TBURGESS

I've spent lots of time in TO for work and fun and I agree with most of what you're saying. I'll bet there are more big companies in TO than anywhere else in the country. Vancouver has many more smaller companies. Toronto is work work work. Calgary is Work Hard, Play Hard. Vancouver is Work hard enough to afford what you need then forget about work. When we in Vancouver do business with the 'center of the earth', we always wonder why they want to get everything done by the end of the day. Most assume it's because they can't remember what they said the next day. Oh yah... we do roll our eyes. Bluto... If you want to do business with Vancouverites, Chill a bit and take things a little slower and don't call meetings at 9:00 AM eastern time, cuz we ain't getting to the office for no 6:00 AM meetings.

Lots don't so they rent. Once you can afford to get into the market, you start small and work your way up. It's not like the Peg where prices only rise slightly year over year. It's even better than the price bumps in Calgary, so your home becomes an investment that you don't pay taxes on the gains. You have to change your mindset to live out here. Folks who try to recreate their prairie existence are the one's that end up going back 'home'. Those who 'buy in' to the Vancouver way of life end up loving it.

I've lived in both Calgary and Vancouver. Calgary is more like Winnipeg. Cheaper than Vancouver, and you will NEED a car to get around. You'll be able to mostly afford to live your 'Winnipeg lifestyle' other than going out to the lake in the summer. Restaurants are much like Winnipeg's and no PST is a big advantage. The country thing it highly overdone during Stampede and there are other music options. Cold winters with some Chinooks to warm things up (If you suffer from migraines you will get a doozy every time). Ski in Banff. A little hard to make friends, but everyone is your friend during Stampede. Way better sports town than Vancouver. Vancouver isn't anything like Winnipeg. The best way to live here is to give up your 'Winnipeg lifestyle' and move into a small condo close to downtown. You don't go out to the lake in the summer, you walk to the beach. You don't drive to a restaurant or bar, you walk there and stumble home. The city is built with small neighbourhoods, each with most everything you need within walking/biking distance. Any further and you take the Skytrain or the Seabus. Lots of downtown folks give up their cars and use 'Cars to Go' when they need one for an afternoon. Restaurants are way BETTER than either Winnipeg or Calgary. Every conceivable type of food is available in most neighbourhoods. Cheap? Nope. Taxes are high as are fees and especially real estate. Winters are wet, but you don't have to shovel it and you can get rid of all your winter gear unless you want to go home for Christmas. You can ski on the north shore or take the train/bus/Rental Car up to Whistler. Vancouver is all about being outdoors. Everyone here is from somewhere else, so it's easier to make friends, especially if you sign up to play team sports. If you are interested in looking at the downtown neighbourhoods check out my website: http://terryburgess.ca/. I'd suggest the West End (close to beaches and restaurants (Also Pride central so avoid if that bothers you)), Yaletown (Aka Yuppietown lots of restaurants/bars) , or Kitsilano (Beach lifestyle to see and be seen) for 20 somethings. BTW: The hippies moved out of Vancouver years ago (other than the Profs at UBC). You'll find them on Salt Spring Island now.

My prediction... No changes in the bye week. Little or no changes till the end of the year, then kaboom! Blow the whole thing up.

The Bombers aren't going to make many changes, if any, that aren't based on injuries. They anoint Goltz as the starting QB and demote Buck to 3rd string. A week later, talk about moving Buck back up to #2 and no new QB in camp means they STILL haven't given up on Buck. Pretty much what I expected when they didn't cut Buck. Burke talks about being on the cusp and about waiting for the guys we want to finish with their NFL dreams. They still think they are on the right track and if they just keep on with their plan, the Bombers will magically become a better team. If we win some meaningless games late in the season they will say we are still on the right track and we just have to wait a little longer.

