Happy Leap Day!

Its February 29th. This day only comes around once every four years so enjoy it. It really should be a holiday shouldn't it?

There is tremendous excitement within the Rider Nation over the arrival of quarterbacks Colt Brennan and Drew Willy. Brennan certainly has an impressive resume behind him, but as some have said, a nice resume doesn't translate into success when it comes to the Canadian game. If Brennan and Willy can't adapt to the wide Canadian field, the 12th man and the other things about the Canadian game that make it different from the American game, he will be another in a long line of quarterbacks that have come to Canada after making a name for themselves in the NCAA and not being able to cut it. If he can adapt, Brendan Taman may have gotten a steal. I don't think Brennan will replace Darian Durant anytime soon, but if Brennan can learn the Canadian game and excel, he could very well be number 2 when the season opens.

Two facts on Brennan. He holds the NCAA record for most TD passes thrown in a season. The record touchdown was thrown to former Rider Ryan Grice-Mullen. The other one is that Brennan was a rebound for Jessica Simpson after her and Tony Romo split up. I wonder if he has any stories about that. I'll let Vanstone dig those up.
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The Regina Pats are home to the Red Deer Rebels tonight. A win in this one could basically be the final nail in the coffin for the Rebels as they are the only team that can catch the Pats. I doubt as if Regina can play as well as they did against Moose Jaw on home ice Friday, but if they do, it will be lights out early for the Rebels. As I said on this blog and on the Sportscage Monday, I don't think I've seen a Pats team play as good a game in years as what I saw them play Friday. If I am the Oil Kings, Warriors or Tigers, I don't really want to have to go up against this team in the first round. The same can be said for the Brandon Wheat Kings.
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We all know the CFL has a crossover, the WHL doesn't and if you look at the standings, you might think Eastern Conference teams will push for one. The 8th place team in the West is the Seattle Thunderbirds. They sit with 44 points. The last place team in the East is the Prince Albert Raiders at 45 points. The Broncos, Rebels, Raiders and Hurricanes are just victims of circumstance. There isn't any way the WHL will create a rule saying the 9th place team in a conference can go to the playoffs if better than the 8th place team in the other. Can you imagine the travel and the $$$ involved if Victoria were playing Brandon.
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WWE fans, are you ready for the John Lauranaitis-Ted E. Long bout at Wrestlemania. I just hope they sandwich this one in between the main events so that people can take that last bathroom break or whatever before the main event begins.
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Tiger Woods' former coach says Tiger wanted to quit golf to become a Navy Seal. Really? I think Elin must have connected with that 7 iron when she went after Tiger on that Thanksgiving night when his world started to come crumbling down.
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How much longer can the Leafs go with Ron Wilson behind the bench? That move failed miserably for Brian Burke. Actually, many moves have failed miserably for Burke since his time in Toronto.
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If you took Erik Karlsson of the Senators in your hockey draft, you came up with a big-time steal. What round did you get him in? He went in the 7th round in a draft that I was in and yes I am proud to say he went one pick after I took Teddy Purcell of the Lightning. This is the last time I will speak about this pool. I'm not last, but I am in sight of it.
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NHL trade deadline day was as expected a bust. TSN and Sportsnet want to make a big deal of this, but they just end up bringing us some bad television. To their credit though, both do a good job. I kept expecting to see some cooking segments come on. While I didn't mind seeing Alyonka Larionov wearing a short skirt telling us about what Tweets she thought was clever, I couldn't help but think didn't Sportsnet do this on a daily basis with Daru Dhillon and it failed miserably. When Larionov is asking people to tweet in asking who has the best tie, it makes me go ?????. TSN says it had huge ratings though and that's what matters. I haven't seen SNET's numbers yet, but in all honesty, I thought they did a better job in breaking trades. Hell, I had the Gilbert-Schultz trade on my twitter feed before those guys did but that's because I re-tweeted it mere seconds after it came from the Oilers. Where is Daru Dhillon these days anyhoo?
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The NFL Network's Rich Eisen ran his annual 40 yard dash at the NFL combine yesterday and he clocked in at just over 6 seconds. Does the Regina sports media need to do this at this year's Rider training camp. If so, I volunteer to be a timer. I would take Jonesy to win that, I'd also take Vanstone to injure himself.
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Have a great Leap Day!