Canadian Bowl will be my last ride for football on this blog

The Hilltops and Thunder take part in a prayer circle on Sept. 27.

REGINA, Sask. - Earlier this season, CJFL provincial rivals the Saskatoon Hilltops and Regina Thunder could be found taking part in what those in some parts of the world and political spectrum would say is the most controversial moment of their rivalry – a prayer circle.

Back on September 27, the Thunder edged the Hilltops 24-21 at Saskatoon Minor Football Field. Following that contest at centre field, a sizable contingent from both the Hilltops and Thunder got together in a circle, took a knee and said a prayer.

If anybody on the far left wing saw this, they would say this is an injustice toward humanity. Religion and especially the Christian religion have no place in sports. Those extreme leftists would view both of those teams as evil.

For those on the right wing, those players would be viewed as athletes who are not afraid to show their faith in the Lord. They would be viewed as having extreme courage and being heroes.

Those on even the further right use this display as those players taking a step towards being part of the maple version of the Make America Great Again movement, which brought Donald Trump into power as the President of the United States of America.

Those on that right wing spectrum might even use it as an example of the influence late American right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk had on the youth of the world and helping move the world towards what they viewed as a better place.

The truth is the Hilltops and Thunder players formed a circle, took a knee and said a prayer to show their faith in a Higher Power. Football teams are multicultural, and some of those players might not believe in Christianity and were praying to the Higher Power they believed in. There was nothing more, nothing less about that prayer circle than what I just wrote.

Everything that I wrote about those on the extreme left and further right wings is all spin doctoring 101. These are traps teams in the United States are falling into by doing nothing else than being themselves. That also includes activities like walks to the rink for hockey teams, because players on both the men’s and women’s side of the sport are well dressed during those walks to the rinks when they are posted on social media or regular media channels.

At the moment, the Hilltops and Thunder haven’t fallen into any of these traps to my knowledge, but they very well could have.

For myself on the political spectrum, I find these days I don’t fit in either with the right or left wings. I am not a Trump fan, and the same goes for former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has acted as part of the extreme left in his career in my view.

I actually think Kirk is a sympathetic figure. When I have seen videos of him interacting with others and interacting with his family, I just see him as a Christian good guy.

I don’t agree with everything he said, but he struck me as the type of guy you can agree to disagree with and then go off and have a pop or two together. I think it would be easy for a friendship to form with someone like him, even when you have differing views.

That unfortunately in this world has become a lost art. The fact Kirk was gunned down on September 10 is an example that agreeing to disagree and forming friendships with someone with a different view is a lost art.

All of this serious talk actually makes anything that has occurred in the football rivalry between Saskatoon and Regina seem small and insignificant. For the older veterans of that football rivalry, we are all just old men telling old tales, and if you are in the right mindset, humour can be found in the old tales.

That brings us today’s championship final of the CJFL’s Prairie Football Conference, where the Hilltops downed the Thunder 30-27 in overtime at Mosaic Stadium. When kickoff happened shortly after 1 p.m., I wasn’t there.

I was on a spot at the edge of the north shore of Wascana Lake visiting my dad’s resting place for the first time since the summer of 2020. God, family, and then football. My late friend in CFL icon Cal Murphy would say I had my priorities in the right place, if that is where a Higher Power says you are meant to be at that place in time.

For me, it felt like I was in the right place at the right time as I contemplate a bigger than football and sports moment for myself. That is resulting in a longer column here and a lot of contemplation over the last three days.

After visiting my dad’s resting place, I ventured over to the University of Regina to start typing this piece. If you needed to find me, I was in the spot where the old University of Regina Rams table existed in the main food court. Again, it felt like the right place at the right time to be as I feel a significant part of me when I am at my best was formed at my time at the U of Regina living here from 1995 to 2001.

The trigger of my challenge came when I messaged the Thunder about getting a media pass to work the PFC final at Mosaic Stadium, because the staff at Mosaic Stadium, while friendly, is tight with security there.

At 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, I received this message from Thunder president Murad Al-Katib, “I am sorry. We are unable to provide you with field and media floor access. This access is limited to accredited media as per PFC policies.

“As for stats access, I suggest you request from your Hilltops contacts. Greg (Peacock), team president, is on copy.”

