Under Further Review – Douglas Smith with Editor Bill Morphy. Special thanks to our regular contributors including Jordan Moss, Ian MacPhee, Dave Kittle, Ted Tait, Frank Sullivan, Peter Hucul, Glen and Bill Myles, Howard Steiss, Rob Wagner and Iqbal Grewall. 

Spanning the digital ether to bring you the constant variety of sport… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition… This is Under Further Review.

Super Bowl 57 – It’s déjà vu all over again. Kansas City and Philadelphia in the Super Bowl for the second time in three years. The Chiefs will be looking to cement their name in the history books as the only team to win three straight titles. This is familiar territory for the Chiefs who will be making their fifth trip to the Super Bowl in six years.

Can Philadelphia stage the upset? The Eagles certainly looked impressive in routing Washington to win the NFC Championship. The Chiefs prevailed by only three points two years ago and you can make the argument the Eagles are a much better team today with Saquon Barkley leading a powerful running game. It was no surprise the last three teams standing on Sunday boast the three best offensive lines in football. Slowing Barkley will be a huge challenge for the Chiefs defense.

If the game is close, you have to favour the Chiefs. K.C. has won 17 straight one-possession games. They’ve made loveable losers of the Buffalo Bills. You can lament penalty calls all you want. The Bills had the ball with a chance to win or force overtime but were thwarted again. It’s not the Chiefs fault that running back James Cook never touched the ball on the final drive. It’s not the Chiefs fault the Bills failed to call a timeout with the Chiefs slowing blitz on third down and flooding the line of scrimmage. It’s not the Chiefs fault Josh Allen couldn’t find the hot receiver. The Bills had time outs and plenty of clock to work with. Championship teams find a way. It does seem like Allen is destined to be this generation’s Fran Tarkenton, Dan Fouts or Jim Kelly, great quarterbacks who could not get to the top of the mountain.

The Eagles have lost once in four months. The defense has forced 34 turnovers over the last 14 games including four in dismantling the Commanders. Don’t expect the Chiefs to beat themselves. The fumble by Pat Mahomes against the Bills was the first turnover by the Chiefs in nine weeks. Two years ago, Mahomes picked the Eagles apart. The addition of Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, two outstanding rookies, has transformed the Eagles defensive backfield but will it be enough?

Super Bowl 57 will come down to Pat Mahomes vs. Jalen Hurts and Andy Reid vs. Nick Sirianni. Who would you bet on? The choice is easy.

Canucks Notebook – It’s time for a reality check in Vancouver. Change is coming. It’s inevitable. With more than half a season of evidence, why should the Canucks be reluctant to change the core? The top players have not performed well enough or hard enough to warrant standing pat. The team has been wildly inconsistent. There’s no offensive punch. The back end can’t move the puck with authority. Why proceed with caution?

Until winning in St.Louis, the Canucks hadn’t put together consecutive wins since December 1. Home ice is not an advantage. They have won only 9 times in 25 games at Rogers Arena this season. The Canucks can’t hold leads and have dropped six games in overtime. What’s to like about the current edition?

J.T. Miller is packed and ready to leave town. Brock Boeser is a pending UFA and underperforming. We may be waiting all year to see the best of Thatcher Demko. Since returning from a serious knee injury, he’s posted a GAA of 3.47 and a save percentage of .867. Sound the alarm bells! Demko’s contract is up in one year. Would you risk extending him the way he’s playing right now? Predictably, Kevin Lankinen has cooled off.  You kind of knew that was going to happen. His career high in games played is 37.

Let’s try and find some perspective. When Jim Rutherford arrived, the roster was thin. The culture around the team was terrible. Worse yet, the prospect pool was bare. This was no easy fix. Rutherford took the ‘re-tool on the fly’ route, believing there was a strong core to build around. Using draft picks and some astute low-cost free agent additions, Rutherford was able to deepen the roster to the point where the Canucks made a surprise charge to the top of the Pacific Division last season. It was a classic case of overachieving. Numerous Canucks had career years and the coaching of Rick Tocchet proved to be just the tonic needed.

