iso_55

Anyone read Doug Brown's column? Etcheverry blew a job as HC with SFU because he refused to discuss or let any of the interviewers see his playbook. And this is the paranoid individual MOS has trusted our defense to?

The minute anyone started talking about abolishing the reserve system, they be called a racist.

You mean leave all your veterans at home because the HC was afraid they'd all get hurt in the pre season? yeah, I don't see that happening again.

There's always someone in every crowd.

Because Reimer still can be. Pavlec has been a starter in Atlanta & Winnipeg. How much more can he improve & develop? We already know what his body of work is. Inconsistency is the main problem. Plays a great game or series of games & then it goes the other way. There are goalies in the NHL who carry their team on their backs & make them better. They keep their teams in it game after game. Year after year. Pavlec has never done that.

I look at the talent on the WWE roster now & I don't watch as often as I used to. The Diva Division is a joke. Guys like Santino Marella & that little midget are cartoon characters as soon as they come on I flip the channel. They've buried some guys like Dolph Ziggler. They're starting to mid card guys like Sheamus & Bad News Barrett. Alexander Rusev is a useless slug who doesn't deserve to be in a WWE ring. Seventeen years & they still haven't figured out what to do with Kane. They bring back Brock Lesnar part time & he doesn't wrestle on Raw or Smackdown. CM Punk quit out of frustration. To me, the WWE is a mess. I definetly don't watch it as much anymore. More into UFC & MMA. That heavyweight fight on Saturday night Travis Browne vs Fabricio Werdum was awesome. And it's real.

Welcome to the dark side of the American dream- the American nightmare. Yet you go across The Bay, different world.

And Daniel Bryant.

We learned Claude's a class act. Didn't blame management or players for his firing. I'm sure he's got some strong opinions on his former players & GM but chose to take the high road which is fine as he wants to work in the NHL again. What would it accomplish to be angry & say something like Cheveldayoff never gave him the players to be successful? It would just be sour grapes. I get where he's coming from.

Yeah, but Buff had the look, the body & charisma to be a star. He wasn't the best wrestler out there but he wasn't the worst. He was better than 50% of the wrestlers on that roster back then. So, his short stay in WWE was surprising.

The one team I'd cringe if I was drafted by them are the Raiders. I spent some time in Oakland a few years ago with my son at a qb camp & all I can say is Holy Crap. You know it's bad when the guy running the camp tells the campers parents that they need to end the camp everyday before it gets dark so it was still safe for us to walk to our cars in the parking lot outside Laney College. Homeless street creatures were living under the football stands being rousted by campus security. The freeway leading to Laney College looked like a war zone. Houses burned down but still standing all over the place.

UP, your story about the cocaine remnants & Bagwell freaking out at customs was funny. Somehow, that didn't surprise me with that guy.I always figured he had some issues with substance abuse as he should have been a superstar but lasted a week in the WWE. Missed the big ticket income.

How is it different Jacquie? You're the one crowing that Reimer only played 36 games & showed he's not a starting goalie in your opinion. In Calgary, Giguerre barely played & the Flames got rid of him. Well, look at what happened when he went elsewhere. So, it's not different. It's the same thing. You sound so sure of yourself that Reimer isn't an NHL starting goalie yet you don't know.

Never liked the guy. Wasn't a franchise qb in Oakland, had issues in college at Ohio State. He's not that good.

Ryan Miller. His career looked finished in Buffalo. Lo & behold he goes to St. Louis & he is a different goalie. Then there's Jean-Sebatien Giguerre who didn't look like he'd have any kind of long term career with the Flames back 12-14 years ago. Then he left Calgary & went on to bigger things elsewhere & has enjoyed a long & successful career in the NHL. So, you have no way of knowing how Reimer would play in a Jets uniform, Jacquie.

Owens was never called a great teammate. He had issues with just about every qb he played with. Johnson has a huge ego no doubt but he never criticized his teammates. I think if anyone can make the transition to the CFL it's Johnson.

