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I think Reaves. I heard Taman had a good hard look at that guy in the picture. Going on and on about his intangibles and the experience he could bring. What ultimately led to Taman not signing him was the fact that he had not been signed and released by at least 3 CFL teams already.

I agree with Booch, I don't think Hurl is a lock to be our MLBer. Of course, the Bomber brass is going to say that he will be given every opportunity to play there, and that they think he is ready. It was probably their recruitment pitch to him as well. However, I doubt very highly he is pencilled in as the starting MLBer prior to camp. He will have to earn it, and if he doesn't, the Bombers will not think twice about playing him elsewhere or making him a backup MLBer. That being said though, I don't believe that Hurl played badly at MLBer last year. IMO, he was the victim of team politics. It is fairly well know that Chamblin does not really value NI players. He thought Kilgore was a stud MLBer, and when he turned out not to be, he blamed Hall. At the same time the Riders were trying to protect the fragile ego of Darian Durant who was having a disastrous season. Shifting the blame to the defence for narrow victories against Ottawa and other Eastern division cellar dwellers in an effort to do so. The stats tell the story. During the time that Hurl was in as starting Mike, the Riders had the 3rd ranked defence in the league, 2nd overall in Points Against. This plummeted after Hurl was relieved of his starting position. Hurl's absence was not the only reason for the defensive decline but replacing him sure didn't make them better either. Bottom line, the Rider fans knew they were not watching a high calibre team last year. Instead of putting the blame where it belonged (Durant and recruitment) they decided to blame Hurl and call for a new saviour in Kilgore. Hurl got a bad rap last year. He wasn't perfect but he was a rookie who did not at all look out of place. I look forward to seeing him take a big step forward.

I guarantee that coaches challenges on PI will become almost automatic now. That will make them a farce. Want a free first down in a key situation just use one of your challenge flags and get the almost guaranteed interference call.

He will do well to make It past mini-camp.

He is a real life Forrest Gump. His momma said they was his magic legs. That boy could run like the wind would blow. Only problem is....even Forrest was smart enough to get into college. lol

Don't mind the interior of our DL, but we desperately need an upgrade at DE.

Not sure how much insight a person can expect to find on Twitter.

You can judge him by one play, I will look at his resume instead. Pretty impressive prospect.

I would rather have seen this blog a few days before the draft when names are off the board because of NFL interest. This blog just basically tells me that the Bombers, like kids before X-mas, have gotten the new Sears Wishbook and have begun circling every new toy they are remotely interested in. When that list gets a little more fine tuned, that's when things will get interesting. RIght now, all of our options remain open and we don't know what our plan of attack will be.

I see no point in drafting Yantz. Waste of a pick.

It sure looks like Walters wants Demski but I would be surprised if he actually took him at #2. I don't see Durant falling that far in the first round. He is a top 3 pick imo.

My early predictions on this year's winners: CFL 2015 AWARD WINNERS MOP - KEVIN GLENN - SASK DEFENSIVE - DONAVON BONNER - SASK CANADIAN - COREY WATSON - SASK OFFENSIVE LINEMAN - TYSON PENCER - EDMONTON SPECIAL TEAMS - BRETT MAHER - OTTAWA ROOKIE - DONAVON BONNER - SASK

Except the player they removed from their neg list to add Reaves. But I agree it's a low risk, potential for high reward situation. You are assuming our neg list was full, or didn't contain names that were highly improbable. As MBRG said, each team has it's Tim Tebow's on their list. Someone you stick on their on the off chance they ever end up in the CFL. However, the odds are extremely long against it happening. Reaves name can always be dropped.

I don't see a reality where Reaves ever plays for the Bombers, but hey...he's a homegrown NI project. If by some miracle he can learn the ins and outs of being a professional receiver why not.

