Thursday, September 9, 2010

Thursday Update

It’s been a busy few days since Labour Day so let’s get you caught up on what’s going on.

Kelly Bates was traded to Edmonton for a 6th Round Draft Pick in 2014. Bates is just another shinning example of the superior roster management skills of Brendan Taman. First he signs an O-lineman who is old, hasn’t played in over a year and quite frankly no longer good enough to be a starter on our team… and given the sad state or our line that’s a pretty bad reflection on Bates. So at best it was a depth move that provided insurance down the stretch. Then just as we are getting to the stretch part of the season we trade him away. Meaning that at the end of the day the signing of Bates was completely useless. Now that part is hardly surprising since I knew that from day 1. I am somewhat concerned about the return we got for him. While I realize that based on the criticism I made of Bates above the guy is definitely not going to garner top dollar in a trade. In most cases we would actually have to pay people to take him off our hands. But when you are trading with a team with no GM who is in need of an O-lineman you’d think you could muster better than a 6th rounder 4 years from now. Hell a roll of tape would have been better since that actually provides value to the team sometime in the foreseeable future.

The provincial government announced that they have reached a deal to purchase the CP rail yards in downtown Regina which just happens to be the site of the proposed new stadium. The province still insists that no decision has been made on whether to proceed with the project. Riiiggghhht. So first they appoint a minister in charge of the proposed stadium and then they buy the land where the proposed stadium would go but they still aren’t sure if they will build it. At this rate I expect the next announcement to be "we are purchasing a large quantity of steel and concrete, I'm sure we'll find a use for it somewhere." Followed closely by the Premier returning from one of his business trips with a retractable roof fit for the proposed stadium because he found it on sale and you just never know when you might need a retractable roof”.

Word out of Winnipeg is that the Bombers are interested in signing Jesse Lumsden. I guess with Pierce now on the shelf indefinitely they need someone to fill the role of “band-aid who isn’t durable enough to finish a game if his life depended on it”. Now word yet on this might adversely affect the Canadian bobsledding team in the upcoming season.

Lastly, this week I was invited to join the guys from Greenisthecolour.ca on their weekly podcast. Now I am not what you would call “techno-savvy”. Most days I’m amazed that I am able to use this interweb thingy to post my thoughts. So when the Green is the Colour guys approached me to do a “podcast” using “skype” they might as well have been speaking to me in freaky deeky Dutch.

Fortunately they were willing to put up with my techno-ignorance and to my surprise I managed to figure it all out. A big thanks to them for having me on. I had a great time.

If you want to check out the podcast you can check it out here…

http://www.greenisthecolour.ca/2010/09/gitc-podcast-310-poor-edition.html

I would also encourage you to check out the rest of their site.

4 comments:

CK said...

Two things:

1. I just saw an episode of Art Mann at a Roughriders game. He was in Regina when we beat down the Eskimos while wearing our 100th Anniversary Jersey.

2. Art interviewed all kinds of crazy Rider fans...but I didn't see the Rider Prophet. What up with that?

Ryan F said...

There's an agreement to purchase the land from CP if, and only if, we build a stadium there.

I don't think we're any closer to building a stadium yet... but I hope I'm wrong.

--
Ryan

Rider Prophet said...

CK - I don't usually break out the robe/beard until the temperature drops below 25 so that day I was just one of the thousands of jersey clad fans. Besides if some guy introduced himself to me as Art Mann I would assume he was a really lame super hero and do my best avoid him.

Ryan - I don't think CP would sign a conditional sale unless they were pretty certain that the government was serious about the stadium. That would be like a developer selling me a lot "if and only if" I decide to build there.

Ryan F said...

Well, CP has more faith in our government than I do then :-).

If things fall through, CP isn't going away empty-handed.

I hope this is a positive sign, but without federal funding I'm a bit sceptical until we find out something a little more concrete.

--
Ryan