If you can't beat them,join them.
With the hometown team raising the white flag after being handcuffed by the Saskatchewan Rough Riders, the Calgary police have hoisted the colours of the green and white. On Tuesday, city police raised the Rough Riders flag outside their 6th ave. S.E. headquarters.
But it wasn't without a sense of melancholy.
Before last weekend's Western Final game won by Saskatchewan police Chief Rick Hanson and his executive committee "were confident that the flag would be that of our Calgary Stampeders," reading a press statement.
But the force notes that in September, the committee had "made a commitment that we ,as good hosts of the 2009 Grey Cup game, would proudly fly the flag of the CFL Western Champions in front of our downtown police headquarters.
But city cops also laid out the welcome mat for Eastern conference representatives Montreal Alouettes and their fans.
The flag will fly throughout Grey Cup week until it ends Sunday night.
Calgary is home to thousands of avid Roughriders loyalists who regularly fill nearly half of McMahon Stadium when their team visits.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are applying their own stamp to their temporary confines.
The Roughriders are to occupy the McMahon Stadium locker room of the arch-rival Calgary Stampeders during Grey Cup week. In advance of the players moving in today, equipment manager Gord Gilroy and his assistant, Bob Thomas, have been making temporary alterations.
"I hope you have an opportunity to visit our locker room, because I think you're going to be surprised," Roughriders head coach Ken Miller said Tuesday at Calgary International Airport. " I think it's going to look a lot like our locker room at home."
When last seen on their home field, the Roughriders were in the process of defeating Calgary 27-17 in Sunday's West Division final. In the process, the Roughriders deprived the Stampeders of an opportunity to be the home team in the Grey Cup.
"With the trash talk that those guys gave us and how they said that they would be playing Montreal this week, it feels good," said Roughriders quarterback Darian Durant, whose team is preparing to oppose the East Division Champion Montreal Alouettes for CFL supremacy.
Durant is hoping to occupy the locker-room stall of Stampeders quarterback Henry Burris, whom the Roughriders quarterback considers to be a friend and mentor. Burris piloted Calgary to the 2008 Grey Cup title.
"He's the defending champ," Durant said," so why wouldn't I want to take his seat?"
Defensive halfback Eddie Davis, meanwhile, plans to occupy his former seat. He played for Calgary from 1996 to 2000 before signing with Saskatchewan as a free agent.
"I've already told Gordie to go get it," Davis said of his former stall. "I was in that back corner between Freddie Childress and Kelvin Anderson."
Similarly,Roughriders linebacker Tad Kornegay has identified the stall he wishes to occupy that of Stampeders slotback Nik Lewis.
" Me and Nik had a little Twitter war," Kornegay said, recalling the days leading up to the West final. "It was all fun. It was for the fans. It was exciting to have everybody involved in it and just enjoying the moment, but we won. That's a friend of mine, but I would like to have his locker because of the Twitter war."
It was, Kornegay emphasized, a friendly war.
"He's a great player and i respect him to the utmost," Kornegay said. " He can play on any of my teams, must temporarily surrender his space in the Stampeders sanctuary.
"I requested it. I demanded it. I'll get it," Kornegay said with a chuckle.
The Regina Pats picked up their 4th win in row last night in Portland by the count of 6-3, as it was Tomas Hricina(2g) and Hampus Gustafsson(2g+1a=3). Leading the charge for the Pats picking up the other goals was Garrett Mitchell and Matt Strueby. The Pats just like tonight will be without their top gun Jordan Eberle and best rearguard Colton Tuebert who both are playing for team WHL in the super series against a team from Russia. They will rejoin the team on Friday as they wrap up the last two games of this six game road trip.
For those who are keeping tract the Pats have now collected points in 8 of their last 10 games, with 7 of those being wins. The Pats now are in fourth in the division and just 1 point back of third place Moose Jaw Warriors, and three back of second Brandon Wheat Kings, their also sit in sixth in the conference and are just four points behind third Medicine Hat Tigers for third in the conference.