Defence played better, but not good enough to get the win. Offence stayed on the field longer, but couldn't put anything together for the whole second half. Goltz played well in the beginning, then fell apart by the half. Should have been pulled late 3rd and replaced for a couple of series to calm down IMHO. (Hall not Buck) We forced a turnover (Lulay fumble) and had one given to us (Dropped Punt) and turned both into points or else this one wouldn't have even been close. BC made a lot of mistakes including a 3 yard punt with a 10 yard penalty that kept us in the game until the very end. Simpson was running well, even know the O line wasn't giving him many holes to run through, but we went away from him in the second half. Horrible play calling. 3rd and 2 handoff 5 yards deep in the backfield? Come on. OC gave Goltz a lot of easy passes to complete (5 yarders) to pad his stats, but never stretched the defence so BC didn't have to cover the whole field. When BC really needed a TD, they went middle deep and beat Cauchy. 1-5 two years in a row, yet folks don't want to make changes?

A pass behind the LOS is only a fumble if the pass is thrown backwards so it becomes a lateral. Thrown forward, it's an incomplete pass that stops the clock. Two weeks in a row Edmonton takes the game down to the last play and loses. Two weeks in a row Winnipeg is out of the game at halftime. It's actually been more interesting to watch Edmonton than Winnipeg this year.

You keep hiring the cheapest one right?

I'd be happy to wait until the end of the year to get rid of Burke and Mack, but I'd rather change out the OC RFN and I don't want Burke picking him, because Burke already said he knows nothing about offense. I'm not the guy who finds the next OC, so I don't need to have a specific one in mind. It's the same reasoning when I eat out. I don't have to have a new chef in mind to know the current one needs to be replaced.

Too bad. You should have hired a professional who knew what he/she was doing.

Nope. What's stupid is continuing with someone who isn't doing their job. I didn't say it couldn't get worse, but I know it won't change unless we make a change. When things are as bad as our offense in Winnipeg, you make changes. You don't just keep doing the same thing over and over and hope for a different outcome. I understand that good coaches have jobs at this time of the year. I also understand that there are other coaches out there who could help us. Maybe it get's better. We won't know unless we try. Even if it gets worse, it won't change the number of wins we get.

You're happy going forward with Crowton just because you don't know who to replace him with? A monkey throwing poop at a play chart on the wall couldn't do much worse IMHO. Keeping someone who isn't doing a good job is foolish.

I hope we get an announcement today that we signed another QB with some CFL experience so we CAN cut Buck. It should have happened at this time last year or at least in the off season. I don't want an angry QB who thinks he should be the starter mentoring anyone. It's this kind of 'Vet Presence' that we need to get rid of, not keep around just in case the Goltz decision doesn't work out. It free's up some needed SMS room too. I'm happy that Gotlz is getting the starts, but the Bombers did paint themselves into a corner by announcing that Goltz is the starting QB for the rest of the season after his first CFL start. Lots of QB's look like world beaters in their first starts (Dinwiddie) then turn into 'what ever happened to?' guys. A better choice would have been to say that Goltz did enough in his first start to give him a second start even know Buck is 'probably' ready to go and could come off the bench if needed. The only downside, is we would have to keep Buck on the roster, but we are doing that anyway so no big deal IMHO. I am worried that changing out the QB will give Crowton a pass. It's a built in excuse to say 'we have to change the offense to match Gotlz's abilities' so we should give our OC more time. The bye week is the best/only time to change out OC's, but I doubt we do now so we will be stuck with Crowton for the rest of the year.

Try the Shark Club before the game. I haven't seen any tailgating around the stadium. Leave your car at the hotel and take Skytrain.

Montreal seems the most likely to work their way off of that list. The others will be fighting for the last playoff spot IMHO.

Cauchy is what I thought he was... A young guy with a years starting experience who makes a bunch of mistakes. Some of them were hidden because of BC's great set of DB's, and they are more on display with our underachieving group. He is physically way better than Logan and can make up for some of his mistakes because of it. Younger, cheaper(hopefully), faster and Henoc's brother made him a good pick up, but he isn't a big upgrade over Logan yet.