In reality, the Canucks were due to pay the piper a long time ago. Years of trading draft picks has simply caught up to them. Good teams graduate players to the major league roster every year. Need examples? Look no further than the Carolina Hurricanes and the Winnipeg Jets. They seem to lose key free agents almost every summer but keep on contending. Drafting and developing players is still the best way to sustain excellence. The Canucks, meanwhile, are paying the price for a decade of trading draft picks. The front office has been forced to fill out the roster with cost-efficient free agent signings. We count 12 players in the lineup right now who were signed as depth players. There have been some big wins with Dakota Joshua and Keifer Sherwood. But you can’t build a Cup contender with low-cost free agents. Just ask the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs have also had their hits and misses but this approach catches up to you in a salary cap world. You need drafted and developed players on entry-level contracts to make it all work. The Canucks have failed miserably in this area and it’s come home to roost.

Every organization is going to make mistakes. Letting Valeri Podkolzin go to Edmonton for a fourth-round pick is looking rather foolish now, especially when you prioritized Nils Hoglander and gave him a new three-year, $9 million dollar contract. Hoglander is almost untradeable the way he’s performing.

We’ve been cautiously optimistic throughout the season, holding out hope the drama would end and the Canucks would start performing closer to expectations. The sad fact is it’s not going to happen. The vibes around the team tell you all you need to know. The organization is at an inflection point. The Canucks are in urgent need of a major injection of youth. (And please add some size while you are at it). Trading core pieces like Miller, Pettersson, Boeser and Demko would help make up for years of roster mismanagement. Do they have the guts to do it? Probably not but given the Canucks history, they will probably trade this year’s first-round pick in a desperate attempt to secure a playoff spot.

The Canucks management group is not stupid. This isn’t Jim Benning and John Weisbrod. They saw captain Quinn Hughes wrestled to the ice by Corey Perry in Edmonton with no response. They have witnessed the inconsistency. This a soft team that’s easy to play against. The only question remaining is – what are they prepared to do about it?

Big Game Hunting – Any good NHL GM has to be risk averse. Standing pat is rarely a good option. Kudos to Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland for being decisive in trading star winger Mikko Rantanen to Carolina. It became clear Rantanen’s asking price was beyond where the team was prepared to go. The Avs work under an internal cap and were prepared to make Rantanen the highest-paid winger in the league but would not go beyond $12.6 million which is the AAV for captain Nathan MacKinnon. Instead of waiting and risk losing Rantanen as a UFA this summer, MacFarland was proactive and pulled the lever on a very gutsy deal.

The blockbuster trade is instructive if you are holding your breath waiting for the Canucks to make a decision on J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. Are they ready to be just as decisive? Moving either player would be risky. It’s not as though the Canucks current management group has been afraid to act. By now, they should have a good sense of the trade value for both players.

Miller will be 32 shortly and has five more years on his contract. Does that scare away suitors? What role has he played in the Canucks locker room dysfunction? That may be the larger question. When driven, Miller is still a high-end talent who would fit into any contending team’s lineup. Clearly, up to now, the Canucks have not found the right match.

Pettersson, meanwhile, remains a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. His no-trade clause clicks in this summer so decision time is nearing. What potential interested party would not be concerned about his scoring dip over the past 12 months? With an $11.6 million dollar price tag, any deal would be fraught with major risk. These are fun times in Vancouver.

NHL Notebook – Vegas defenceman Alex Pietrangelo has bowed out of the upcoming Four Nations Face-Off.  Team Canada has until February 11 to name a replacement. You have to figure it will be a choice between the Oilers Evan Bouchard and the Kings Drew Doughty.

There’s sure to be plenty of second-guessing when it comes to the Canadian roster. One player who was completely overlooked was Columbus Blue Jacket Adam Fantilli. The kid is a beast. If you based the selections solely on how the players  are performing right now, Fantilli would be an easy choice. He’s certainly playing better than Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel., Seth Jarvis and Travis Konecny. The management group also erred in making Bread Marchand one of the five early selections.