I received a media pass to work Thunder hosted games at Taylor Field and later Mosaic Stadium with no problems or questions asked in the past. Because of responsibilities covering hockey with regards to the WHL and by extension the CHL, I didn’t make any CJFL road games in 2023 and 2024. The response from Al-Katib in my mind is spin doctoring.

I went through the CJFL code of conduct and social media policies online and didn’t find anything regarding media accreditation. I can’t find any PFC policies online. Maybe I looked in the wrong place.

I’ve had CHL accreditation for almost three decades working either for mainstream media outlets or as an independent. Any time I work Hockey Canada events, I get accreditation pretty much immediately.

So that brings us to what changed on the Thunder’s side.

I give the straight goods, and I don’t blow smoke up anyone’s asses to be old school. I know that is no longer the common practice in today’s world. Here is the thought process from my side.

On October 20, 2024, the Thunder downed the Hilltops 24-19 in that year’s PFC final. On the second last play of that contest, Thunder middle linebacker Stephen Smith nailed Hilltops quarterback Trey Reider with a blatant and illegal helmet-to-helmet head shot that was not flagged for penalty. Had a penalty been called, the Hilltops would have had maybe one or two plays to score the winning touchdown from about the Thunder 12 yard line or closer depending on the call.

The Hilltops ran a trick play on that play, which likely resulted in the foul being missed. The play happened right in front of me along with Shane Clausing of then 650 CKOM in Saskatoon, who also got the smoking gun video of that play.

The smoking gun video had been viewed about 999 times on Platform X. I thought it was more that that.

I actually found that video today on Platform X and double checked it. It is right here for anyone that is interested.

I along with Clausing wrote about the missed call in our game pieces. In old school style game reporting, that is what you do when there is an obvious call of a dangerous play late in a contest that is missed by the officials that could have changed the result of that game. You do that because that goes down as something that sticks in the memory of those who watched the game in the stadium that day.

When I posted the link on my Facebook page to the story on my blog, John Tokar, who was the athlete development coordinator of the Thunder at the time and now their leadership development coordinator, wrote a comment that I spread disinformation about Smith and that the play never happened.

When I first saw the comment, my mind quickly switched to my experiences in the WHL.

My first thought was, “Wow. If this happened in the WHL, their communications department would see it in quick order, hand the screenshots over to their department of discipline and a fine or fines would likely be given out within a period of two days for violating that circuit’s social media policy.”

When I talked with Clausing, he said he hadn’t heard anything on his side from the Thunder. He couldn’t believe I took all the heat, because he took the smoking gun video of the play from the sidelines.

I also realized the WHL has a sizeable league office staff of paid full-time employees. The CJFL is a volunteer run league. I believe the only person in the CJFL who is compensated with a full-time wage for the months the season goes on is Ryan Watters, who is in charge of communications and digital media.

Being a volunteer run league with limited resources compared to the WHL and the overall CHL, I was under the impression the CJFL didn’t have a code of conduct or a social media policy. That would be due to the fact they wouldn’t have the resources to enforce those policies like in the WHL and CHL.

I contacted CJFL commissioner Jim Pankovich asking if the CJFL had a code of conduct or a social media policy.

He said the CJFL did have code of conduct and social media policies. He asked what I came across and to send all the information I had his way. I sent him some screenshots that included Tokar’s comments and stills from Clausing’s video and the link to Clausing’s video on Platform X.

Pankovich thanked me for the information and said the league would review and investigate further if necessary.

A couple of days later, I was contacted by Tokar. He apologized, and we had a really great back and forth.

He was brave enough to ask if all the comments under my Facebook post could be deleted. As a show of good faith and to show it was all water on the bridge, I said that wouldn’t be a problem, and I deleted all the comments under my Facebook post.

During my almost three decades covering the WHL and CHL, I have had times where I have dealt with very passionate coaches and general managers that would say to my face they didn’t agree with something I wrote or said.

Red Deer Rebels general manager and owner Brent Sutter, who often served as his team’s head coach, is notorious for his fire-type passion, and I consider him a best friend in the game even after the times we had disagreements. It has actually only been one or two times we have really disagreed with each other as I believe Sutter and I view a lot of things in a similar way.

If a situation came up where we agreed to disagree, we agreed to disagree, and I believe in every one of those cases each side had a better understanding of where the other was coming from.