The Pats have been playing great hockey over this last month and are on the verge of becoming a team to be scared of and a solid contender, not only for the WHL championship but the Memorial Cup. The Pats will take on bottom feeders the Seattle Thunder Birds tonight I feel an other win tonight for the Pats. Thank god for web casts as I can watch the game online go Pats go 3-1.
Ex-Winterhawks tender bitter
Goaltender Kurtis Mucha had paid his dues. And after three years of facing more rubber than any other tender in the league, the puckstopper was happy the doormat Portland Winterhawks were finally turning the corner.
But, just as the Hawks returned to being competitive, they shipped Mucha off to the Kamloops Blazers on the weekend.
The trade came as a shock to Mucha,20, who has played his entire career with the Winterhawks and hold nearly every goalie record there.
"It's tough," Mucha told the Kamloops Daily News. "I was pretty much a target here for three years. I put in my time and waited for the good times, and when the good times came, they sent me out of here"
"It definitely leaves a little bit of a bad taste in you mouth, no question about that."
The Syracuse Crunch announced yesterday it will host the Binghamton Senators in the Mirabito Outdoor Classic Feb. 20 at the New York State Fairgrounds.
The game will be broadcast live by Time Warner.
The idea was the brainchild of Crunch owner Howard Dolgon and follows the lead of the NHL, which will hold it's third winter Classic New Year's Day at Fenway Park.
The Philadelphia Flyers will take on the Boston Bruins.
Money for the AHL's first foray outdoors is coming from the crunch, the Empire State Development Corp., and several area companies. It's expected to have an economic impact of close to a million dollars.
Bills chasing Shanahan
The Buffalo Bills consider two-time Super Bowl-winner Mike Shanahan a legitimate candidate to be their next head coach.
A person familiar with the Bills search said the team has contacted the former Denver Broncos coach. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Bills are not discussing the search.
Shanahan has been out of football since the Broncos fired him at the end of last season. A message left at his Denver office was not returned.
He went 146-91 in 14 seasons in Denver, including the playoffs. But the Broncos struggled in his final three seasons, going 24-24, including an 8-8 finish last year in which they missed the playoffs after losing their final three games.
Shanahan was fired with the Broncos owing him about $20 million over the final three years of his contract. The bills would have to at least match what Shanahan's owed if they intend to make a competitive offer.
Talk about getting stuck with the cheap seats.
The Pontiac Silverdome, built three decades ago for $56 million, is being virtually given away sold st a auction for a paltry $ 583,000.
That comes out to $7.25 a seat, a fire sale that's reduced the once-proud arena to another sad symbol of the Detroit are's economic collapse.
Under the Silverdome's air-inflated, cross-hatched silver roof, the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley have played. So have the Detroit Lions and the Detroit Pistons.
In 1987, Pope John Paul ll drew more than 90,000 for a Mass there.
Now it's an abandoned laughingstock.
"An 80,000-seat domed arena and it's 127-acre site sold for less than a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan," Jon Stewart marvelled on the Daily Show. Not just any apartment one "with a rodent problem, above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley."
Mostly unused since the Lions moved to Detroit's Ford Field in 2002, the dome has saddled Pontiac with a maintenance bill of $1.5 million a year.
Drive-in movies were briefly shown in the parking lot, but -plans to convert it to a casino,mall,minor league baseball stadium or entrainment complex have all failed.
It's a far cry from the glory days of the dome, once considered among the nation's premier arenas.
Super Bowl XVI was staged there in 1982, and Pink Floyd,Michael Jackson and Bob Sgeer all played under it's puffy roof.
The buyer, Triple Properties Inc. of Toronto, has said it plans to use the site for a soccer arena. It is expected to close the deal within 45 days after a judge cleared the way for the sale this week.
That's all I got for today gotta catch a plane for Calgary for all the Grey Cup fun liver don't fail me now.
