Sports fans across the country are in an uproar over a decision by Rogers to remove 25 Toronto Blue Jays games from the four Sportsnet regional stations and put them, exclusively, on Sportsnet One between now and the rest of the regular season. The big issue isn't so much the move, but rather the lack of ability for consumers to get Sportsnet One through their respective cable provider. At the moment, only Rogers (funny how that works) is carrying the new channel. It's not as if a Shaw customer can have his subscription cancelled and moved to Access Communications because neither company is offering the channel and you can find examples like this all over the country. Bob McCown, a well-known sports talk show host in Toronto, works for Rogers but he didn't mind using his employer's air-time to put in more eloquent terms what the rest of us are also thinking. This quote is from Friday's broadcast. "I understand business. I get what they are doing, but this is bad business, bad public relations, and a bad idea. If I'm Rogers I fix this idea right now. By next week, let's put those games back on one of the other four regional channels and put it on Sportsnet One as well. You can't suck it off all four regional channels and just put it on this channel. It's just wrong. I am imploring Rogers to undo this mess."McCown further won brownie points with me by attacking the folks at the CRTC. "To the boneheads at the CRTC, it is time for the people to be allowed to choose what they want to watch and don't want to watch. I'm tired of bundles of channels I have no interest in. This system is broken. The entire population of Canada has to prop up channels that no one is the least bit interested in. There is so much unwatchable crap on Canadian television today and the only reason it's still on there is because they get a piece of subscriber fees that none of us want to pay, but they are buried in there for packages of other channels. This is 2010. Let us choose what we want to watch and the channels that nobody wants to watch will disappear and no one will care."Our family spent the weekend in Winnipeg where Blue Bomber fans are fit to be tied over their CFL team's 2-and-6 record. The Blue and not-so-Bold are on a bye this week and then go home and home with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. It will be a series well worth watching as a bulk of Winnipeg's former coaching staff is now calling the shots with Saskatchewan and the former Offensive Co-ordinator (Paul LaPolice) and Special Teams Coach (Kavis Reed) of the Riders now have prominent roles in Winnipeg with LaPolice working as the Head Coach and Reed as Defensive Co-ordinator. Winnipeg also has former Saskatchewan back-up Steven Jyles as its quarterback of choice in light of Buck Pierce's continued injury problems. You have to give upper management with the Roughriders a lot of credit. Two coaches fans didn't want to see leave (LaPolice and Richie Hall) are now in charge of two of the three worst teams in the CFL. Jyles, by the way, fumbled a lot in his limited action with Saskatchewan. He's doing the same thing in Winnipeg. If LaPolice could, somehow, fix that I think he'd have a pretty good QB.I feel the need to put out a small fire (Yorkton Rumour Of The Day) when it comes to the Riderville competition. There are those that think should Yorkton win and get the $25,000 top prize that the Yorkton Regional High School is the benefactor. That is not true. The contest is for minor sports and Yorkton's entry is for minor football. Minor football is different than the Regional Gridders. However, Darcy Zaharia points out Yorkton Minor Football plans to put any potential winnings toward a locker room/washroom facility at Kinsmen Century Field. I look at what people like Darcy and Roby Sharpe have done for minor football in our city and I say if Yorkton wins, let Roby and his cohorts do what they want all in the name of football and the rest of us should do nothing else other than say 'thank you'.Another rumour that can be put to bed is Dairy Queen. Just about every story that has gone around in the last two months is false. In a future column, I will have details as to what really is going to happen. For now, let's continue to offer our support the best we can to the Butchkos, who along with the Shyiaks (McDonalds), are some of the best citizens we have in Yorkton. I know that when both restaurants are back in business we, as a city, will give them full-fledged business support as customers.Nice person mentions this week to Don Chesney, Ron Kaban, Deb Sapara, Lynel Martinuk, and Davis Vandane (good luck with the Saskatoon Blades). Feel free to submit people for a nice person mention to [email protected] and let me know why.
