The Calgary Stampeders and Montreal Alouettes will buck a weird CFL trend if they win their division finals at home tomorrow.
Strangely, visiting teams have won the CFL’s past four playoff games, all as underdogs.
Almost as bizarre – or perhaps more bizarre -- is that Michael Bishop was the losing quarterback in two of those four games. He was the Toronto Argonauts’ QB when they lost to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Eastern semifinal last season and was the Roughriders’ QB when they lost to the B.C. Lions in the Western semifinal last Saturday. Saskatchewan released Bishop immediately after the loss.
“The Roughriders might still be playing,” CFL guru Jack Morrow cracked, “if they’d been as quick to remove Bishop during the game as they were afterwards.”
• Thursday's selection of Montreal’s Anthony Calvillo to the CFL's offensive all-star team should tip you off on who’ll be chosen the CFL’s most-outstanding player this season. . .Calvillo would be the CFL’s comeback player as well -- if the league had such an award. . .Wes Cates was traded by Calgary to Saskatchewan before last season because he couldn’t supplant Joffrey Reynolds as the Stampeders’ running back. Yesterday, Cates and Reynolds were chosen the CFL’s all-star running backs. . .The Als’ Jamel Richardson, who couldn’t establish himself as a mainstay during his years in Saskatchewan, became Calvillo’s favourite target this season and became one of the CFL’s all-star receivers yesterday. He’s telling friends he intends to bolt to the NFL in the off-season. . .For my playoff picks, incidentally, check out this week's CFL Report.
• Orlando Hudson, discarded by the Blue Jays before becoming an all-star second baseman in the NL, is No. 1 on the New York Mets’ wish list of free agents, which means he’s in for megabucks.
Atop the Jays’ wish list, as reported here before, is the cantankerous Milton Bradley, who has a personal policy of never smiling.
The interest in the slugger puzzles Jays fan Ajoy Pinto, Metro’s marketing and promotions specialist. From the stands, Pinto once shouted this at Bradley: “You suck at the game of life,” which, of course, was a not-so-subtle reference to the other Milton Bradley, who invented games for a living. Suffice it to say that Bradley didn’t smile when he heard Pinto’s observation.
• And get this:
Men needing to pee during their golf games will no longer need to visit a washroom.
No joke. A Florida-based urologist has invented a golf club that doubles as a urinal. Seems the urologist heard too many complaints from male golfers.
For details, and photos, visit www.uroclub.org.
Marty York is Metro's national sports columnist as well as an
instructor at the College of Sports Media in Toronto.
He can be heard regularly on Vancouver radio station CKNW with Sportstalk host Dan Russell.
Contact Marty at marty.york@metronews.ca
