Out of here, but “I’ll be back”

A picture of myself on the road on the WHL post-season trail.

There won’t be any side projects on the go as I take this break.

This break I am going to try and make it an actual break from producing content for this blog. The last time I typed out a post that I was taking a break back on July 9 of last year I typed out a notebook of thoughts too. The post ended up being around 3,123 words in length.

This time there won’t be any notebook items as I type this out late at night on Canada Day. That is how low the batteries have gotten.

Actually, I have enough energy to get one notebook thought in. I’m happy a deal has been made to bring the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association and Premier Hockey Federation – formerly the National Women’s Hockey League - together to start a new women’s professional hockey league that will begin play this coming January.

The PWHPA had been working with the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises over the past 14 months in a bid to launch its own league.

On Friday, it was confirmed Walter’s firm had purchased the assets of the PHF. Mark Walter, who is the co-owner of the MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers, his wife Kimbra, team president Stan Kasten and tennis legend Billie Jean King will help run the league.

While there are still a lot of details to be worked out before this league gets going, I think it is going to be great for women’s hockey in the long run. The NHL already released a statement that discussions with representatives of the unified group have already been initiated regarding working together to grow the women’s game.

The PHF is being swallowed up basically, but I hope some of the success that group had with branding won’t be discarded. For example, the team in Toronto should still be called the Toronto Six, because that team has done well in making inroads in that city.

The Six will go down as the last PHF champions having won the Isobel Cup championship game 4-3 in overtime this past March 26 over the Minnesota Whitecaps at the Mullett Arena in Tempe, Arizona. Following that win, the Six have been honoured by various organizations and bodies in Toronto, which included being honoured at an MLB Blue Jays game.

I guess I should have noted earlier I am basically shooting from the hip as I type this post.

Charles Sawi (#18) jets home on a TD run for the Hilltops.

The 2022-23 sports season for me has been a fun one. Covering the Saskatoon Hilltops in their 2022 season remained fun even if the campaign didn’t finish with a CJFL championship win. It would have been great had they won a CJFL title, but even for the Hilltops, those types of results don’t happen every year.

The 2022-23 WHL season was really fun, and I loved seeing things through to working games in the WHL Championship Series for the first time since 2019. I had as much fun as I ever had in the 24 seasons I have covered that circuit.

Of course, the Saskatoon Valkyries 2023 WWCFL season was really fun. It was a blast to cover them winning a third consecutive WWCFL title and an eighth league championship overall.

Where my batteries got drained was away from the work world. Since August of 2022, it seemed like something was always coming up on the family front, which ultimately drained me on all fronts. Basically, mole hills kept constantly being turned into mountains.

To keep up physical and mental health, I’ve worked out regularly since high school. Since March of this year, I’ve worked out only twice due to how busy things have been.

In August of 2022, I found out there was a health situation in the family that needed to be taken care of, and that kept me stapled close to home as much as I could be for most of September and October of 2022. Dealing with the health situation was a spectacular success and things on that front were much better than when the situation came to surface.

Since then, there seemed to be a stream of what I would call minor crisis that would keep coming up on the family front. Once those challenges were dealt with, they weren’t really that bad, but it seemed when challenges first came up there was an end of the world feeling.

There also seemed to be reoccurring spots where it seemed it was a problem that I was going out to cover games, and that was something that never came up in the past. There were a couple of stretches where I covered four WHL games in seven days where that seemed to be a problem all of sudden.

I had worked those stretches constantly since January of 2000 and any reaction of there being a problem with me going out to cover games stunned me. This past season there seemed to be problems in those stretches.

Connor Bedard put on a show every time he stepped on the ice.

Those stretches are busy, but they are easily manageable busy and shouldn’t induce a panic. They are no near as busy as stretches of covering three games in three nights, or three games in a 48 hour time span. I actually haven’t done a stretch of three games in three nights since everything got going after all the shutdowns that happened with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

On one road trip in the WHL Playoffs, I was out in Regina covering Games 3 and 4 of the first round series between Connor Bedard and the Pats taking on the Saskatoon Blades. I spent two nights in a hotel in Regina covering those games, which is normal when you are on the playoff trail.

When I left Saskatoon for Regina, everything was great at home. When I got home, there seemed to be another end of the world crisis that came up while I was gone. All of a sudden, it seemed like I was a bad guy because I was in Regina covering WHL post-season games when this crisis happened.

The crisis was another thing that didn’t seem that big once the challenge was met. With that said, all these constant hiccups end up taking their toll over the course of year even thought pretty much all of them ended up not being big deals when the dust settled.

I have had times where I have asked myself if I should pull myself out of the sports world if it would be better on the blood family front.

It also crossed my mind that when the COVID-19 shutdowns started in March of 2020 my life changed over a period of 18 months. Through that stretch of time, I had pretty much all those weekends off. I was at home on a regular basis, and I pretty much didn’t leave Saskatoon.

It seemed like an impression developed on the family front that how my life was during the COVID-19 shutdowns would be how my life would be going forward.

With that noted all those things are fluid and are constant works in progress.

I’m hoping taking time away from the blog will help me step back and evaluate things with a clear head. When you are involved and hooked in with everything, it is hard to maybe see things at times with a clear head.

The Blades salute their fans at the end of their 2023 playoff run.

The break I took in July and early August of 2022 wasn’t much a break. I was working on a side project at that time, and the side project consumed all the time I usually spent creating content for this blog.

For this July, the only work commitments I plan to take care of are ones with the Gordie Howe Sports Complex. I am hoping that will give me ample time off to recharge.

Also, I do have what seems like and endless list of tasks to take care of around home. I’m sure the tasks I have on the home front will make July fly by.

On top of that, I want to take time to get a better handle on the feud the Government of Canada is having with Meta and Google with regards to the Canadian media industry.

Speaking of the Canadian media industry, sports coverage has been gutted in the mainstream. You wouldn’t believe how many inquiries I received from sports groups asking if I could cover something, and a lot of the reach outs came from groups I hadn’t dealt with in the past.

When the Saskatoon Blazers went on their run to win the Saskatchewan Male AAA Hockey League title and bronze at the Men’s Under-18 National Club Championship, they did a great job spreading work via their social media channels. I was talking with a long time media industry friend where we talked about it would have been great covering the Blazers day to day journey and lamented how cuts slashed coverage for that, female hockey, U Sports, high school sports, softball nationals, curling, golf and the list never ended.

Through the Gordie Howe Sports Complex, I’ve seen young pitching ace Jorde Chartrand play for Softball Canada’s senior national women’s team, Saskatoon Minor Football run an excellent academy league, been impressed with the action in the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League and seen speed skaters and track and field athletes accomplish big goals. I’m sure I missed some things on this list, but all of these things used to get bigger play in mainstream media and all are an afterthought now.

It is still a joy and fun to get out to all the happenings in the sports world that no longer get the media attention they once did. The lack of coverage makes it harder to attract casual fans and make athletes or teams household names.

Because the effort is gone to get out and cover the sports world in Canada, I’ve streamlined my blog to the point it focuses on WHL, Hilltops and Valkyries to avoid getting spread too thin. The reality is a day only has so many hours in it.

When the Hilltops get going with their training camp for their 2023 season, I plan to get back at it with this blog.

It is always fun to cover the exploits of the Valkyries.

For now, I must bid you all adieu. I am looking forward to having a good sleep long into Sunday.

I’m out of here, but I’ll be back.

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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