Has it been three weeks???

Yes, it has been three weeks since I last blogged. I have wanted to blog, tried to blog, but just didn't. It is not like there hasn't been a ton of relevant material to give you my views and opinion on; from the Penn State fiasco to the Milan Lucic hit, to the CFL play - off's, the world of sports has given me more than enough material to discuss.

To go back a week, Milan Lucic should absolutely have been suspended for his hit on Ryan Miller of the Sabres. Really liked the way Lindy Ruff dealt with the situation. A guy who clearly has a vested interest in these events kept his cool when others, like John Tortorella would have blown a gasket, and just said that the bar has been set; goalies out of their crease are free game and contact with them will get you a grand total of two penalty minutes. Look I know contact with a goalie is going to take place from time to time but Lucic made no attempt to either slow down, get out of the way or lessen the impact of the blow. A lot of people have applauded the work of Brendan Shanahan in his approach to supplemental discipline; I am not one of those people. I see what he is trying to do, he is trying to make those offenders accountable by lengthening suspensions in the hope that these punishable instances don't repeat themselves as regularly. However, Shanny has certainly missed the boat a couple of times aside from the Lucic hit. Go back three weeks, Andy Sutton got five games for an open ice hit on Gabriel Landeskog of the Avalanche. Granted his elbow did come up but Landeskog got up and skated away..no injury at all. I can see giving Sutton a game or two, but five games for a first time offender? Then you look at what happened the night before the Sutton incident...Wojtek Wolski of the Rangers deliberately elbows Daniel Alfreddson in the kisser..Alfreddson is concussed and that doesn't warrant a suspension??? And might I add Milan Lucic also concussed Ryan Miller. So two guys concuss opponents with deliberate actions and walk away scott free but another delievers a hit in the heat of the moment, causes no injury and sits out five. To me that is shameful...get some consistency Shanahan!!!

Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers is a stud. When was the last time a MLB player won both the Cy Young and MVP in the same year? Today, Verlander captured the double feature earning AL MVP honors ahead of Jacob Ellsbury and Jose Bautista. All you naysayers can complain all you want about pitchers not warranting an MVP award but this is an award given to the player who means the most to their team. Where would the Detroit Tigers have been without this guy??? Not only was he the best pitcher in all of MLB this year, he was the best player. Case closed.

The Grey Cup is set for Sunday in Vancouver and the home town fans will get to watch their B.C. Lions beat up the Winnipeg Blue Bombers en route to the title. The B.C. Lions are just too good, flat out. Travis Lulay is close to, if not already the best QB in the league, their defence is down right nasty and Paul McCallum is pretty much automatic. Yeah, I said it..BC in a landslide. Can you believe that these guys started the year 0 - 5???

And now on to my beloved Riders, and a few ideas I want to touch on. For starters, Rod Pederson questioned us this morning on his blog as to what was more painful..having the Riders miss the post - season or losing in the Grey Cup Final. While it was odd and troubling to not watch the Riders the past two weeks, it pales in comparison to losing the big one. I was in Calgary in 09' for the 13th man debacle. I was so thrilled to get to watch my team play for a Championship, and at one point I was on my feet hooting and hollering, high - fiving my old man because not only did I watch them play for the Grey Cup, I watched them win the Grey Cup...and then that god damn orange flag. I have never been so deflated in that short a period of time in my life. The LRT ride back to the hotel was as quiet as you could ever imaging given the fact we were cramped in their like sardines.

At the same time, last year's loss to Montreal in Edmonton might have been more difficult to follow, but only for this reason. I honestly didn't have any expectations of winning the Grey Cup in 2009 whereas last year I really felt we were the better team and just didn't really play the way we expected them too. Regardless of the situation, a loss in the big game is a bitter pill to swallow and I would take a missed post season over a Grey Cup loss any year. I know it doesn't help the bottom line, but as a fan the bottom line doesn't impact me that much.

And the saga contines, who will the Riders hire to replace Grandpa? A lot of names have been bantered about, some I like, some I fear and some are just interesting. Apparently this week will see Corey Chamblin and Mike O'Shea interview for the job. I don't like the idea of Chamblin as he is a defensive guy, and I really think we need to find an offensive minded guy to run the show. I only say this because it would be better for Darian and our offense which struggled mightily at times last year. Not that Chamblin isn't a good coach and I know Taman wanted him last year, but not my first pick. Then again, I don't think Jim and the boys around the big round table at Mosaic could give two hoots about what a teacher from Norquay, SK thinks.

O'Shea on the other hand is if nothing else, interesting. He certainly isn't afraid to be innovative and take chances. One needs only to look at how his Argo's Special Teams made us look ridiculous during both their visits to Mosaic over the past two years. Do I think he get's the job, no, but good on the Riders to look into some new blood.

The name that outright horrifies me is George Cortez...another one of those great coordinators for a lot of years who never got a chance. I hope we learned from last year. My pick if I were running things and could have my choice...Dave Dickenson calling the shots, brother Craig running the Offensive side of the ball and keep Richie in charge of the D. Just my thoughts.

Lastly, we all got a glimpse of how scary the Edmonton Oilers could be in the not to distant future. The league leading Chicago Blackhawks, fresh off of a 5 - 1 manhandling of defending Stanley Cup Champion Vancouver two nights earlier, visited the Oilers on Saturday night. Final score of 9 - 2 for the Oilers with a combined 13points out of Eberle, Hall and the Nuge. Yeah that's right...from this moment on I shall refer to him only as The Nuge. Great to watch and here's to hoping they hand around for a long time and in the process return the Oilers to the pinnacle of the NHL.

