the 4th star

Media paranoia. Abrasive candor. Misplaced arrogance.

Those are just some of the character traits Winnipeg Blue Bomber fans and followers have noticed through the first few months of the Mike Kelly era. We now get to see if the database head coach is as smart as he thinks he is when his charges take on the Edmonton Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium tomorrow night.

Before that, though, a new quality has emerged: Expectation manager.

The Bombers head coach has remained pretty consistent with his message leading up to the game with the Eskimos, telling anyone who will listen that his club will “work hard and play their butts off” when the games get underway. Or some version of that statement. Terrific. So that’s what it has come to in Bomberland this season. While camps in Calgary, Montreal, and Edmonton set their sights on a Grey Cup, Winnipeg hopes to just perform the job they are paid to do with an intensity that is standard for the position.

To put it another way: Forget about quenching that 18-year Grey Cup thirst.

But hey, it’s early. So here are three easy questions heading into the season:

1. Did you hear the Bombers have a new quarterback for this season?
It’s true. The left-handed Stefan LeFors comes into the Winnipeg QB frying pan with little experience and a weak arm. He replaces Kevin Glenn, who had a boatload of experience and a weak arm. Reports have LeFors with a good head, a coolness in most situations, and liked by his teammates. Goody.

2. If LeFors stumbles out of the gate, say for the first three games, will Kelly yank him?
Doug Berry’s first mistake last season was going to the bench too early in the season. He listened to the fans. On the surface, Kelly doesn’t appear to give a shit what the Bomber fan thinks, so it would be easy to say that he’ll ride LeFors for a long time. But the pressure for quality quarterback play in this town is immense, and the calls for change will rain down on Kelly with each passing poor performance. This will be something to watch.

3. How many games in does Kelly agree to the term ‘rebuilding?’
Eight. They could be 2-6 at that point. The coach may have to concede what everyone around the club already knows. When you start over with 25 new players (and watch 38 bodies from the year before move on), it’s rebuilding.

Photo, Winnipeg Free Press

An interesting thing popped into my head as I read this piece on hockey players not wanting to play in Edmonton and the Oilers having to over-spend on some guys to entice them. To wit:

If you ever wonder why the Edmonton Oilers are paying Shawn Horcoff $7 million this season, why Fernando Pisani makes $2.5 million or Steve Staios $2.8 million, take a look at what’s going on with Dany Heatley right now.

Think back to when the Winnipeg Jets skated in this city. Salaries were nowhere near what they are today, and I don’t remember any players (or a whole lot of players) complaining that they had to play in Winnipeg. Sure, Mario Lemieux didn’t want to make the trip to Manitoba once a year (seriously, how many times did the Magnificent One actually play in Winnipeg?), but not many Jets grumbled publicly about the cold winters, the lack of night life, or the potholes.

Ah…but that was a different era. In this day and age, those things — quality of life things like warm weather, large shopping centres, and an abundance of things to do in the safety of gated communities — are now near or at the top of most players’ lists. Check that — near or at the top of the players’ wives or girlfriends’ lists. All of a sudden, everyone wants to play hockey but they don’t want the cold weather. For an example of this, please look to Chris Pronger and his brief Oiler career.

The players, not the teams, can now dictate where they want to play — and their pulling this power play more and more each year. Dany Heatley doesn’t like Ottawa anymore. He requests a trade. The Senators work out a deal with Edmonton, only Heatley blocks the move with his no-trade clause, hoping that another team (New York Rangers) step up to the plate with an offer.

He hates Ottawa, but he hates Edmonton even more. Without even trying it.

Not saying Heatley won’t end up in Edmonton — he very well might. What I am saying is that if I was an Oilers fan, I would find this little dramatic episode very troubling. A year from now, if the trade does happen, this could be Pronger all over again.

Which brings me back to this burg. Is this what it would be like for Winnipeg if the NHL returned? Would we struggle to find upper-tier guys to play here, and be forced to over-compensate medium talents so that they don’t leave, too? Would all the cold shoulders further rattle our self-esteem as a city?

Better question: Could our confidence as a city take any more direct hits from the NHL?

Think about it. Not only is Edmonton a bigger city than Winnipeg, but it’s a market that has accumulated an abundance of NHL tradition in a relatively short amount of time. Stanley Cup banners. Wayne Gretzky. Mark Messier. Paul Coffey. City of Champions. Despite those roots, 30-year-old hockey players who grew up watching those great teams and no doubt pretended to be those Hall of Fame players in countless road hockey games don’t want to play there now. If the new NHL player hates Edmonton so much, how will they take to our fair city?

Yes, something to look forward to, Winnipeg. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If I wanted that much frustration, I’d try to pick up chicks.

