STACKHOUSE SOAPBOX (Yorkton This Week Dec 8)

Our family spent the weekend in Regina for a soccer tournament, and, I usually have a great time; although this particular visit left me a little unsatisfied.  The soccer tournament was excellent; but our hotel stay had a couple of problems.  The parking at this particular venue, on Albert Street South, was lacking.  They, simply, didn’t have enough spots to accommodate all of its guests.  In their defense, they offered to allow me to leave the vehicle at the front and they’d park it in a stall when one became available.  However, by this point in time, there were a dozen vehicles that had taken up the hotel on that particular service and I also had to surrender by keys (I lose keys more than anybody in Saskatchewan).  I didn’t like that idea so I ended up down and across the street for both nights.  When we got home Sunday night, we decided our next visit to Regina in late January will be with a different hotel, so we attempted to cancel our reservations.  Easier said than done.  Because the reservation was done over the internet, they cannot refund the credit card.  This is especially puzzling when you consider the booking (in my mind) was done directly through the hotel’s website and not a third party such as Expedia.  If this situation is resolved, I’ll pass it along in my column.

The indoor recreation facilities at Brandt Centre are second to none.  At least to me they are.  I was shocked to hear some Regina people discredit the indoor soccer playing area because fan viewing was a little crowded for one of the gold medal games.  Instead of whining about it, I felt the folks should be thrilled that a couple hundred people were interested in watching the game.

Chances are pretty good that Jordan Rusnak doesn’t read Yorkton This Week.  He’s on my son’s Under-10 soccer team and the only person I ever knew to read a newspaper when he was 9-years-old is yours truly.  Still, Jordan deserves a big shout out for the heckuva weekend he had.  He scored 10 goals in four games, and maybe had a couple more; but I lost count after awhile.  On Sunday, he had all four in a 4-3 win.  By the way, the Yorkton United U-10 emerged as gold medal winners this past weekend.

I bumped into Linda Koroluk on the weekend and she mentioned something to me that probably should be put to rest, publicly.  The CAA office on Broadway was not closed due to the flood.  In fact, their renovations were planned and a long time coming. They had nothing to do with the disaster that took place on Canada Day. 

I would like to send an open message to the person(s) responsible for slashing our big inflatable snowman to pieces while we were away on the weekend:  please come back while I’m home so I can see your cowardly face(s).  I’m assuming you won’t take me up on this offer or you wouldn’t have waited for us to be away in the first place. 

Whether it’s slashing an inflatable snowman or stealing memorabilia from a legendary dead hockey coach; I sometimes am left to think that maybe human beings were derived from apes after all.

This guy running WikiLeaks should try crossing North Korea the way he has upset the ‘good guys’.  Enough said about that.

Ken Miller is out as head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the top two candidates to replace him are Richie Hall and Doug Berry.  Honestly, I don’t think I would take issue with either of them; but sometimes the most successful coaches are the ones with aspirations to move on to bigger and better things.  I’m thinking Kent Austin, Mike Riley, Steve Sarkisian (I don’t know if Sarkisian coached in the CFL or not, but he’s made a nice name for himself south of the border), etc.  Coaches are no different than players.  A bigger goal down the road may be motivation to do a good job for the Riders.  It was for Austin and look at the high regard people have for him here.  I don’t have any names to throw into the mix, but I wonder what Dave Dickenson’s end game is as a head coach.  Toronto Sun columnist Steve Simmons is correct, though.  This is a prime job in the Canadian Football League and Saskatchewan should be able to pick whoever it wants to succeed Miller.  If there is a man out there who wants to coach CFL players, he should have his resume into the Rider office.

Nice person mentions this week to Rob Hart, Mitchell Blair, Shannon Hahn, Deanne Arnold, and Jackie Roberts.