Health care is a complex problem that needs to be addressed soon. The bulk of the population in Manitoba is rapidly aging. We simply don't have the tax base to support health care in the coming years if it is run like the gong show it is today. Manitoba is rapidly becoming a giant retirement home where the elderly vastly outnumber the youth. If we don't see some serious change in our province the future looks bleak. Tax and spend won't solve it. We need concrete economy growth or we are dead in the water.

I guess there is no guarantee that Demski would come back to us. However, he is a huge lifelong Bomber fan. If we were going to roll the dice on being able to pick up a guy after his first contract then Demski would be that guy.

Fair enough. Each province is in charge of their health care though, and in cases like Manitoba, where the government is in bed with the unions because the unions fund and control the party in charge, you are going to have far more inefficiencies etc. We saw that here in BC when the NDP were in charge, it was like open season on the province for the unions with no checks or balances. A friend of mine works in the health-care scheduling business and he says you will never see any professional group abuse overtime more than nurses. It's like they think it's a right of their job. Of course, when you say stuff like this, you get the nutbars who think that you are "attacking" nurses etc. Always an over-the-top emotional reaction when you even suggest that possibly they stop willfully stealing from the taxpayers, and work for the wage that their union negotiated. So there's one big reason why you can't ever talk about changing anything in health care, you can't talk about doing anything differently without someone claiming they are being "attacked". In BC now, the Liberals have hired so many administrators it just makes no sense. Way too much overhead. No business would ever be run this way. And that's the problem, the health-care system is so obsessed with not being "run like a business" they go out of their way to lessen the accountability. A relative of mine was a doctor (retired now) and I asked him what's wrong with health care. He said "What if tomorrow the government said "food is now free". You'd be ordering steak every night. Except after a few days you'd be sick of steak, but you'd still order it. And after awhile, you'd just throw it out. But now you feel you have a right to that steak, even if you are just going to throw it in the garbage, as it's an entitlement. And that's what's wrong with health care". The unions and RHAs are a huge impediment to actually fixing what is wrong with health care in this province. The sense of entitlement has got to end and RHA's making purchase decisions based on who buys them the best lunch needs to stop as well. Also, a federally funded hospital in Winnipeg for our native population would help as well. Our tax base, which is small, is being asked to take on way too much of what should be federally funded. Currently, Manitoba in it's entirety makes up 3% of Canada's population. However, 21% of Canada's total first nation population lives in Manitoba and a further 7% in Northwestern Ontario and Nunavut also fall into our health care region for geographical reasons. That is 28% of all the native population that the taxpayers of Manitoba are being asked to provide health care for. Now I don't begrudge anyone health care, nor do I have a problem with us supplying it, what I have a problem with is the funding model. Native Canadians under the Indian Act fall under federal jurisdiction. Treaties with our entire nation were signed and agreement made on the provision of health care, among other things, to be a federal responsibility. Somehow, the feds have us funding what should be their budgetary responsibility. 3% of the population funds 28% of this nations responsibility in this regard. That hardly seems fair does it.

Yep, they have. However, it is only the last 10 years that has seen the price of potash skyrocket. They are now doing it with great profitability and with great positive impact on their province's economy. Something we could do as well, if our provincial braintrust weren't so hell bent on making sure we don't develop our resources unless the companies doing so are government owned. You can talk all the rhetoric you want about the NDP and whether or not they are developing our resources. I will instead choose to look at the hard facts. 500 people in my summer home will hit the unemployment line later this year in Thompson. Real estate has depreciated by close to 20% since this was announced a year and a half ago, and my real estate agent tells me that when the actual layoffs come that I can expect a further drop in my cottages worth by as much as 15%. What have I heard from my government....bupkus...nill....zilch...zero. Just what I expected really. I sure wish the Steelworkers union would sit Selinger down in a back room, maybe then this catastrophic turn of events that is facing Thompson might not be treated so lacksadaisically.