The next time I would meet with anyone in the WHL and CHL after a disagreement, it was all water under the bridge and you forged ahead in a positive manner. That is the way in that level of hockey.

While my contact with Tokar was outstanding, I had contacts and talks with various folks in the football community connected to the Thunder and Hilltops. When that all wrapped up, I came away with a feeling that this whole situation wasn’t over, and I got a gut feeling that ill will was going to be held against me.

I have been doing media work since 1996, so I believe I have some type of ability to read humans. Plus, we live in the age of Trump, where society is more filled with division and hatred than ever before casting a shadow over all parts of life.

With social media and all the communication tools at our disposal, we are more connected and disconnected with each other at the same time. This is due to the lack of face-to-face interactions especially interactions in a social setting.

Also in my personal life then at the time of the 2024 PFC final and now, I deal with pressures from my 80-year-old mom and my family to be in the sports world less and to be more present at home. Everyone on the family front was full support with my pursuits covering the sports world and my activities in, but once the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit, the dynamics and expectations on the family front changed.

I am not stating this as a complaint. I am stating this as a part of life.

As a result, I went into this CJFL season really with one foot out the door. I actively wouldn’t be covering it on this blog, if the Hilltops hadn’t requested more help from me to put pieces together for their game program. I have been doing that since 2017.

In relation to the CJFL, I have been what you would old school call a Hilltops beat writer since I moved back to Saskatoon after a 10-year stay in Medicine Hat, Alta. During my years in the Hat, I had only here and there interactions with high-level football above the high school level. Believe it or not, most of those interactions were with the NFL due to Medicine Hat product and Medicine Hat High School grad Dan Federkeil playing four years on the offensive line with the Indianapolis Colts and having to block for “the” Peyton Manning.

With that said, I had gone 10 years without being heavily involved with high level football above high school until I returned to Saskatoon in 2014.

During summer, I went to a couple of Saskatchewan Roughriders games at Mosaic Stadium in Regina. I ran into a handful of Thunder staffers, and our interactions, while cordial, were awkward.

I would say since October of 2024 the only Thunder staffer I have encountered face-to-face that was jovial and legitimate extremely happy to see me was receivers coach and long time old Rams bud Chris Ashman. That was at the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame induction night when my old Regina Rams from 1997 and 1998 along with long time friend and Rams alum Jon Ryan went into the Hall.

On one Roughriders game in August, I ran into one Thunder staff, who have I have known for about a decade and has the purest heart you could know. We had a great chat about baseball, but it felt like that staffer was torn to be talking to me and was holding back wanting to tell me something.

To add to everything, since 2024 I felt like from the CJFL office it would be kind of better if I silently went away. There seemed to be a fear of what to do if anything else happened that needed to be checked into.

That thinking doesn’t come from a malicious place. It comes from a place of worry about all the time that gets spend dealing with these types of issues. They really are time sucks.

I wrote all of that to be able to add background for where I am coming from, when I saw Al-Katib’s response early Thursday morning.

I will admit my first reaction came from my influence of the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders side of my life. Starting a game by putting your five toughest players on the ice to instigate a five-versus-five line brawl to send a message is the obvious road that wouldn’t lead anywhere and make things worse. In today’s age, that would get you a lifetime suspension from the sport.

Same would go with my old late friend Donn Clark who as the Raiders head coach in the 1993-94 season challenged Medicine Hat Tigers head coach Bob Loucks to fight behind the Zamboni at The Arena in Medicine Hat, Alta., late in a WHL game on January 15, 1994, when Clark felt the Tigers were taking advantage of his younger team. Just to be clear, that is how that night is remembered on the Prince Albert side of things where the Raiders players loved the fact their coach had their collective backs.

The Hilltops did give me a team personnel field pass to be used for today’s game. I decided against using it and going just to avoid a bitter Thunder staffer from finding a code of conduct issue to be used against the Hilltops and myself. I didn’t feel like putting any more time into bitter issues.

During my thoughts, I reflected on the last time I went into a season covering a team where one foot was out the door. In this case, it was a pair of teams.

I went into the 2016-17 U Sports campaign covering the University of Saskatchewan Huskies Men’s and Women’s Hockey Teams with one foot out the door due to some issues that arose late in the previous campaign that were also unresolved that were far different from the one I have been writing about regarding the CJFL.

