Damn the BC Lions. As much as we hate to admit it, we kind of need some help from the players and teams in coming up with something moderately entertaining to say about them. And what have the Lions given us? Nothing.

What can you really say about them? They have the best player in the league, the best QB tandem, the best offence, the best Canadian and the best kicker who has ever had manure dumped in front of his house.

We're starting to think this was a specific plot by the Lions against jackasses everywhere. Think about it…

• No significant new players

• No 1^st round NFL busts that have been selling real estate

• Our favourite Lion, T.J. Acree - who became the first (but hopefully not the last) professional football player to be tasered after eating at a sushi restaurant...gone.

• Geroy Simon…still refusing to explore his sexuality beyond that whole Superman thing.
  

That being said, we do think that the team slipped up in at least one regard this off-season. We all know that Wally Buono hates cholesterol with a passion rivaled only by Andre Rison’s fear of paternity tests... so where have our beloved anti-cholesterol ads been the last few months?

Cholesterol doesn’t take an off-season, Wally. Neither should you.

The Calgary Stampeders had another good regular season in 2006, riding an offence that made excellent use of trick plays to a second-place finish in the West. Sadly, all that was quickly forgotten as the team was eliminated by some sort of rodent in round 1 of the playoffs.

After that embarrassment, the team fired the architect of the offence and spent the offseason stockpiling players to push the starters. Whether this will pay dividends remains to be seen. But you do have to question some of the moves.

Additions:

• Receivers Ryan Thelwell and the oft-injured Marc Boerigter. Good moves by themselves, but do you really think that Nik Lewis is the sort of guy that’ll handle himself well if some of the spotlight is taken off of him?

• Duncan O’Mahony, whose performance in the 2004 Grey Cup will always bring a smile to any Argos fan. Hopefully he'll make it to the Argo Dome this year.
  

• Real estate agent Akili Smith, who is presumably being brought in to help some of the more useful players find accommodations in Calgary’s tough housing market

So what do we expect from the Stamps this year besides nicer houses?
No word on if he used the "V" as a slingshotFrst of all, we expect Scott Coe to really let loose with his hairstyles this year. No more of the banker look for him. More importantly, on the touchdown celebration side, we expect:

• Jermaine Copeland to recreate BC Place deflating

• Pole vaulting over the goalposts

• Akili Smith to put up a “Sold” sign in the end zone after successfully executing a QB sneak

• Something involving the two-man luge - so long as it doesn't come off all "gay" like Geroy Simon’s Superman pose

In any event, we’re looking for another solid year from the Stamps this year. And quite frankly, that's probably for the better. The idea of these two getting pissed off scares the hell out of us.

There is something about Facebook in general that makes us vaguely uncomfortable.
Celebrate now gouda... cheddar is out for revengeThat being said, this is something we can definitely get behind. Some people who obviously know quality entertainment when they see it have started a Facebook group devoted to bringing back the cheese race. We are more than happy to see others taking up this very worthwhile cause and encourage anyone who has a Facebook account and cares about the deities of dairy to sign up.

In the past we’ve hoped that the “tags” that we’ve been putting at the end of each article would help people find articles that they might be interested; however, it was impossible to put every possible tag on every article. The solution? We’ve added a search bar to the left hand side of the page.

So now if you’d like to see how many times we’ve contradicted ourselves about Michael Bishop’s potential, all you have to do is enter his name into the search bar.  And yes, we fully intend on going head-to-head with Google and Yahoo in the next 6 months.

The draft is behind us. The weather is warm. Training camp is around the corner. The annual Rick Matsumoto sightings are starting.

Clearly, it's time to start getting excited. And if you're us, you know what to do - start planning out a year's worth of weekly previews, cheese races and gratuituous shots at Danny Maciocia.

But what to do if, say, you're a star running back who loved playing here last year while serving out a drug suspension, but is now required to apply for reinstatement to another league you didn't really like playing in?

If it were us, this would be around the point we might just have to fail another drug test. And happily, if you're Ricky Williams, you're one step ahead of us.

Come on home, Ricky. Adam Rita will totally share his stash with you.

(We know, Adam, you're not really high. That's just how you are.) 