I don't know what time frame you are comparing to, but is the change in percentage due to reduction in transfer payments, or increase in other taxes? I know that on a per capita basis, we draw way more money in federal transfer payments than all other provinces west of the maritimes. We draw almost double of what everyone west of Quebec gets. We draw more than Quebec. I find it all quite embarrassing. We need to be self sufficient. What offends me even more, is the cost of subsidy that we provide to the territories. Manitoba (per capita) $ 2,626 (2014-2015) Quebec $ 2,390 Yukon $24,901 NWT $29,412 Nunavut $40,352. I don't mind helping others get through tough patches and offering short term assistance, but we need to let unviable communities close and move rather than subsidizing the HE** out of them year after year after year. http://www.fin.gc.ca/fedprov/mtp-eng.asp#Manitoba No one is self-sufficient, not even Alberta. Given the differences in resource base, I'm not surprised our transfers are about double what Alberta's and Saskatchewan's are. The difference in our resource base is not that great. We have just as much potash as Saskatchewan, and we have several HUGE mineral finds in the North that are going undeveloped because our province is not considered a desirable province to deal with by the mining companies. Thompson is in real danger of losing it's mine in the next few years, Flin Flon is at an unprecedented low of employees right now....and it's all because our government of the day seems hell bent on not developing our resources. Do you think potash just stops at the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border?

But this is how ER works. The most serious stuff gets looked at first and with a broken bone it's generally just a matter of dealing with the pain as opposed to anything being potentially life threatening. They will make people sit in pain if they're not likely to die on them while they prioritize people who might keel over if they have to wait. A broken bone in a child is completely different than an adult. It is not just pain management. Because a child is still growing irreparable damage can be done if a broken bone is not treated in a timely fashion. ER policy posted on the hospital wall states that a broken bone in a child under 12 years of age should be seen by a doctor within 2 hours.

You may be right. However, you can't tell me for one second that the RHAs don't make the issues even worse. The BRHA in Thompson is a prime example. Two fishermen from Norway House sit on that board strictly for political reasons. Nice guys, but they don't have a hot clue about medical or hospital management.

I think there are a great deal of horror stories like this. 2 years ago my 4 year old daughter fell off a trampoline at our cabin in Thompson. We took her to the ER at 10 pm. At 4:30 am she had still not been seen and fell asleep. She was in a great deal of pain prior so we asked the ER nurse how much longer we could expect to wait. She said that since our daughter was not considered critical it would be another 2-4 hours. We took her home and came back the next day. Next day at 10 am we arrived and waited until 4:30 pm before she was seen by a doctor. He sent her for an X-ray, though he insinuated that she might just be faking for attention. A 4 year old faking for a 24 hour span? At any rate, the X-rays came back and she had broken her leg and the break was right by her growth ring of her bone. Off to Winnipeg for emergency surgery where we were advised that had this gone any longer there would have been a real danger of her leg bone never growing correctly. The surgeon even suggested off the record that we file a lawsuit for malpractice as she should have been examined much earlier with a suspected broken bone. I didn't bother. However, I have decided to become active and vocal against the RHA's. Our medical care in Manitoba is in shambles so that the NDP can play politics with hospital care through the formation of the RHAs. Had my daughter been crippled for life so that NDP cronies can sit on boards, they are quite frankly completely unqualified for and fleece the taxpayers for per diems, I would have lost it. Egregious management by the NDP. It just goes on and on. Anyone sitting down and viewing the truth would see this but the NDP are masters of throttling thought by creating panic with their "boogeymen".

So you expect Durant to step right in his rookie year and make an impact as the starting X for the Bombers? Okay. I know the easy response to this is to point out that Kito Poblah didn't pan out, but Lemar Durant is probably the most solid REC prospect the CFL has seen since Kito Poblah. Shamawd Chambers is up there too. Durant is a very solid receiver and I definitely wouldn't write him off as a potential year one starter. There are going to be a few of them in this draft and I think he's got as good a shot as any. Sure Durant could eventually become a stud, but relying on him to be your starting X receiver in his rookie year is unreasonable. Who said anything about relying on him to be our X receiver. How about drafting him and letting him compete for the job. What is unreasonable about that?