There came a point early in that Huskies campaign, where I just decided the best course of action was for me to divorce the two Huskies hockey teams. The divorce turned into a marriage separation, and I will give the Coles notes version of why that was.

Kaitlin Willoughby - the ultimate professional and leader.

Kaitlin Willoughby, who was an assistant captain of the Huskies women’s team and would later become their full-fledged captain, rose up like a phoenix and became the ultimate professional and leader. She handled it. When I reflect on that, it comes as no surprise she is still playing these days in the PWHL with the Montreal Victoire.

I was back covering the Huskies hockey teams full time, and was doing regular stories on the Huskies football team until I got knocked off course by the COVID-19 pandemic. After the COVID-19 pandemic, I never really got any momentum again on that front outside of working like one to three overall Huskies events a season.

With all that said, the overall point here was Willoughby showed the type of leadership that is extremely lacking in today’s world.

Now with all of that background established, I have made a decision.

Leading up to and working the upcoming CJFL championship game – the Canadian Bowl, it will be my last ride in covering football for this blog. I will go into a marriage separation status with the game of football after the Canadian Bowl when it comes to writing about it on this blog and that goes for all levels of the game in Canada. I will leave myself leeway for writing about the NFL and NCAA Division I for fun whenever rare times come that I feel like doing that.

I have decided that the whole is greater than the one, which means myself. I have also decided the whole is greater than the one team, being the Hilltops. To be honest, the Hilltops are like the children in caught in the marriage separation thing in my eyes out of this whole thing.

I have come to the conclusion there are maturity issues with some inside the Thunder team, but I admit I can’t pinpoint who those folks are. I am judging from the body language of their staffers I have encountered in more fun settings that those issues are there.

I am kind of old school, and I will not apologize for covering the head shot hit late in the 2024 PFC final in an old school way. I know my type is a breed that is near extinction, but for better or worse, I stick to my guns in the old school way on that front.

Actually to be truthful, I’ve had folks tell me in the WHL, while I cover things in the old school way I am still a homer and I am pulling for the best for the main teams I am covering at the time. Even with that, those folks say I can still take a step backwards and be objective with regards to the main teams I cover, and I can write stories on any team on the circuit and those stories are as good as the one on the main teams I cover.

Jeff Chynoweth, who is the former owner and general manager of the franchise that was one the Kootenay Ice, said pretty much those exact words to me many years ago, and I have never forgotten them. Those types of words rank as the greatest compliments I have ever received on my work.

I might not be like my long ago University of Regina School of Journalism classmate Merelda Fiddler-Potter who has a long list of well-earned awards and a whole host of degrees, but I cherish the compliments like the ones Chynoweth gave me. Side note, I decided to mention Fiddler-Potter, because I saw a poster at the U of R listing her accomplishments and I did have a crush on her when we first met. We formed a pretty decent friendship in our school years.

Now remember, we are in the age of Trump, and that is also considered in the decision making. With all the division and hatred that is prevalent in way too many parts of the world, I am not into getting into fights over what I consider petty issues in the big picture of things.

On the football front, I know how intertwined the game is in Canada, and Thunder personnel are involved in the game at the provincial level in various facets. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t have to be in that world. If my departure will help everyone in the game being more comfortable in the future, again, I believe in this case the needs of the many are greater than the needs of the one, and the time has arrived for the many to go forward without this one.

Being in the sports world, we all have expiry dates when comes to teams and leagues, and my gut feeling is my expiry date with the CJFL came after the 2024 campaign.

I will still allow myself freedom to do fun football posts on the Canadian game on my own social media channels. If there are paid requests through entities like The Canadian Press and the Prince Albert Daily Herald to cover the game in Canada, I will fulfill those requests, unless my busy life has me committed to other things.

Now that the Hilltops have advanced, I have had previous talks with the staffers at the Daily Herald about doing a story on brothers Ryan Adamko and Scott Adamko, who are graduates of the Prince Albert Carlton Comprehensive High School Crusaders program. I will do a double check on the need there, but I expect I will be doing a story on that front for the Daily Herald.

I will still do stories on football in Canada for the platforms overseen by the Gordie Howe Sports Complex. I work there as a communication coordinator, and that is part of my job there.

