for all these athletes in here to take a stand and say, ‘You know what? We see the problem, too, and we stand behind you.’ I hate their guts on the ice, but I couldn’t be more proud of these guys.

    “The statement they’ve made today is something that’s gonna last. These two days isn’t gonna fix anything, but the conversation and the statement that’s been made is very powerful, especially coming from this league.”

Ryan Reaves speaks up for change. pic.twitter.com/xr81Xd9s4c

— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) August 28, 2020

    On the ice, Reaves is one of those tough and hard to play against agitators. He is a player you hate to play against, but he has developed a lot of respect in the NHL with how hard he plays the game.

    That respect was shown early Thursday by reach outs from Tampa Bay Lightning defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk and Vancouver Canucks players asking how Reaves was doing with regards to the racial turmoil. That started the road to the NHL game postponements on Thursday and Friday.

    Besides the athletes speaking out, I remember finding a spoof video on YouTube of the fictional world of Transformers about two or three years ago that had a moment that tried to make comedy of the friction between African-Americans and the police. It wasn’t comfortable to watch.

    In the video, an African-American man happens to show up out of nowhere and stand beside Megatron, who is the leader of the bad guy Transformers, the Decepticons. At this point, there is no battle going on.

Shaq Evans turns after making a catch for the Roughriders in 2019.

    Prowl, who is with the good guy Transformers, the Autobots, and has the ability to change into a police cruiser, immediately blows the African-American man away in an unprovoked attack. All the Autobots look horrified at Prowl, who transforms gets out of Dodge as fast as he can.

    While that video was jarring, it underlines the tension between African-Americans and the police.

    No matter how you cut it, systemic racism and police brutality in the United States is real. Canada also has its faults to with systemic racism.

    While some may disagree, the police in Canada have the reputation of being way more professional than their counterparts in the United States.

    Over the last few days, professional athletes in North America did shake up society with their boycotts. They should be applauded and supported for compelling us to have difficult conversations that need to be had.

Huskies, SMF create options for displaced high school players

Huskies RB Adam Machart (#20) follow at Mattland Riley block.

    One of the recent local feel good stories in Saskatoon goes to the University of Saskatchewan Huskies football team and Saskatoon Minor Football.

    Both programs are doing their best to create opportunities for high school aged players in Saskatoon to continue to improve their skills in the game.

    On August 19, the Saskatoon Secondary Schools Athletic Directorate cancelled high school football for the fall along with cancelling play in high school cross-country running, soccer and volleyball due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

    After the high school football cancellation, the Huskies and Saskatoon Minor Football worked to plan out complementary programming for the displaced high school players that can be conducted under Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 guidelines.

    The Huskies, who play in the U Sports ranks, are running an elite camp that starts this coming Monday and will run through to Thursday. The camp will run on Field #11 north of the Education Building on the U of Saskatchewan campus.

    The players will be divided into offensive and defensive positional groups for the sessions.

    On top of the Huskies camp, Saskatoon Minor Football is opening its North Saskatchewan Academy up to high school students in Grade 10 to 12. Grade 9 students are eligible to play in the Kinsmen Football League, which is run by Saskatoon Minor Football.

    The SMF program will be similar to its annual spring academy with skills and development followed by a league draft and mini games or controlled scrimmages. The SMF camp will run at Saskatoon Minor Football Field.

    If games are played, it will depend on how Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 protocols evolve. There are hopes that games can be played in six-man format.

    The six-man game of tackle football is commonly played by Saskatchewan’s high schools in rural areas.

    Both Huskies and SMF programming are filling up fast.

    Registration for the Huskies camp can be found by clicking right here, and the SMF academy can be found by clicking right here.

Sask Five Giants claim SPBL title

The Sask Five Giants were snagged a league title.

    The Sask Five Giants were able to do what most sports teams haven’t this year – claim a provincial league championship.

    Last Sunday, the Giants, who are based out of Martensville, traveled to Regina and blanked the host Athletics 2-0 in the Under-18 AAA Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League championship game at Optimist Park.

    The Giants scored one run in the top of the second inning and added a key insurance run in the top of the sixth inning.

    Cooper Price went the distance on the mound for the Giants striking out five batters and giving up only three hits. Jesse Lubiniecki took the loss on the hill for the Athletics striking out six batters in six innings of work.

    The Giants advanced to the SPBL final after downing the Diamondbacks in Saskatoon 12-2 in the North Division title game on Aug. 21. The Athletics took the South Division championship game 10-1 over the Regina White Sox on Aug. 21 in Regina.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Out of sight out of mind fear drives COVID-19 sports world

Andrew Harris runs the ball for the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

    If you don’t play, you don’t exist.

    It is that type of fear that is driving the sports world right now in the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

    Teams, leagues and minor sports bodies fear the old cliché, “out of sight, out of mind.”

