Rich

Eric Comrie Nic Petan Josh Morrissey More players invited to the Canadian camp then any other NHL team. Should be a fun tournament to watch.

The 2014 CFL Season is now officially in the books. And while we as Bombers fans have to say the same thing we’ve been saying for the last 23 years, “Maybe Next Year…”, I did want to take a moment and thank everyone who comes to this site. Whether you visit monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, or every minute, whether you post regularly, sporadically, or just lurk, you guys are the reason this site is here and continues to thrive. In only our second season of existence, the continued growth of this site has been overwhelming to say the least. I’m happy to announce that we’ve already renewed the MBB season tickets for next year and they will once again be donated to the Big Brothers / Big Sisters of Winnipeg. I think it is great that the support of this site not only pays for the expenses incurred in running it, but we are able to share the game day experience with kids who wouldn’t otherwise be fortunate enough to experience it live. And while we are always open to suggestions on how the site is run and things we can do better or add to the site, I’d like to open up this thread for comments in two areas: Any suggestions or ideas on contests or content that you would like to see added to the site for next season. With the Grey Cup being held in Winnipeg next year, we are thinking about holding an MBB event during Grey Cup week. So far, a one day touch football tournament has been suggested. Looking for thoughts / feedback on this or any other ideas you may have on what we can do or what you would like to see during Grey Cup next year.

Apparently the sixth time the cup has been broken/damaged.

What did he do? Missed it.

Congratulations to Calgary. Great season from start to finish.

Hamilton marching here...

Please post on the topic at hand and not callout individual posters. If you don't like what someone has to say, there is an ignore function.

Even if they report themselves as straight, they are still gay.... The question is whether or not the same percentage would be applied to professional sports, and why wouldn’t it be? You could argue that it is a small sample size compared to the general population and the stats would be skewed somewhat, but by that rationale, the percentage could just as easily be larger as it would be smaller. Seems people want to believe that the percentage would be smaller because professional athletes should be more “manly”. Its more like, professional team sports -- especially football, hockey, baseball, etc -- are life long pursuits. You start when you can basically walk -- those that make it to the bigs are those whose talent matches their ability to endure 20 years of training, 20 years of locker rooms, 20 years of not so subtle homophobia. Its only logical that many gays -- especially until the last 10 years or so -- would gravitate towards non-team endeavours where their sex life would never come up. Its why many gay men went into diving, rowing, fencing, even martial arts. This I can accept as a plausible explanation. It is also just a theory. We will never really know what the true numbers are.

Even if they report themselves as straight, they are still gay.... The question is whether or not the same percentage would be applied to professional sports, and why wouldn’t it be? You could argue that it is a small sample size compared to the general population and the stats would be skewed somewhat, but by that rationale, the percentage could just as easily be larger as it would be smaller. Seems people want to believe that the percentage would be smaller because professional athletes should be more “manly”.

Probably 10% for sure. I can understand why they'd prefer to wait to come out til after their career is wrapped up though. Probably for sure? I'd don't think the stats for the general population translate equally to pro sports. Not that I think Sam is the only gay football player out there, but do you really think there's an average of four gay players per team in the CFL? Yes. Why wouldn't it apply to professional sports?

I read an article a few months ago where the writers admitted they wrote themselves into a corner from day one. They seemed to be amused at it actually. I found it very unprofessional. And I think they had the end date confirmed with about three seasons left so they had plenty of time to plot out a satisfying conclusion. I seem to be in the minority that I really liked the finale and felt it was highly emotional. But most of the plot developments in the middle of the series were just awful. Agreed. First couple of seasons were really good. The middle seemed to have have no direction (like the show was "Lost"). I also liked the ending, though it really wasn't that much of a surprise for me by that time. Would have been a much better show if it was 4 seasons of 6. A show like that relies combines the compelling stories (and flash backs) of the cast with suspense, cliff hangers and surprise to keep the audience guessing and coming back each week. Can only do that for so long, especially with the flash backs.