For the first time in my dealings with the CJFL, the upcoming Canadian Bowl that the Hilltops will be hosting at Saskatoon Minor Football Field on November 9 will be a suit game for me. Like when I work covering games in the WHL and CHL, I will be bringing out the suit and tie to cover the upcoming CJFL title game, which means I will be in a more heightened business state.

Again, this is my last ride like Ray Lewis with the Baltimore Ravens in the 2012 NFL season. Of course in life, I have learned to “never say never,” so it will never be written in stone how long the marriage separation from the sport of football in Canada will last on this blog.

I have already thought about paying more attention to things I haven’t with the extra time I will have. That includes being more present in the home and being around for my 80-year-old mom, being more focused on my work on the WHL circuit, hopefully getting out to a Winnipeg Blue Bombers home game wearing Bombers gear in memory of Murphy, and hopefully seeing Prince Albert product Abby Soyko play with the University of Alberta Pandas Women’s Hockey Team in their storied and historic home barn of the Clare Drake Arena in Edmonton, Alta. She has been a super special person and supremely good influence that I have dealt with in the sports world.

Oh, as far as possible controversies go from today’s PFC final, I don’t know what happened as far as the blow by blows of the contest went. If there was a controversy, I am perfectly fine if this one played out.

That controversy would be that the players on the Hilltops and Thunder, if they felt moved to do so, would have once again gathered at centre-field after the game to take part in a prayer circle to show their faith in the Lord or the Higher Power that they believe in.

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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Flashback Friday – 2000 Rams were unbelievable

Magical playoff run highlights second CIAU season

Darryl Leason sets fire a pass for the Rams in 2000.

    (*NOTE – I originally wrote this piece in December of 2000 at the request of University of Regina Rams head coach Frank McCrystal. I believe it originally ran in a provincial football publication. I recently rediscovered it and decided to share it once again.*)

    The 2000 Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union season was almost a script out of a Disney movie for the University of Regina Rams.

    After going 0-8 in their inaugural year in the university league, the Rams, the former 15-time national champions in junior football, played in the last game they could possibly play in 2000. They made a miraculous playoff run which culminated in a 42-39 loss in the Vanier Cup to the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees.

    “I think at the start of the season people didn’t give us much of a chance,” says Rams quarterback Darryl Leason, who led the CIAU with 2,277 yards passing. “I was confident right from the start of the season it was going to be something special.

Head coach Frank McCrystal guided the Rams to a Vanier Cup appearance.

    “The Rams have a rich history of playing in championship games. It doesn’t surprise anybody in the Rams organization the team made it to the Vanier Cup.”

    The Rams began their journey to the Vanier Cup by opening the regular season with a 31-25 home win over the University of Calgary Dinosaurs. It was Regina’s first regular season win over a CIAU opponent.

    However, a three game losing streak at mid-season dropped the Rams to 2-4. Most football experts were writing them off, but Regina maintained its confidence heading into their final home game against the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds.

    “I think we were doing the right things, but there was a miscue here or there to make us not succeed,” says Rams head coach Frank McCrystal. “We knew, that if we stayed to the course, we were eventually going to succeed.”

Jason Clermont (#11) jets up field after making a catch in 2000.

    After falling behind 14-0 to the Thunderbirds, the Rams scored 30 straight second quarter points on route to a 47-37 victory.

    “That is when we felt we knew what kind of weapons we had on offence,” says Rams slotback Jason Clermont, who was named a second team CIAU all-Canadian. “We knew what we could do.”

    Regina’s win over the Thunderbirds was the start of a five game winning streak. The Rams would defeat the University of Alberta Golden Bears, Dinosaurs, University of Manitoba Bisons and the Saint Mary’s University Huskies on the road to the Vanier Cup.

    The Rams did not bow out of the Vanier Cup without a fight. After trailing the Gee-Gees 35-10 at halftime, Regina made a furious rally to lose by three.

Jon Ryan unloads a punt for the Rams in 2000.

    While the loss hurt at first, the Rams have been able to appreciate their success as the weeks have gone on.

    “The defence came up big in the third and fourth quarter,” says Clermont. “We were in a position where we could come back and win the football game.

    “It is a big accomplishment (to get to the Vanier Cup). There have been guys that don’t go there their whole career.”