    A cliché becomes a cliché, because it is grounded in truth. The teams, leagues and minor sports bodies don’t want to be forgotten.

    There is a fear that if people stop interacting with their favourite team, league or the minor sports body they are involved with, those people will find other ways or focus on other interests to occupy their time and forget about the sports world.

    As a result, there are many inside these teams, league and minor sports bodies who feel they need to find some way to play at all costs.

    That line of thinking often results in pressure to throw good money after bad money.

    At the moment in North America, the big four professional leagues have returned to play or are about to return to play in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB. UFC and the NASCAR Cup Series have been motoring along since May.

    The WNBA has also hit the court, and out in Germany, the pro soccer Bundesliga completed its campaign in early July.

Most leagues in Canada have no where near the NHL’s resources.

    One thing all these circuits have is major resources noting that the WNBA is backed by the NBA. That doesn’t mean these professional circuits are immune to the impacts of COVID-19.

    In the MLB, the Miami Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies are still dealing with the after effects of being rocked by positive COVID-19 tests. Both clubs were last in action when they played each other in Philadelphia this past Sunday and haven’t seen the field since.

    There are fears the MLB season won’t be played to a conclusion.

    On the economic side, the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks gave a written termination notice to 49 people working full time in business operations. As it is unknown as to when the Canucks will host home games, they couldn’t keep those employees on staff. That story came out in the Vancouver Province on Thursday.

Will gate-driven circuits like the WHL find the conditions to play?

    The Canadian Elite Basketball League is in the process of conducting a month long Summer Series tournament to crown a league champion playing out of a bubble environment at the Meridian Centre in St. Catherines, Ont.

    The CEBL isn’t flush with cash, so Mike Morreale and that circuit’s leaders deserve big credit for getting that circuit going. Still, running a basketball league isn’t the same as getting a football league back in action in Canada.

    If the storied CFL takes the field in 2020, it will do so in the bubble city of Winnipeg. That league is still facing numerous hurdles as far as playing games go including getting players living in the COVID-19 ravaged United States into Canada and getting the CFL and CFL Players’ Association to come to terms on a deal to play this season.

    The CFL is still seeking money from the Government of Canada to take the field again and no results have occurred on that front. The CFL was looking for $44-million to play this year and was seeking $150-million in federal government assistance if the 2020 season is lost.

CFL great Charleston Hughes (#39) is focusing more on the working world.

    At the moment, players from the United States that live in Canada like Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive end Charleston Hughes are focusing more on opportunities in the working world. Hughes lives year round in Regina.

    On the minor sports front, minor sport bodies are content to get registration that reaches just 25 per cent of recent years in order to spring into action. Still, those bodies are facing the reality of needing like three years to recover economically from 2020.

    Even with that in mind, people are thinking about you, if you are out there playing.

    No one knows what the future will be like for gate driven leagues like the CHL major junior hockey circuit that includes the WHL, OHL and QMJHL.

    Same goes with junior A hockey that includes the SJHL or the professional NLL circuit.

    U Sports could look drastically different after the pandemic as opposed to before the pandemic. That circuit won’t hold any national championships in fall, and most of its conferences have shuttered fall competition. The odds aren’t great action will resume in January of 2021.
    The Government of Canada wouldn’t allow the MLB’s Toronto Blue Jays to play out of Toronto in front of no fans, so what are the odds that gate driven leagues will be able to operate with fans.

Will U of Saskatchewan Huskies football be hurt by not playing in 2020?

    Governments in Canada at the federal, provincial and municipal level don’t seem to be in a rush to allow sports events where around 1,000 people attend let alone attendances that surpass 10,000. In Saskatchewan, stock car circuits are racing in front of gatherings that are allowed to top out at 150 people.

    I have been thinking what my father, the late Dan Steinke, would do when it comes to the business side of the sports world, because he had his share of success in the business world.

    I suspect he would treat the COVID-19 pandemic like the world was in the grips of a world war.  

    Concluding that governments in Canada don’t have a will to allow sports teams to play in front of mass gatherings of people and most avenues to generate revenue have been significantly hurt, my late dad, if he was the owner of a sports team, would likely layoff all the staff and cut everything down to the point where he held just the intellectual property of the team.
    He would put the intellectual property of the team into storage ready for it to be brought back when the pandemic ends.
    My dad would suggest owners of sports teams to follow that course of action, because he would see no value in continually throwing money into a black hole as the end date of the pandemic is uncertain.

What will Makena Kushniruk and the Saskatoon Stars see in 2020-21?

    He wouldn’t like following this course of action, but he would do what needed to be done. If you think about it, 143 days have passed since the sports world in North America proceeded like normal.

    With that in mind, the leaders of teams, leagues and minor sports bodies are working their hardest to figure out the best path in this uncertain time. No one knows what the correct answer will be to get through these pandemic days.