I'd still list Lost as a success for him. The cultural impact and audience size it gathered makes it as such. I've also heard rumours that the network forced them to draw it out longer then originally intended to milk it for all that they could. Then they were forced to come up with side stories and plots.

I wouldn’t say he kills everything he touches, you can’t deny the successes he has had and the credits to his name, especially with his TV properties. It could be argued that he has had much greater success as a producer and writer over director.

Neither, because Pavelec played quite well last game. If Hutch continues to play well I think he will be rewarded with more playing time, but Pavelec will still be the clear cut starter (at least for now). If Hutch maintains anything close to his numbers with increased playing time and Pavelec goes up and down with his play, I think Hutch will continue to get increased playing time. To me, that means the controversy really happens / heats up by February when maybe they are splitting the games. Purely conjecture of course, but I do like to see Hutch pushing Pavelec.

Good game by Pavs yesterday. He does seem to do better when there is competition to push him. Be interesting to see who they play against Boston. Do you play Pavs again after a good performance, or do you play Hutch against the team that drafted him? Having two goalies playing well is a good problem to have.

Odds and Sods switched over to regular forum posts in the middle of last season for that very reason!

No, it isn't his accent, it is his bias for Montreal. No issues with him in games where Montreal isn't playing.

Never much been a fan of Proulx. Always seemed to be bad calls against the Bombers when we played Montreal. However this is his 5th Grey Cup game and 3rd as head referee. Must be doing something right. Other then Kim Murphy, don't recognize much of the other names. Which is probably a good thing when you are a referee.

Pinball was able to make the jump right to Head Coach. But I think he is more of the exception then the norm.

No plans to remove chat. Not necessarily looking to save money, like I said it isn't a huge amount, just no point in paying it out if we aren't using it. So far it looks like it really isn't used.

Put me in the camp of those who have soured on Pavs. I’m not calling for Hutch to replace him as the starter, not yet anyway, but I think it is time that Hutch starts getting more starts. At least 1 game out of every 3 -4. Pavelec was certainly out to a hot start, but he has regressed back to what he is. His career save percentage is .906 and while he is at a .917 right now, he is .884 in the last 5 games. Was his earlier play the new Pavelec? Or was it a blip and he is coming back to his career average now. He has 5 years as a starter now, I’m not sure he is going to magically change into something else. We pretty much know what we are going to get with him. Would like to see Hutch start getting more starts to see how he handles an increased work load and tougher opposition.

So it is time to renew the software we use to run the board. Some of the money goes to pay for security updates and maintenance of the software, some goes to pay for the chat room that we have. The forum software has many modules (including ones we don't use) that you can kind of pick and choose to customize your forum. Two that we do have are the Pages and Blogs section. The Blogs section is pretty self explanatory. The Pages section is really supposed to be a place that pulls content from all the different areas of the site together and summarize it. Since we don't use a lot of the other modules, mostly it is just the forum info that goes into there. I don't mind keeping these areas going but there is a cost associated with keeping them, and while certainly not exorbitant, there is no point in paying for it if people don't use it. So a quick poll to see what peoples usage patterns are.

I think the other question has to be asked on effort ... is that if the team is finally putting in the required effort night in and night out, they've bought into a system and style and sticking to it, and we still miss the playoffs .... then what?

And to be fair, as I think about it. If True North ever sold the Jets, no guarantee all of their revenue streams would be sold with it. If they moved cities for example, the concert revenue, government gaming revenue, etc wouldn't move with the Jets. It is an arbitrary assessment. No one really knows the finances other then True North and the NHL (depending on what they need to know for Cap revenues).

It is interesting that the revenue is listed at $102M and player expenses at $62M So if our operating income is only 3.3M, what are we spending the other $36.7M on? Coaches, GM, travel, minor league expenses, scouting. That can't all be that much. The only possible big expense that can contribute to that is debt repayment. Not sure how much they owe on the team or arena, but that is a bug chunk of money.