    While the Rams enjoyed success in the football field in 2000, the Regina community and the province of Saskatchewan came around the team to support it. This included a sold out fundraising luncheon at Regina’s Delta Hotel and a huge Vanier Cup party at the U of R’s campus bar, the Owl.

Darryl Leason (#8) marks a Rams touchdown in 2000.

    “It was a great accomplishment for the university and the community as a whole that they could support a team that achieved the success we’ve achieved,” says McCrystal. “It was just a great partnership between institution and community that allowed this type of success to take place.”

    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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U of Regina Cougars wrestling program cuts are startling

The Cougars wrestling in the Carillon from 1997.

    There has to be a comeback like the one Josef Tesar Jr. made at the 1998 U Sports wrestling nationals.

    Back when U Sports was known as the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union, Tesar from the University of Regina Cougars trailed Chad Pearson of the University of Guelph Gryphons 10-2 in the gold medal match of the men’s 61 kilogram division. Pearson was one successful move away from winning the bout on technical superiority.

    Tesar miraculously battled back and earned enough points to win the match 15-10. In the process, the Cougars men’s wrestling squad won a national team title for second straight year.

    That one moment symbolizes the fight, the competitive drive and heart athletes have shown during the storied history of the Cougars wrestling teams in both men’s and women’s squads. Due to those efforts, the University of Regina was traditionally viewed as a wrestling school. Culturally, that aspect gives the U of R something that makes it distinct from most other post-secondary schools in Canada.

    Squads like the U of Regina Rams football team and the U of Regina Cougars women’s basketball team may get the majority of the spotlight, but it is always in the back of minds of locals in Regina that the sport the school is really good at is wrestling. When you saw the members of the Cougars teams hit the mat, you were quickly impressed by the skill they displayed.

A Cougars wrestling team feature from the Carillon in 1997.

    The Cougars men’s team has won 10 Canada West Conference championships, with the first coming in 1989 and the last in 2012, and two U Sports national titles in 1997 and 1998. They finished second in the team standings at nationals four times and placed third four times.
    The Cougars women’s team has finished second twice in the team standings at U Sports nationals.
    Both the men’s and women’s teams have had numerous individual conference and national champions. The women’s side doesn’t have as lengthy a history only becoming an official sport in U Sports in 1998-99.

    Bob McDougall claimed a U Sports national individual gold medal in the men’s 57-kilogram class in 1987 to become U of Regina’s first national champion in any sport.

    Lease Bertram, who was the U of R’s male athlete of the year in 1998 and was once part of Canada’s national team program, was in my opinion the best male athlete that school has ever seen and was a key member of both Cougars men’s team national championship winners. Individually at nationals, he won silver in the 65-kilogram class in 1997 and gold in the 61-kilogram class in 1998.

    Ali Bernard became the most decorated out of any of U of R women’s athletes compiling a lengthy resume of accomplishments that includes four individual Canada West titles and four individual U Sports championship gold medals from 2004 to 2008 with the women’s wrestling team. She was named the U of R’s female athlete of the year for three straight years from 2005 to 2007. 

The Carillon after the Cougars men’s wrestling team’s second national title.

  Bernard came from New Ulm, Minnesota, to be a member of the Cougars wrestling program.

    This past season at U Sports nationals, the Cougars women’s team finished fifth in the team standings, while the Cougars men’s team placed eighth. At the school’s athletic awards night in April, Lucas Hoffert of the Cougars men’s wrestling team was named the winner of the U of R’s highest individual honour in the President’s Award for outstanding achievement in athletics and academics.

    With how decorated the Cougars wrestling program is, it was shocking that both the men’s and women’s teams were cut from the U of R’s athletics program on Monday. The U of Regina Cougars men’s volleyball team, which is one of the school’s original six teams with men’s wrestling, was cut from the athletics program as well.

    The moves were made in response to a review of the U of R’s athletics department that was released in January of 2017, which suggested cutting teams in order to concentrate the saved funds on the remaining athletic squads.

    In a written response to the review from March 16, 2017, Vianne Timmons, who is the president and vice-chancellor at the U of R, said the portion of the review the pertains to the number of teams won’t be considered until a permanent head of athletics develops a “robust performance evaluation process.”

Lease Bertram accepting the U of R’s male athlete of the year award in 1998.