It would take a lot to convince me that the camps the Bombers held this off-season weren't the same for the most part, just that they tried to recoup some of the cost with registration fees. They had guys they wanted to see, they were in touch with agents who represent players that they could send to free agent camps for a look. It's all semantics. Based on the NFL resumes of all the guys we're signing, they aren't exactly digging up any Vince Papale's. I'm surprised you're giving Walters and co. a free pass just based on effort. I'm still interested to see the results of all these camps before I go on praising the wonderful job these guys are doing. Sure it looks great in the media but how about on the field? The jury is still out. Agreed. And the ratio of guys with relatively lengthy NFL careers in their late 20s to younger imports, the overlooked coming out of college or guys who were in a mini-camp with the NFL type, is a concern for me. A guy like McRath could be a great MLB for us, but he's at the very end of his football career and coming off serious injury. If they hit on a couple of those guys, they might adapt quicker given their experience in pro football, and that could be what they are going for in terms of putting the best team on the field in 2014. I'd like to see some guys that might have some potential longevity in the CFL in the mix too. Or better yet they hit on a guy like a corner/linebacker Keon Raymond who was found at a FA camp. Or middle linebacker Juwan Simpson & receiver Joe West. Another promising player, receiver Jeff Fuller also a FA signing who attended these camps. Calgary's roster is full of players taken from FA camps they've held over the years.

At least they're trying. They're following a formula the Stamps, Riders, Lions, Als & Argos use that I know of. All of those teams have found players who came in, started & played well for their teams. We didn't have 12 free agent camps in one of season under Mack & Moll. And then invite the best guys from each camp about 60 in all to one camp where they intend to invite up to 15 to the main camp. The coaches all got to evaluate the players at each camp. Not just Moll. The other teams charge for workouts as well.

Ken Moll worked out some guys & then invited them to a camp. And they brought down their veterans at some positions. It was nothing close to what they do now.

Ferragamo was a straight pocket passer who couldn't avoid the rush. Typical of the NFL qbs of that era. Looking at the vid I saw of Johnson on CFL.ca... It looks like he can still create separation with his coverage. If he stays healthy he could do very well up here. From everything I've read about the guy he's never been a diva in the locker room & he works hard at practice. Doesn't take any plays off either in games... He yaps on social media but so what?

I've seen the guy. Looks like the old Polish Prince Putski from the 60s and 70s. A smallish Mark Henry to be sure. Probably Vince's people couldn't sign the guy unless they gave him a spot in the primary WWE vs. the minor leagues. Now they're stuck with him and have to work around his weaknesses to present him. Can only have the guy doing run-ins and big entrances so long. That eastern European thing is a lame old schtick. They're bringing it back because of Putin & the Ukraine. It's 30 years past its prime but man, Rusev is bad, bad, bad...

There's good reason for the hate tangents. Mack never did any of these rookie camps. Every CFL team does it now. Every team spent more on scouting & doing these camps. Mack did none of that. You can call it hate. I call it Mack being lazy, sitting on his ass & getting paid to do nothing. And the results proved it.

He's the best coach out there. I'll say again, I think he's the best coach the Jets 1.0 & Jets 2.0 have ever had. Look at the coaching history of the guys that have been behind the bench for both organizations.... Just off my head, Tom McVie, Rick Bowness, Barry Long, Claude Noel. To name a few....

UP, I know Bruce Hart fairly well as we would sometimes work together as he is a substitute teacher for the Calgary Board of Education. We'd have lunch & talk wrestling whenever he came to our school. Seems like a decent enough guy that if you wanted, you could perhaps work with him. Winnipeg, back in the day, when it was part of Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association used to sell out or nearly sell out the Arena back in the 80's. The fans loved the wrestlers that came to town once a month or so to put on big Arena shows. Also, the AWA started to tape their shows in Winnipeg in the early 80's at the CKND studios rather than Minneapolis like they always did. They'd tape enough over a day for a month's worth of television shows as I recall. Vince McMahon sure spoiled it for everyone buying up promotions like the AWA to eliminate competition. Just as an aside, but that new "Bulgarian" wrestler the WWE just unveiled, I can't remember his name... (Rusev???) is horrible. No moves in the ring. No sense of anticipation. No in ring sense at all as he just plods along. There's an example of a guy who needs to spend time in development instead of being thrown into a ring on television all over the world looking like a piece of garbage before he's ready. He can't even put over convincingly that he is a power wrestler because he doesn't know how to do it yet. Thirty years ago, he'd have wrestled on a smaller circuit for a number of years, honed his skills, developed a personality & some signature moves in the ring as well before working for a big promotion like the WWE.

And what makes you think Reimer can't if given the chance? You have no way of knowing. IIRC Reimer has been the #1 goalie for the Leafs and has lost the job because of his play. So, you don't think that it was a team effort all around him? That only he was the problem?