    A bigger than major reboot for the sports world especially in Canada might be unavoidable.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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    If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.

Does a reality check wait as pro sports ramps up in N.A.?

A Sidney Crosby card.

    Business is hitting a higher gear for pro sports in North America as we are only days away from seeing Sidney Crosby and the NHL crew play actual games.

    Actually, we are just three days away from that moment. On Tuesday, Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins face their archrivals the Philadelphia Flyers in an exhibition tilt in Toronto, which is the NHL’s hub city for all Eastern Conference action.

    Following that contest, the Toronto Maple Leafs will battle the Montreal Canadiens in Toronto.

    Out in Edmonton on Tuesday which will be the hub city for Western Conference teams, the Edmonton Oilers take on their archrivals the Calgary Flames.

    The post-season official begins on Aug. 1 with five contests that will open the play-in round, which contains eight series that are best-of-five in length.

    The NHL was last in action with five regular season games on March 11. On March 12, the league suspended play due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

    Now about four-and-a-half months later, the 2019-20 NHL campaign is set to resume with games played in arenas without fans in Toronto and Edmonton. The players and team staffs are being kept in nice hotels away from the general public in a bubble type situations.

    The NHL isn’t the only circuit that has gotten going. Major League Baseball held its opening day on Thursday with a pair of games. The New York Yankees downed the Nationals in Washington 4-1 in a game that was shortened to six innings due to weather and the host Los Angeles Dodgers thumped the San Francisco Giants 8-1.

A Carey Price card.

    In Canada on Friday, there was some excited online chatter as the Toronto Blue Jays slipped past the Rays in Tampa Bay 6-4 in the opening regular season game for both those clubs.
    The Blue Jays will be playing the majority of their home games at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, N.Y., after they were unable to get approval from the Government of Canada to get around COVID-19 restrictions to host games in Toronto.

    The WNBA regular season tipped off Saturday with six games at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. That circuit is set to play its entire campaign at that facility.

    The Canadian Elite Basketball League started its month long Summer Series tournament with a pair of games at the Meridian Centre in St. Catherines, Ont., marking the first professional sports action in Canada since March 11. The entire CEBL tournament will take place at the Meridian Centre.
    On July 30, the NBA resumes its regular season with a pair of games at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida.

    NFL players are slated to report to training camps on Tuesday.

A Bo Horvat card.

    The NASCAR Cup Series season and UFC cards have been going full speed ahead since May.

    Those in the amateur sports world in Canada and United States will have their figures crossed looking to see how life unfolds in North America’s pro sports world.

    If these pro sports circuits can finish their seasons with as few hiccups as possible, it increases the optimism the amateur sports world can get going more in full swing.

    In Saskatchewan, sports like golf, baseball and softball are taking part in meaningful competitions on the amateur side.

    If action in the North American pro sports circuits gets derailed by a surge of positive COVID-19 tests, that scenario could cause action that is already going on the amateur sports world to get rolled back. A surge in positive tests is possible as the amount of new COVID-19 cases in the United States seems to increase by an average of 60,000 a day at the moment.

    In Germany, the pro soccer Bundesliga restarted on May 16, and Bayern Munich won an eighth straight league crown. The Bundesliga officially wrapped up on July 6, when Werder Bremen played Heidenheim to a 2-2 draw in a relegation game and avoided being knocked out of Germany’s top professional tier.

    The Bundesliga proved what could be done if focus is maintained regarding virus testing and medical protocols.

    Even with the success the Bundesliga had and the momentum the pro sports circuits in North America have, there is still uneasiness on the amateur side of sports in North America.

A Brendan Gallagher card.

    This past Monday, the Southwestern Athletic Conference postponed all fall sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic including football, and it is an NCAA Division I conference. The SWAC still aims to get football going with a seven-game conference schedule for football starting with an eight-week training period in January 2021.
    The QMJHL has started to adjust its plans for the 2020-21 campaign. That circuit will shorten its regular season from 68 to 60 regular season games with the regular season slated to start Oct. 1. The league’s 18 teams will be split into three divisions of six clubs each and squads will only play in-division games.

    At the moment, fans of professional sports in North America have to be pumped action has already started to happen or will happen. In Canada, there will be lots of excitement for the NHL as the Oilers, Flames, Leafs, Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets will all be part of the play-in round.

    Still, could there be a COVID-19 reality check waiting around the corner that could bring everything to a halt?

    That is the big fear as things play out.

Winterton will always be linked to Raiders, other notes

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The Raiders are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of former Team President and Wall of Honour inductee Doug Winterton. The organization offers its condolences to Doug's family and friends.

A post shared by Prince Albert Raiders (@paraidershockey) on Jul 22, 2020 at 1:41pm PDT

    It is hard to imagine going to a Raiders hockey game in Prince Albert without Doug Winterton in attendance.

