Dave Hodge, TSN: My thumb is down to the Canadian Football League's version of afterthought. This week, the CFL saluted Saskatchewan's Kent Austin as its Coach of the Year....for last year. Austin won't coach in the league this year, so he's Mississippi's Kent Austin now. Mind you, he's a worthy winner of the award for 2007, with a Grey Cup to prove it, but it would be much nicer to honor him during or immediately following the CFL season. There might actually be some publicity attached to the announcement. I often argue that the NHL picks its Coach of the Year too early, but the solution is not to wait so long that the best CFL coach is no longer a CFL coach.
I do agree with Hodge. The voting is done at the end of the regular season, and it takes 3 months to count all the votes? IMO, this award should be presented during GC week. Any thoughts?
...in all fairness though, the lady who counts the votes, 87-year old Estelle Robbs of Thunder Bay, was sick for a lot of this past winter and she does have bingo on Wednesday nights...
Hodge makes a valid point. My guess is the league does it in the winter to add some media stuff during this time when there isn't much CFL news going on, to keep the CFL in the media a bit during a slow time.
iunno i ain;t to worried about i think we all knew austin was going to win after the past season. But lets ask the question here, the COY is awarded for the coach saught to have the most success in the season, if Kent had lost the GC to Winnipeg that faithful day would you still consider him the COY?
if you do it grey cup week i think you take away the chance for a coach to win the award.
True ro about Hodge, can't say I like listening to how he covers hockey, he just doesn't do it for me, too, I don't know what it is, perfect soap opera looking and sounding, or tries to be. Don't care for him as an analyst or whatever he is.
He does have a valid point, because they award the COY around the same time when the free agent peroid starts. I believe that alone gives the league the publicity it seeks in mid February.
There are times when the points that the “hacks” make are valid, and this is one of them. No league if perfect and even the CFL has to take its lumps from time to time.
yep, the league probably does it then to generate some news about the CFL in a lull period. It does make more sense to have the awards closer to the end of the season...but at least they are talking CFL in hogtown!
Well i think if Hodge had made even the smallest point it was lost in the overall cynicism of his quote, and i find it tough buying into a sports media hack who constantly nit picks away at our league
Yes I find it somewhat ironic this is the same Dave Hodge who was once a great sportscaster and did call the Argos on CFRB in Toronto for a number of years and then moved to the CFN when the CFL tried to broadcast its own games.
He then has apparently turned 180% on the CFL and rarely has anything positive to say of the league, hey exactly to what has hapended to Stephen Brunt.
As for the coaching announcement, like Earl has mentioned the timing is to create publicity in the winter for the league.
If it wasn't the same old same old dinosaurs spouting the same old same old about the CFL, then the criticism would be more acceptable.
But when its Dave Hodge or Dave Naylor or Stephen Brunt or the other chicken little's in the Taranna media, its nothing more then these guys trying to turn a non-story into some kind of disaster for the league.
His criticism of the COY award is valid. The voting is done before the grey cup announce it then. It would have been interesting what people would have said, if the riders had lost in the WSF and Austin won the award. It would have truly been viewed as most as another goofy award. It is sort of like Calgary making a big deal of the presidents award.
He may be a “hack” to you, but he does have a good point about the COY. This was voted on in November, but the award should be handed out during GC week. It is now awarded about the same time when free agency starts, so why not let the FA peroid become a story in itself?
In April you have the audits of each of teams, it will be interesting to see who is over/not over the cap, and by how much. This is going to create a lot of debate about the SMS and will keep the league in the headlines right up until training camp. It is possible to move the announcement for Coach of the Year into Grey Cup week.