Later....

PS...Tad, if you read this, do I know you? If I do, who are you, and if I don't thanks for being a follower.

I think....

I apologize about not commenting on the big announcement coming out of Regina earlier in the week until today. However, I have two reason(s). For starters, this is one of the busier weeks in my school year as Report Cards go out tomorrow. That being said, I have been focusing my efforts on that aspect of my life, which let's face it, pays the bills. At the same time, I was preoccupied on Monday night with the cutest little kitty and pumpkin you have ever seen.
In addition, I wanted to take time to really think about the announcement that Ken Miller is stepping away from the football club entirely as of tomorrow night. And here it goes....

Before we talk about this past season and the train wreck it became, let's talk about what Miller has done for this club. He took them to back to back Grey Cup Championships. Granted, we lost both but this is something that we as Rider fans were very proud of. Mr. Miler himself can be proud of that as he is the first Rider coach to accomplish this task.

Ken Miller guided this football team to hosting the 2009 West Final; something the fans at Mosaic, or formerly Taylor Field had been waiting decades for. And that is NOT a hyperbole, we had waited since the 70's for that to take place.

Ken Miller had a way to motivate this football team. In 2008, 2009, and 2010, it didn't seem to matter how they came out, they always finished strong, played with heart and desire and made you truly proud to be a fan of the Riders.

And then.....(those of you opposed to criticism of Ken Miller need to step aside at this point)

Following last years Grey Cup defeat, Miller stepped aside as coach but chose to stay as VP of Football Operations. That is when Mr. Miller in my opinion started to tarnish the legacy he had meshed out amongst Rider folklore. It seemed from the word go, the power of this position went to his head.

He hired Greg Marshall despite reports that this was not the man Brendan Taman, the GM of this club wanted to hire. Taman wanted Corey Chamblin, Miller wanted Marshall. You ever wonder why Greg Marshall was an assistant for 17 years? He showed why early and often.

However, at the same time, would it be easy to do your job when your boss is looking over your shoulder all season. Miller was in the stands at practice, in the locker room before games and on the sidelines during games. I would not be surprised if he was camped out at the foot of Marshall's bed. It looked as though the man Miller wanted to hire so badly was never worthy of his trust. For that I feel bad for Greg Marshall. Granted he did a poor job as Head Coach but it is hard to do your job when you are always looking over your shoulder.

Then, Ken Miller realizes he made a poor hire, and walks down from his office, back on the turf, to run the team that he had led to bigger and better things the previous three seasons. While it looked good in the beginning, three consecutive victories, the magic was clearly gone. He could not motivate them to play with the passion and desire of the previous three seasons (see mid September to now). The team was no better under Miller than they were under Marshall. In fact, they may have been better under Marshall in terms of their ability to occasionally find that sacred place most teams visit two or three times weekly. I believe they call it the endzone???

As things turned from bad to worse, our starting QB; our best player, the present and future of this football team, Darian Durant, suffers a broken foot. Essentially the season is over at this point, sit him down right? Nope, he plays for the next three weeks, not leading us to either the endzone or a victory. That's it, season over, sit him down right? Nope, put him in there in a meaningless game. At the same time, we need to remember he hadn't led this team to the endzone in seventeen quarters!!! No other coach in the universe would allow this to happen, let alone if that individual has a broken foot. I say no other coach because for some rhyme or reason, Miller felt he still needed to play, probably to get a victory to justify that he did the right thing mid - season by firing Marshall and taking over himself. Well, Durant led them to the endzone but he also left Calgary with a possible concussion thanks to an old, tired O - Line who was never upgraded with Miller at the helm.

Finally, common sense prevails and they sit Durant. Hey, this will give us an opportunity to look at Cole Berquist. Give him the ball in these last two games. They mean nothing in the standings so lets see what we have here? Hey, it might be another Drew Tate; let's give him a chance before we lose him having no idea as to what we may have had slip through our fingers. Again, in a ludicrous decision in my mind they give the ball to Ryan Dinwiddie, a guy we all know does not have what it takes to be a starter in this league, and is a questionable back up at that. A guy who was so bad that he was once benched for a guy with a broken foot. Why?

So Dinwiddie leads us to a victory. No wait, the defence led us to a victory and Dinwiddie sucked. Ok, one more game, means nothing, give the kid the ball. Nope, rather Miller says he is done with the team, and just to piss us all off one last time, we are starting Dinwiddie on Friday.

In closing, these are my thoughts. Ken Miller would have gone down as a Rider legend had he done the right thing at the end of last season; walk away completely. Instead he chose to stay, made far too many questionable decisions in terms of bith staff and personnel and now walks away with a very much tarnished reputation in the eyes of many Rider fans, yours truly included. Where I would have been sad to see him go at the end of last season, at this point he can't leave fast enough.

I strongly believe that he was maybe in a nice way told, either do both next year (coach and VP) or do nothing. Had he stayed on as VP, I really don't think anyone of any value would have been interested in the position. After all, who wants a senile, 70 year old wathcing their every move?

Thankfully he chose to walk away before he did any greater damage to this organization than he has already done over the last six months.