    At the time of Timmons’ letter, Tanya Reynoldson, who is an alumna of the Cougars women’s hockey team, was interim director of athletics. In July of 2017, Calgary, Alta., product Lisa Robertson was named the U of R’s new director of sport, community engagement and athlete development.

    With Robertson on staff for less than a full year, the U of R appears to have figured out a process to evaluate and reduce its number of athletic teams. The way decisions are made at universities are often convoluted, but with the brevity it took to make cuts, somewhere there might have been a pre-conceived decision at the start to cut the programs that were cut.

    The review suggested trying to get the ratio of male athletes to female athletes down to one-to-one for the overall athletics program as there were more male athletes on campus compared to female athletes. There were 18 members on the Cougars women’s wrestling team and 14 members on the Cougars men’s team last season, so cutting those programs did not get the ratio closer to one-to-one.

    Judging by the local media reaction in Regina and area, it appears the athletes from the three chopped programs were caught off guard.

    The Cougars men’s volleyball has struggled to post as many as four wins in any regular season for almost three decades. Since full-fledged regular season play between all western Canadian university volleyball teams happened in 1996-97, the Cougars have consistently finish in the bottom three in the overall standings.

The Carillon after the first national team title by the Cougars.

    Still, Greg Barthel, who became the men’s volleyball head coach in May of 2007, and his team have worked hard to make community inroads in the local Regina volleyball scene, and all that work seems for naught.

    Where the original release seems really heartless about the reduction in teams revolves around legendary Cougars wrestling head coach Leo McGee. He is not even mentioned at all.

    McGee became head coach of the men’s wrestling team in the 1985-85 campaign and has been the only head coach the women’s wrestling team has known since forming as a club team around the middle of the 1990s to becoming a full Cougars team in 1998-99.

    Saying he was instrumental is likely a descriptor that doesn’t begin to describe the impact and importance he has had on the wrestling teams. Beyond that, he is the school’s most veteran head coach and is tied to the fabric of university life at the U of R. It seems like everyone has at least one great McGee memory if they attended that institution.

    It felt like he knew who everyone was on the other athletic teams too. You would often see McGee making an upbeat pitch to athletes like Rams football star Jason Clermont and Cougars women’s basketball star Cymone (Bouchard) Bernauer about joining wrestling even just for conference or nationals. He would say he could help them win medals noting he wouldn’t have to teach either many moves.

    Those meetings always brought a chuckle from the athletes, and they also came away feeling better about themselves going back into activities involving their own sports.

    In the history of sports at the U of R, McGee was as important as Canadian Football Hall of Fame head coach Brian Towriss was to the University of Saskatchewan Huskies teams. Towriss had a similar rapport with athletes from other sports at the U of S like McGee does at the U of R.

The Carillon with a classic slogan for a headline.

    When Towriss departed and ultimately retired from his position at the U of S in December of 2016, that institution was criticized and hammered for how awfully that situation was handled, and at one point, his departure was the number two trending story in Canada.

    U of R athletics always has a drive to beat U of S athletics. If this is how McGee’s career at the U of R is going to end, U of R has trumped U of S in finding a worse way to handle a legendary coach departure.

    Braydon Johnston, who finished his second season with the Cougars men’s wrestling team, told Steven Wilson of Golden West Radio in Weyburn, Sask., on Tuesday that the coaches from U of R’s cut teams have been instructed not to talk to the athletes. As a result, Johnston hasn’t spoken to McGee since the announcement of the team cuts.

    Even when Towriss was going though bumps in his departure at U of S, his current and former players still threw a farewell party for him. These days, Huskies football has returned to having a family feeling.

    With the cuts that have happened in the mainstream media, it is easier to make the team cuts like the U of R did compared to when the Cougars won national titles in men’s wrestling in 1997 and 1998.

A couple of items of Cougars wrestling gear.

    The brand and prestige of U Sports on a national front is less now than it was back then. At the moment, the sports news cycle is consumed with NHL playoffs, the CFL Draft, and in southern Saskatchewan, the Swift Current Broncos quest to win their first WHL title since 1993.

Still, these cuts won’t likely be quiet in Regina and area.

    As news of the team cuts at the U of R spreads, you will likely hear from more and more alums of the Cougars Wrestling teams. Like the comeback Tesar made in his gold medal match at nationals in 1998, don’t expect the Cougars alums to go away because the experiences they went through were that great.

    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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