***

Update: Foiled! When did Joe Theismann start rewriting the CFL rules?

We had to pass this along. On 13thman Shayman, who as we've noted before does wonderful things with the Argonotes, unearthed this clip from the CBC of Dennis K.C. Parks mangling our national anthem prior to a Riders-Posse game.

Couldn't find any picutres of the Posse dancers, hopefully this shot of Ron Meyer will be just as good.Amazingly this probably still ranks as the second most absurd moment in Las Vegas Posse history behind the time that head coach Ron Meyer asked the Posse cheerleaders to stand around the B.C. Lions bench to try to distract the Leos.

Damn it, I miss the Posse. 

Some people don’t think spring has arrived until the Leafs have been eliminated from the playoffs. Others use the opening of restaurant patios as a sure sign of the season. But not us. We here at boatmenblog know that spring hasn’t truly arrived until the Argos have used their first round pick on an offensive lineman.

Sure Taylor Robertson wasn’t “drafted” in the traditional sense, but trading a first and third round pick to acquire him is basically the same thing. I for one welcome the new “drafting” strategy given that the Argos last three first round O-Line picks (Mike Moroz, Nick Kaczur and Dan Federkeil) have started a combined 0 games for the Boatmen. Now both Kaczur and Federkeil could make it to the Argodome eventually, but we aren’t holding our breath.

The major concern with this strategy is that with the new salary management system, drafted players – who are not paid as much as veterans – are now more valuable. Our hope of course is that Rita and Mohns can unearth some talent in the later rounds like they did with Bryan Crawford a few years ago.

Long time boatmenblog readers will know that one of the pillars of the Argos’ drafting strategy is finding out what board games prospects like to play (anyone who answered bingo last year was immediately assigned to room with Damon Allen on road trips). So to put it in those terms, hopefully when they roll the dice this year, they’ll land on a ladder and not a snake.

We're genuinely happy that Danny Mac appears to be headed for a successful post-football career in the broadcast booth - and not just because it means we'll be seeing less of one or both of Glen Suitor and Leif Peterson. He seems like an awfully nice guy, and it's always been reassuring to see a professional athlete with even less regard for his body than we have.

One small quibble, though. Danny can talk all he wants about how much he'll miss the locker room. But having watched him tire himself out just walking to the huddle the past few seasons, we have a very hard time believing "the transition from active to non-active" will be quite as difficult as he thinks.

It was reported in the Montreal Gazette a week ago that Ed Philion is most likely going to retire before the start of next season. 

While we generally do not like to see anyone forced to leave a job they love, we'll make an exception in Philion's case. Regardless of the fact that he was a three-time CFL all-star, we will always remember Philion as a man who always went the extra mile to ensure that the other team's quarterback was injured before the end of the game. While most of his biggest "hits" came against the Argos, he was an equal opportunity offender and also managed to injure Dave Dickenson, Khari Jones and Casey Printers. Pretty impressive given that he averaged just over 1.5 tackles per game in his CFL career.

No word on what Philion plans to do in retirement; however, we're guessing that it won't involve fishing. After all, you can't catch a fish by diving at its knees.

We have to admit we've always had a bit of a soft spot for Joe Paopao. Firstly because his presence over the last few years has probably indirectly led to a few Argo home playoff games, and secondly because he provided one of the most awkward moments in CFL history.

It's the last home game in Renegades history and Joe knows that he's going to be canned at the end of the year.  Still, he goes out and coaches the Gades to a 27-17 victory over a playoff bound Argos team and manages to keep his emotions in check.  That is until the end of the game when he started to cry on the field.  And, oh yeah, he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt.  It's awkward to see adults cry in the best of times, but seeing a grown man cry in a Hawaiian shirt?  Incredibly awkward.

Anyway, we were glad to find out via Out of Left Field that Joe has landed on his feet and has recently been named the new Offensive Co-Ordinator of the University of Waterloo.  Now we obviously agree with the notion that big name coaches landing in the CIS can only help with fan interest; however, has anyone stopped to ask if the fact that all of the "name coaches" are ex-Ti-Cat staffers will in fact dilute the CIS coaching levels?

(no Kavis Reed jokes please)