    Whenever the Raiders do resume playing home games with fans at the Art Hauser Centre in a world that is caught in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, Winterton won’t be sitting his is seat located in the first row of the west end of the facility a couple of sections north of goal on that side of the building.

    He sat in that spot of the Art Hauser Centre next to his wife, Joan, for as long as anyone can remember.

    This past Monday, Doug Winterton passed away of natural causes at age 91. He was born on December 23, 1928 and moved to Winnipeg at age 21, where he met Joan.

    They lived in Manitoba and Alberta before settling in Prince Albert in 1972.

    Upon arriving in Prince Albert, Winterton became involved with the Raiders, who were still playing in the Junior A ranks in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League at that time, and the Cooke Municipal Golf Club.

    Winterton served as the Raiders secretary for seven years and was the club’s president from 1978 to 1980. He was a charter member of the Raiders booster club, and he and Joan were billets for a lengthy stretch during the club’s time in the SJHL.

    Doug Winterton’s involvement and support of the Raiders continued when the club moved to the major junior hockey ranks joining the WHL in 1982.

    This past season, Winterton could still be found volunteering his time to help out in the media and scouts lounge even after he celebrated his 91^st birthday. He was inducted to the Raiders Wall of Honour on September 27, 2013.

    Winterton could tell you stories about the Raiders recalling the team’s entire history for hours and hours. While he had fond memories of the Raiders past, he was really proud of the players coaches and staff of the organization in recent years.

Doug Winterton enjoyed watching the Raiders win the WHL title in 2019.

    When Brayden Pachal, Sean Montgomery, Parker Kelly, Cole Fonstad, Spencer Moe, Zack Hayes, Max Martin and netminder Ian Scott first began playing together in 2016-17 going through growing pains as youngsters posting a 21-44-5-2 regular season record, Winterton saw something special.

    During that 2016-17 season, he would tell anyone that came into the Raiders media and scouts lounge about how much he enjoyed watching how hard that group worked and how much that group was improving as the campaign went on. Winterton said he believed that group of players could do something special.

    On May 13, 2019, Winterton was in his seat to see that core group of eight players help the Raiders as veteran team members win the WHL title. The Raiders claimed Game 7 of the WHL Championship series with an epic 3-2 overtime win over the Vancouver Giants with Dante Hannoun scoring for the Prince Albert side in the extra session.

    Doug and Joan were on their feet cheering and stayed to witness the on-ice post-game celebrations with the Ed Chynoweth Cup for a lengthy amount of time.

    Doug Winterton will be remembered as one of the Raiders most passionate supporters. In spirit, you get a sense he will still be a fixture at their games.

• On Thursday, the Prince Albert Raiders announced they have signed CHL Import Draft selection Uladzislau Shyla to a WHL Standard Player Agreement. Shyla, who is from Minsk, Belarus, was selected by the Raiders in the first round and 45^th overall in the CHL Import Draft held on June 30. The 17-year-old, who stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 147 pounds, had 10 goals and nine assists in 55 games for Belarus’s under-18 team this past season.
• Veteran Regina Leader-Post sports columnist Rob Vanstone was featured in a CTV story in his quest to lose weight and improve his health. CTV’s sports reporter Claire Hanna produced an uplifting piece and that story can be found by clicking right here.
• On Thursday, 15-year-old Brooklin Fry won the Saskatchewan women’s amateur golf championship at The Legends Golf Course in Warman. The Shell Lake product posted a 7-over-par 223 to take the title. Fry, who is set to enter her rookie season with the Prince Albert Northern Bears female under-18 hockey team, had won the Saskatchewan junior girls’ golf title on July 16 in Swift Current. The Saskatchewan men’s mid-amateur golf championship also wrapped up at The Legends Golf Course on Thursday with Danny Klughart of Prince Albert taking that title for a second straight year. On Friday, Saskatoon product Ty Campbell captured the Saskatchewan men’s amateur golf championship at The Legends Golf Course.
• On Friday, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, who is from Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Que., announced he was opting out of the NFL season due to the COVID-19 pandemic via Twitter. The 29-year-old is the starting right guard for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. He has played for the Chiefs since 2014. Duvernay-Tardif graduated from McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine in May 2018 with a doctor of Medicine and a master of surgery. He began working at a long-term care facility in April in Montreal and remained in that role through June. Duvernay-Tardif has decided to continue to work in the health care system and is waiting for another role. Before joining the Chiefs, Duvernay-Tardif played in the U Sports football ranks for the McGill University Redmen.
• Gregg Drinnan continues to do an ace job rounding up how the COVID-19 pandemic has hammered the sports world in his Taking Note blog. His latest offering can be found by clicking right here.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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    If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.