It's not just a football ops question. It's a question of which way are we going to go and it's completely valid to question the guy who is going to have to 'pull the pin' on the decision. I'd hope that Buchko would dance around the answer, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be asked. Getting his opinion on which way he is leaning is what the fans want to know. Young and Wetenhall are owners and I have seen Young asked questions about Hamilton's struggles. Buchko isn't. He is the president and CEO.

Talking to the media, especially when your team is in the crapper is part of both Mack & Buchko's job. Mack to answer for the questionable coaching hires and talent issues. Buchko to answer the question "Are we actively looking for a new GM" (I sure hope we are). Good coaches and GM's have jobs right now, so we may have to wait until the offseason to actually make changes, but now is the time to start the process.

I think we are going to see another full scale rebuild this off season anyway. We might as well start now.

So you're suggesting that we make a trade for a top tier QB? Which one and what do you think we should give up? Hint: None are available and Mack wouldn't make a trade anyway.

You mean like the difference in wins that Burris, a top notch QB brought to Hamilton last year?

You're talking about the ONLY time in 20 years that we shouldn't have fired a coach. (Ritchie is a maybe IMHO) Of course the next guy could be worse. We hire worse all the time. It's about the folks we hire. Last 4 HC's had no HC experience. (Burke, PLAP, Kelly, Berry). The last 3 GM's didn't have GM experience (Mack, Kelly, Taman). When we hire experienced coaches like Burke as a DC, we end up with good to great units. Doing no harm? Hardly a reason to keep a guy around and I'd say your wrong. He is doing harm. As an example, keeping Buck and both Elliott and Brink. As another example, our record over the last 3+ years.

I agree that a bottom rung QB makes our offense look worse than it could look, but that doesn't mean that a good QB would raise the level of our team past the middle of the league.

I agree about both Berry and Glenn. In fact, I had long arguments with folks who wanted them fired at the time. We were making the playoffs every year and we had a chance in most games. Horrible decisions to get rid of both of them because we were heading in the right direction at the time. We aren't heading in the right direction anymore, so its time for another change IMHO. You managed to pick the one HC and the one QB that we shouldn't have fired in the last 20 years. Firing the Kelly's and Rein-dolts were good decisions as was getting rid of Bauer and most of the other HC's along the way. You have the egg in front of the chicken. It's not because we fired too many HC's and GM's. It's because we hired the wrong ones.

I don't get the resistance to change. If we were winning, then the status quo is obviously the right choice, but we are losing and have been for a long time. We can and should fire and rehire until we find a winning combination. What we shouldn't do is hand out extensions until we know we are heading in the right direction. That's our bigger problem. Folks who like Mack think we should fire Burke or Crowton or all the coaches or pretty much anyone but Mack. Folks who like Burke think we should fire Mack or Crowton or pretty much anyone but Burke. Most bad decisions, like keeping Buck and getting rid of Elliott, are attributed to the guy who each poster doesn't like. For some it's Mack's decision. For others it's Burke's decision. In truth, it's both together. The common idea lately is 'We are just a QB short of being a good team'. It's a great theory if you're a Mack, Burke or Crowton fan, because it shifts blame to something that's not fixable in the short term. Good QB's take a few years to mature and throwing away the experienced backups puts us into 2014-2015 territory. Just be patient folks tell me because once we get that QB we will be a good team for years to come. I wish I could believe that it's true because it would be comforting to think that the rest of the decisions our team has made are right, but I just can't believe it. Our OC has produced a poor offense for more than a year and that's not just on our QB situation. Our O line is below average. Our receivers as a group, even when healthy and they aren't all healthy at the same time very often, are middle of the road. Our RB's are too. That's a lot more problems on offense than just our QB. I know a top notch QB would make our offense look better, but he would still be running the same lame offense with the same average players. Other than a spectacular 8 game stretch two years ago, we have been a lousy football team since Mack took over. That's not good enough IMHO to ask for more patience or protect the jobs of those who are responsible.