 |
| Rylan Kleiter releases a shot on January 1, 2020. |
On Thursday, CurlSask announced the provincial men’s, women’s and mixed double curling championship tournament have all been cancelled due to government restrictions with the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday, the Government of Saskatchewan extended existing Public Health Orders that include a ban on team sports until Jan. 29.
On Wednesday, CurlSask had its bubble proposal to hold provincial championship tournaments rejected by the Government of Saskatchewan.
As a result, CurlSask used points system taking account the performance of teams over a two season window to determine representatives for men’s and women’s nationals. The evaluations included roster changes on teams.
On the men’s side, the Regina foursome skipped by Matt Dunstone including lead Dustin Kidby, second Kirk Muyres and third Braeden Moskowy were picked as the provincial representative for the Canadian nationals - The Brier.
On the women’s side, the Saskatoon foursome skipped by Sherry Anderson including lead Breanne Knapp, second Chaelynn Kitz and third Nancy Martin were selected as the provincial representative for the Canadian nationals – the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
The Regina duo of Ashley Quick and Mike Armstrong, who won the 2020 provincial mixed double title, have been tabbed to represent Saskatchewan at the Canadian mixed double championship tournament. They actually never got to play in the 2020 Canadian mixed doubles tournament, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
All three of those nationals will be held in a bubble environment at the Markin MacPhail Centre in Calgary, Alta. The Scotties runs Feb. 19 to 28, The Brier is slated for March 5-14 and mixed doubles nationals are set for March 18 to 25.
Normally, you would expect teams that are left out in the cold to be crying foul with these announcements. The opposite happened when those teams took to social media after CurlSask came out with its announcement.
 |
| Team Kleiter’s Facebook page post on Jan. 14. |
On Thursday night, the Kleiter foursome put up a great post on team’s Facebook page saying they would be cheering for the Dunstone and Anderson rinks.
The Kleiter rink post also said, “It has been a difficult year for everyone, and we are thankful for the games we did get to play. We respect CurlSask’s decision knowing health and safety is a top priority.”
The grace and class by the Kleiter side was outstanding. Kleiter has shown great professionalism and sportsmanship on the football field helping the Saskatoon Hilltops win CJFL titles in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The class was being shared by the big rival curling teams of the provincial representatives too. On the women’s side, the North Battleford foursome skipped by Robyn Silvernagle, including lead Dayna Demers, second Jessie Hunkin and third Kristen Streifel shared a very understanding post on their squad’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
The post that rink shared on Thursday started by extended best wishes to Anderson’s rink and went on to state, “This has been a very challenging year for CurlSask navigating through a pandemic, and we thank you for going above and beyond during this challenging time. Your efforts and hard work did not go unnoticed.
“We are all Team Sask, and we will be cheering hard as per usual!”
The team
one would expect to be the most upset would be the Saskatoon foursome skipped
by Colton Flasch, including lead Dan Marsh, second Kevin Marsh and third Catlin
Schneider.
Those who
follow curling were expecting the Dunstone and Flasch rinks to engage in old
school hockey style throw downs.
The Flasch
rink stated over the team’s Facebook and Twitter lines on Thursday, “Disappointing
news today, but understandable. We are well aware it was difficult for
CurlSask.
“Good Luck
to Team Dunstone as Team SK!”
The Flasch rink’s posts finished stating fingers were crossed with regards that foursome could slide into a wildcard position.
Those posts concluded with the classic “so you’re telling me there’s a chance” gif.
Disappointing news today, but understandable. We are well aware it was very difficult for @CURLSASK . Good luck to @TeamMDunstone as Team SK! Fingers crossed we can slide into a wildcard spot... 🤞 pic.twitter.com/VCnRDEjoIG
— Team Flasch⚡️ (@TeamFlasch) January 15, 2021
Overall, the curlers showed great respect to their provincial sport governing body and were outstanding with the dignity they showed each other.
Saskatchewan’s curlers showed how those in sports should carry themselves in these pandemic times.
It would be great if those on all the other sporting bodies in Saskatchewan could follow that example. A lot are, but there are too many vocal ones that aren’t.
Sask. government gives funds to WHL and SJHL
 |
| The Blades and Pats in action on Feb. 5, 2020. |
On Friday, the Saskatchewan provincial government announced it would give $600,000 to each of the provinces five WHL teams for a total of $3-million to help those clubs navigate their way through the COVID-19 pandemic.
The SJHL will receive $1-million in support, and that funding will be provided to the circuit.
The funding is being provided to help those WHL clubs and the SJHL offset revenue shortfalls due restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic.
All of the SJHL teams are community owned.
Three of the five WHL teams in Saskatchewan are community owned including the Moose Jaw Warriors, Prince Albert Raiders and Swift Current Broncos.
The Regina Pats are owned by five local businessmen including Anthony Marquart, Todd Lumbard, Gavin Semple, Shaun Semple and Jason Drummond.
The Saskatoon Blades are owned by Mike Priestner, and his son, Colin, is the Blades president and general manager.
Of course, there were some over social media who showed displeasure about taxpayer money going to fund junior hockey teams.
I myself am fine with the Government of Saskatchewan giving financial help to those junior hockey teams get through something that no one can control.
The ownership group of the Pats and Blades owner Mike Priestner have gone beyond the call of duty over the years to make those teams go. I am good with them getting help in these unprecedented times.
