Tuesday, February 6th

1 - Garth Turner certainly blindsided me by announcing he will join the Liberal Party. I didn't think he would want to give the Conservatives any ammunition to use against him, but he doesn't like being an independent, and I don't blame him. Turner's decision conflicts with his previous (I assume) stance on floor-crossing MP's, which I don't agree with, but otherwise I don't see anything wrong with the decision. Floor-crossing is an ugly business on a good day, but it's important because it gives individual members some clout when they disagree with their own party. Occasionally this power gets abused (hello David Emerson) but the good outweighs the bad. The NDP will oppose the move on principle, while the Conservatives will have to suck it up and take it like a man (er, I mean, non-gender-specific adult). As for the Liberals, good luck with Turner. Macleans has more.

2 - Another move that blindsided me: the Riders dish off a 3rd string QB and draft picks in exchange for Hamilton's best receiver and a top young Canadian O-lineman. Not bad on paper, but let's think about this. As of right now the Rider's receiving corps features imports Matt Dominguez, Jason Armstead, Craig Yeast, Jamal Richardson, and Yo Murphy. That's no problem, a little competition never hurt anyone, what interests me are the Ottawa connections. Flick joins a group of former Renegades in Rider land that included new GM-coach combo Eric Tillman and Kent Austin, Armstead, Murphy, and Kerry Joseph. I've got nothing personal against Ottawa, and there's a lot to be said for familiarity, especially in football, but the Renegades really weren't that good. The last thing I wan't to see is Tillman sign a bunch of his old players from Ottawa. As of this moment the above mentioned players do not constitute 'a bunch', but I honestly hope they're the last former Renegades to sign with Saskatchewan.

3 - And, a move I think we all saw coming. Tillman states the need for the Riders to get younger and cheaper, and Greene and Davis, while gamers, are neither. I'm not worried about replacing Greene, Rob Lazeo and Smith will be more than adequate, but replacing Big Nate will be more difficult. I'm said to see him go, but as Tillman said, that's business.

4 - Greene and Davis were upset about being let go, as was linebacker Jackie Mitchell, who was shown the door a few weeks ago. Although all three a classy players, they left on a very bitter note. What more where they expecting? They had to know that when Barrett didn't come back heads were going to roll. Should of thought about this during the Western Final, or maybe they were and that's why the Lions steam-cleaned us.

5 - Crosby gets roughed up again, this time in Montreal, and the fans start chanting 'faker':

After pleading with referees in Sunday's loss to the Habs, Crosby was ruthlessly
booed by the raucous home crowd, and he was later called out by tough guy Aaron
Downey for embellishing a high-stick in the third period.

I don't particularly like this paragraph. What Downey did was not calling him out, he was just trying to get under Sid's skin, which he obviously did. Crosby was hardly pleading either, he was giving the ref the gears. It's times like this when Pittsburgh needs a hulking 230 lbs bruiser to hop over the boards and clean someone's clock. Getting a tough guy who can play hockey should be at the top of GM Ray Shero's to do list, as the article says. My personal favorite would be under-used, under-appreciated, Sens brawler Brian McGratton. I don't think he'd mind fighting if he got around 10 min of ice time a game patrolling Crosby's wing.

6 - I used to like Montreal, mostly because my Dad and I had a peace deal whereby we couldn't cheer against each others favorite teams unless they were playing each other. Now I'd have to agree with Sid:

"My like for the team has probably changed since then."

7 - I enjoy reading Andrew Coyne's blog, although he does have a tendency to disappear for months on end. He's on vacation right now I think, so he's not writing a lot, if at all. His latest post linked to this article, which I found very, very, interesting... Apparently the concept has been around for a while, but doesn't it make you feel like you've been violated. It's one thing to create machines to do manual labour better/faster than we can, but to invent one that may (long-shot, I know) someday be more creative than we are..., that's scary.

8 - While I'm plugging blogs, one of my all-time favorites, The Black Rod, is running weekly updates about the war in Afghanistan. Also very, very interesting... The post for week 5 is here.

That's it for today. Got some reading to do.

M.O.F.