It’s my Parting Shot to continue to shake my head in amazement at the way the world is going and how serious, everyday life spills into my realm of sports…..
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been left befuddled and bewildered by stuff I see and read on social media – some of it from people that I consider to be of strong character and background, yet they take on stances of paranoia and conspiracy theories!
I won’t reveal the names of the people, but one person just last week was watching the Edmonton Elks’ visit to Montreal to play the Alouettes and noted that Justin McInnis was the game’s referee. Now, I know that C-F-L officials draw the ire of Rider Nation, if not all C-F-L fans, but this person on social media posted that McInnis is from Edmonton, adding, quote, Cmon CFL, do better! Now, there was a hearty laughing emoji after that sentence that would suggest that they’re being facetious, but not everyone would take it that way. The inference that a referee from Edmonton would favour the Elks is a slap in the face at Justin McInnis’ integrity and that of the league!
Earlier, a couple of weeks ago to be exact, another person was complaining about Glen Suitor being pro-Edmonton Elks and anti-Saskatchewan Roughriders in his role as colour commentator-slash-analyst on T-S-N C-F-L telecasts. This is the Glen Suitor who played 11 seasons with the Riders as the starting safety and was the holder for one of the great endings to a Grey Cup Game when Dave Ridgway connected on the game-winning field goal for the Green and White over Hamilton. Suitor joined T-S-N on their C-F-L broadcasts in 1995 and has proven to be a very competent and impartial observer over the last 31 years. Might he over-compensate, unintentionally, at times, so as not to show any bias towards the Roughriders when he is working a game in which Saskatchewan is playing – quite likely. But, to suggest Suitor is anti-Rider in his on-air ramblings is ludicrous!
By the way, that person isn’t backing off their opinion regarding Suitor and that is their prerogative…far be it from me to stop people from having opinions since I have plenty of my own!
What really threw me was when someone else responded to my post defending Suitor to the original post, theorizing that I was a left winger! Maybe when I played hockey, but what does political ideology have to do with sports?! Nothing!! But, that’s a commentary topic for another time!!
That’s my Parting Shot. I’m Les Lazaruk…and it turned out nice again!