The provincial funding won’t cure all the financial hurt these junior teams have absorbed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it will help.
Sask. hockey not expecting game action until
March ends
 |
| The Saskatoon Stars and Prince Albert Northern Bears are on pause. |
On Thursday, the Saskatchewan Hockey Association sent out a memorandum regarding a virtual call on Wednesday between all Saskatchewan sport governing bodies and Ken Dueck from the Provincial Government’s Business Response Team.
During that call, the provincial sport governing bodies were told there would be no consideration of return to play where you would see game action for at least four weeks and a return to game play before the end of March was unlikely due to how the COVID-19 pandemic was playing out.
Saskatchewan had a number of days this past week where in led Canada in active COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people.
The Saskatchewan Hockey Association said it was reviewing the state of the game and going to conduct zone meetings over the next two weeks.
Thursday’s development seemingly created a sizable uproar on social media from Saskatchewan residents regarding this development. It seemed a number of people wanted to return to game action the next day, if that could happen.
It should be noted that Saskatchewan Hockey Association general manager Kelly McClintock and his crew did a mountain sized pile of work to get game action going that did happen before November of 2020 came to a close. Even the best thought out plans can easily fail in these crazy COVID-19 pandemic times.
McClintock and his crew have been really transparent throughout the pandemic.
Also, the Saskatchewan Lacrosse Association put out a memorandum to its membership on Thursday, and that memorandum was fairly similar to the one the Saskatchewan Hockey Association released.
Bliss fireball heats up great WWE storyline
OH 🤬!#WWERaw @AlexaBliss_WWE @RandyOrton pic.twitter.com/cJ0GeSP3Ye
— WWE (@WWE) January 12, 2021
Action in the WWE is heating up literally these days.
I must admit I haven’t been the biggest WWE follower over the last 12 or so years. I did watch it a tonne growing up, and followed it fairly heavily in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
On Friday night, I found a couple of online media reports that said Randy Orton, who one of the all-time greatest heels in sports entertainment, received minor burns due to off timing on a stunt on the last Monday Night RAW.
In a cliffhanger ending of that episode of RAW, Orton was left rolling around the ring in pain after being on the receiving end of taking a fireball to the face from Alexa Bliss, who has become one of the top performers in WWE.
The stunt of Bliss shooting a fireball into Orton’s face looks very cool on video. Orton is expected to recover in short order from his minor injuries.
I noticed that Bliss was playing a very dark persona on that night, and she sold it hardcore. I ended up spending Friday night going through various videos on Youtube checking out Bliss’s storyline from the last seven months.
I knew she held multiple singles and tag team women’s championships in WWE and had been one of the company’s most popular performers that came on the scene in the last eight years.
Bliss has over five-million followers on Instagram, over two-million followers on her Facebook page and over 1.5-million followers on Twitter.
Over the past seven months, Bliss has been in a storyline with Bray Wyatt, who also goes by alter-ego persona “The Fiend,” and Orton.
The storyline contains a mix of darkness, scary disturbed stuff and humour. Like many storylines from the late 1990s and early 2000s, this one is all shades of grey as opposed to having clearly defined good guys and bad guys.
The villains that get a following ultimately become antihero types.
Bliss has kind of a persona like comic book villain Harley Quinn taken a step further on the evil spectrum. In the storyline, Wyatt at “The Fiend” pulled Bliss over to embrace the dark and evil side.
Together, Bliss and Wyatt can be playful and comical from a dark humous side and switch to being outright cool and ruthless. The storyline plays them out to being connected to the supernatural.
They feud with Orton, who still plays his classic egotistical legend killer persona to perfection. His character is always being cunning and manipulative looking to strike with a sneak attack at any time while being outright ruthless.
Orton actually sets Wyatt in his persona as “The Fiend” on fire in a late December pay per view. That of course eventually led to Bliss’s fireball attack this past Monday.
Overall, that whole storyline and feud has been the most enjoyable WWE storylines I’ve seen in the past 12 years. Usually over the past 15 years, I’ve found the main event performers in WWE to be enjoyable, but I’ve usually felt the rest of the company’s roster doesn’t have the depth it once had.
I found a lot of the storylines to be bland.
The Bliss, Wyatt and Orton storyline was a fantastic change from that.
For me, checking out that storyline from various clips on Youtube provided a night of great escapism.
Hofmann featured in video on Young Bucs
account
Logan Hofmann is getting some love from the communications crew of the MLB’s Pittsburgh Pirates.
On Thursday, Muenster, Sask., product was featured on a video placed on the Young Bucs Twitter account, which brings news and features on the young players coming up through the Pirates minor league system.
In the MLB Draft that was held on June 11, 2020, Hofmann was selected in the fifth round and 138th overall by the Pirates. The right-handed pitcher, who stands 5-foot-10 and weighs 190 pounds, signed a rookie contract with the Pirates on June 27, 2020.
The 21-year-old has developed strong command of four pitches in his fastball, change-up, curveball and slider. He is good at getting to help out youngsters who are coming up through Saskatchewan’s minor baseball system, when he gets back to his home province.
Hofmann gives Saskatchewan lots of love in the video on the Young Bucs Twitter account. The video can be found below.
Signing on his back deck was peak 2020 for @lhofmann11. pic.twitter.com/iZCNXGMcGN
— Young Bucs (@YoungBucsPIT) January 15, 2021
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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