Taking a page from the Calgary Flames, the Chicago Blackhawks decide to shoot big money contracts first and ask questions later. Signing Marian Hossa seems smart on the surface — taking a big gun away from a division rival — but much like the Jay Bouwmeester signing in Southern Alberta, the deal just opens up a world of salary cap problems for the ‘Hawks.

Hossa’s cap hit is a modest $5.2 million, but Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are restricted free agents next season. At this point, with the hype and goodwill the two have brought back to the United Center, they have to each see between $6-7 million per, no? Defencemen Duncan Keith and Cam Barker will also be restricted freebies a year from now. Kris Versteeg still is a restricted free agent this summer. With Cristobal Huet making $5.625 for the next three years and Brian Campbell coming in at over $7-million per, the Blackhawks are going to have to make some big decisions over the next 12 months.

Oh, did I mention the cap will probably go DOWN next year?

As a Vancouver Canucks fan, I am officially spending the remainder of this Canada Day celebrating the blue and yellow Scandinavian country thanks to this bit of hockey news. People will say that the Sedin Bros. aren’t worth the fuss and all that, but this is a deal that had to be done. You cannot simply just sign a bunch of guys and hope to build a team that way. You need to build from within — which means keeping the guys you have under contract. Signing the Sedins is basically locking up a No. 1 line for your team — and the numbers the twins have put up over the years show that:

Playing side by side for the Canucks, the duo has amassed 288 goals, 634 assists, and 922 points in 1,288 games combined. The 2008-2009 season was arguably their best year yet, with Daniel leading the Canucks in goal scoring with 31 - the second highest output of his career - while Henrik had a career-high 22 goals. Both finished with 82 points on the season.

A $6.1 million cap hit for each Sedin is very reasonable. A lot of credit has to go out to Canucks GM Mike Gillis. Talk is that Roberto Luongo is close to being extended, too. If that happens, the timeline is locked in: Five years to win a Stanley Cup. I wonder if Marian Gaborik is next for Gillis, perhaps at a lower number/longer term deal? The oft-injured winger did just buy a house in VanCity. A lot of chatter out there about Brian Burke and his plan to rebuild the Maple Leafs. His week is getting worse and worse, it seems. PD speculates that the Sedin deal may have been done yesterday, thus Montreal’s reach for Scott Gomez. No stretch there, as I’m still trying to figure out how trading the only grit on your team (Higgins) for a small non-physical centre will help you against the Boston Bruins.

UPDATE: Still with our Sweden Day theme, defenceman Mattias Ohlund went the other way and grabbed as much dough as he could before retiring. Mentoring a stud like Victor Hedman should be a pretty easy gig.

After ignoring a 25 year layoff, with three of those spent begging to play, I have decided to make a triumphant return to the beautiful game. In a stunning act of charity, the Crescentwood Saturday Soccer Club has done the unthinkable and allowed me to play with them in the Winnipeg Soccer Division this summer. If I can score one goal this year, I’d be pretty happy. Judging from my inconsistent play, my teammates would be equally ecstatic, too. Here’s the weekly update:

Not much to dissect over in Crescentwood Saturday Soccer Club’s 5-1 victory over London Dry F.C. just east of Portage la Prairie last night. A brilliant first half and a strong north wind saw our locals jump out to a 4-0 lead at the break. After some cautious moments early in the second, CSSC weathered the storm of an unfortunate strike against and sailed to victory. Three straight wins for the CSSC (4-1-2), with a tough match against Red Devils United coming up on the horizon. RDU is one of the better teams in the division.

Now for the bad news, or what I like to call ‘my bad play.’ Started up front on the left side. A chance in tight early in the game, but I couldn’t get a handle on the ball before defenders got in the way. Another chance in tight a few minutes later, but the ball was just out of reach of the left foot. Yet another chance in tight (this one practically on the goal line), but I got too excited and right-booted it over the wood for a 5-yard field goal. It was at that point I was taken off.

Despite those terrible attempts, I managed to stay in for the whole second half. Other than being asked to move into the middle and feeling completely lost in that spot, I don’t remember anything that happened in that 45 minutes, as I was still going over the failed attempts from the first half. Blast! Spirits remain at an all-time high, but the fact is I’m still without goal over here.

Hump Day is Canada Day. This is Misa Campo, who obviously is the lone Montreal-native who approves of the Scott Gomez trade. The 21-year-old tells people she is a model, but it’s this slice of her Wikipedia page that I want to focus on today:

…her career hasn’t exploded yet, she has become widely known and very popular among the people that have come across her. She currently is “working on her growing career as a model while being a barmaid in California.”

Among the many copy mistakes in the entry was the lack of close quotation marks, so I added those at the end. Funny how they make the citation sound sad, eh?  Just by adding two little ticks at the end of the sentence, it makes her existence sound unfulfilled and ultimately a little tragic. On the plus side, that seems to evoke a little sympathy for Misa. And isn’t that what being a Canadian is all about?