Monday Morning Halfback: The Oilers’ leaky defence and Rogers assumes control of MLSE

Jamie Ross is the Globe’s Sports editor. Cathal Kelly is the national sports columnist.

Jamie Ross: Cathal, in your column about the coming power struggle at MLSE between CEO Keith Pelley and Blue Jays CEO Mark Shapiro, one line stood out to me. You said men should not wear shorts. “Never,” you wrote. No wiggle room there. I wanted to test that absolutism with a lightning round of scenarios where one might find a man in shorts, and why it is unacceptable to you: Hiking, playing soccer or basketball or tennis, in the press box, at the beach, in the privacy of his own home.

Cathal Kelly: Happy to help.

Hiking? Hiking is something people say they do on dating websites. In real life, it’s called ‘being lost in the woods.’ You’ll need pants for that.

Playing soccer? They wear those socks that go over their knees, meeting the trousers. Technically, they are in sectional pants.

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Basketball? I’m not in the business of telling other people what to do.

Tennis? Ditto.

The press box? Many press boxes used to post signs forbidding the wearing of shorts. It was a good system.

At the beach? If you’re not in Speedos, how do you expect to be taken seriously?

In the privacy of your home? Do you not own a smoking jacket?

If I’d known you felt this way, I would’ve worn shorts to your wedding. Really jazzed the occasion up.

We’re a few days into the new NHL season. Anything jumping out at you?

J.R.: Sure, let’s keep it moving. Even if I think your answers were evasive, let’s talk hockey. What stands out for me is how terrible the Oilers have been defensively. They’ve allowed 14 goals in three games, this after an off-season epiphany from the on-ice leadership that they needed structure only Mike Babcock could provide.

C.K.: Has there ever been anyone – player, coach, executive or owner – more profoundly impacted by the Leafs’ curse than Babcock?

I can still remember his arrival, which felt like an exorcism. The Greatest Coach in the World™ was going to solve all of Toronto’s problems. More than Shanahan, more than Matthews, that moment felt transformative. And look at him now. The Leafs did that.

I suppose there is a world where Babcock turns Edmonton around, though can a team that’s made the final twice be said to ‘turn around?’ It already seems more likely that this experiment in radical change implodes. It’s certainly been nothing but rough road so far, and we’re, what, 1/28th of the way into the season?

Babcock reminds us all – don’t quit a good thing just because you’re bored. And much more importantly, never believe anything someone working for the Leafs tells you.

The big news this week was Rogers wholly consuming MLSE. They now control the city’s NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS and CFL teams, as well as a sizable chunk of its sports media. This sort of hegemonic dominance does not exist in any other comparably sized city, anywhere in the world. Does it matter?

J.R.: For the fans who care, yes. For those who watch for pure entertainment, no. Corporate ownership like this provides cover for losing ad infinitum. Who can you really be mad at?

I guess legally speaking, corporate personhood is a thing, but what are Toronto fans supposed to do besides make the trip to Rogers’s HQ to scream at the Ted Rogers statue? It’s not like they’ll stop buying tickets/merch/subscribing to Sportsnet +++. Cancelling your phone plan over dissatisfaction with the Blue Jays’ bullpen seems irrational.

You scoffed at me when I asked if Larry Tanenbaum’s exit from the company months back carried symbolic significance, but he was a name you could attach to these trajectories of these teams. Now it’s only the Rogers logo.

Eventually, across pro sports, this trend will ruin everything. Once private equity moves in – more than it already has – it will destroy all, the same way it has real estate, fast food and youth sports.

C.K.: But what about surfacing new seams of profit? Can’t that be fun for Joe Fan?

I’m energized by your apocalyptic cynicism. Now we just need to figure out how to bet on it. Who goes down first – Raptors, Leafs or Jays? 3:1 that it’s the Jays. Baseball looks structurally weak to me.

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Another thing that popped out at me this week was human skyscraper Victor Wembanyama’s comments on gambling ads. Someone asked him if he would consider doing them.

A few quarterbacks aside, you could argue that Wembanyama would be the ultimate get in the American market, not least because he’s such a thoughtful guy. He reads books, for God’s sake. The eighties equivalent of that would be a gold-medal gymnast who teaches astrophysics.

Wembanyama feels about gambling the way I feel about wearing shorts: “I think it’s very sad to see some players promote it. Everybody does whatever they want, but without me.”

If you’re Canada’s chief gambling pitchman, Connor McDavid, how do you react to reading that? Or, more likely, seeing an animated reworking of it on TikTok?

J.R.: If you’d like to place a bet, er, ‘trade,’ on the fates of Toronto’s big-league teams, I am sure one of the big prediction markets has a ‘contract’ for you.

In the way Donald Trump is trying to rebrand AI as Super Intelligence, these companies are putting a nice shine on ‘sports betting’ and ‘gambling.’

For now, at least in Canada, regulators are reserving the business of sports betting for companies who identify themselves as bookies, but the prediction markets are pushing.

To Wembanyama, I tip my cap. Not only is he not endorsing sports gambling, he’s also stating his position on it. As for McDavid, maybe he’s just looking for a way to differentiate from Sidney Crosby. What do you think?

C.K.: It is notable to me that Crosby won’t touch any of this.

How much money is enough? Crosby appears to have hit his number. He’s rarely in an ad, and when he is, the context is always wholesome. This is a guy who knows who he is.

McDavid wants to be Crosby – what hockey player wouldn’t? – but can’t figure out how to do that. I’m not just talking about Stanley Cups and gold medals. I’m talking about poise.

The gambling ads are a terrible idea for McDavid. They are the antithesis of what he’s trying to project.

I watched an ad the other day for some phone-based casino site pushing the idea that you should be playing blackjack during commercial breaks in the game (that you have presumably gambled on already). It’s the definition of degeneracy.

I think that in the fullness of time, all those who promoted gambling will be made to regret it. And, hockey-wise, the first person who will leap to mind is McDavid. What a misjudgment, and all for a few bucks he can’t possibly need.

Last one – baseball playoffs. I meant to check in more on Leafs-Senators Saturday night, but I got stuck on Drew Rasmussen’s almost no-hitter against the Yankees. Is there anything better than October baseball?

J.R.: There was no greater moment Saturday night than watching Austin Wells break Rasmussen’s no-hit bid with a line drive down the right field line, only to be thrown out by a mile at third as he tried to stretch a double into a triple like a 10-year-old house league player. Thus, effectively costing the Yankees their chance at climbing back into it. For the legions who root against the Empire, that is the magic of fall baseball.