According to Capitals goalie Logan Thompson, he was never contacted about a potential spot on Team Canada. Thompson has been one of the hottest goalies in the NHL this season with a .925 save percentage and 2.09 GAA. Canada close to go with Jordan Binnington, Adin Hill and Sam Montembault. Even more shocking, the league-leading Caps do not have any players set to appear in the best-on-best tournament. Thompson says the team is using it for motivation.

It’s unfortunate there will be only four teams in the pre-Olympic showcase. As of right now, seven of the top 10 scorers in the NHL won’t be taking part in the event. It appears Russia will not be involved in any of the competitions until the political situation changes. We took the opportunity to put together a Russian roster if they had the opportunity to participate next month.

Forward Lines:

Kirill Kaprizov – Evgeni Malkin – Nikita Kucherov

Artemi Panarin – Ivan Barbashev – Alex Ovechkin

Andrei Svechnikov – Pavel Buchnevich – Matvei Michkov

Kirill Marchenko – Dmitri Voronkov – Valeri Nichushkin

Extra Forwards: Pavel Dorofeyev, Ivan Demikov

Defence Pairings:

Mikhail Sergachev – Vladislav Gavrikov

Ivan Provorov – Dmitry Orlov

Alexander Romanov – Alexander Nikishin

Extra Defencemen: Pavel Mintyukov, Nikita Zadorov

Goaltenders:

Igor Shesterkin

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Ilya Sorokin

The Toronto Maple Leafs have fashioned the best record in the muddled Eastern Conference but when you look under the hood, the prospects may not be all that bright. The Leafs have won six games by one goal and another four in overtime. Stellar goaltending has played a big part in the Leafs early season success. However, with Anthony Stolarz sidelined, the netminding has slipped. Joseph Woll and Dennis Hildeby have given up three or more goals in eight straight games. The Leafs are finding out its hard to play tight-checking, low-event hockey night after night.

NFL Notebook – Can anyone explain what’s happening in Dallas? The Cowboys are supposed to be a flagship franchise and they hire Brian Schottenheimer as head coach? That’s the best you can do, Jerry? Schottenheimer failed miserably as the Seahawks offensive coordinator. Crazy as it sounds, the Ploughboys might have been better off signing Deion Sanders.

The AFC West now has a Mount Rushmore of head coaches with Pete Carroll taking over the reins of the Las Vegas Raiders. It would not be surprising if Carroll, Andy Reid, Sean Peyton and Jim Harbaugh all eventually made the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Don’t be surprised if Russell Wilson ends up in Vegas and is reunited with Carroll. The Raiders are desperate for a quarterback.

The big news in Seattle is the hiring of Klint Kubiak as offensive coordinator. He held the same position in New Orleans last season. It remains to be seen if he can somehow kick-start the Seahawks woeful running game. If the name sounds familiar, Kubiak is the son of former NFL quarterback Gary Kubiak.

Good ownership and a franchise quarterback are the two keys to success in the NFL. Look what’s happened in Washington? Scumbag owner Dan Snyder was kicked out of the league, Jayden Daniels is secured with the number two pick in the draft and voila, everything changes in a flash. With a franchise quarterback on a rookie deal, the Commanders are poised for success for years to come.

The three highest paid quarterbacks in the playoffs were Jordan Love ($55M), Jared Goff ($53M) and Justin Herbert (52.5M). They combined to go 0-3 with 10 interceptions.

Our new name for Detroit Lions HC Dan Campbell is Dan Gamble. He takes over the ‘always go for it’ mantle from Brandon Staley. It’s fine to gamble in the regular season but things change in the post-season. The risk-taking needs to stop. In the NFC title game a year ago, Campbell gambled on fourth-and-2 from the San Francisco 28-yard line while leading 24-10 in the third quarter. Instead of making it a three-score game, the Lions failed to get a first down and well, you know the rest.

No doubt things would have been different for the Lions had they not sustained a crushing run of injuries on defense. By our count, they were without 13 defensive players including starters Aidan Hutchinson, Marcus Davenport, Alim McNeill, Carlton Davis, Brian Branch, Amik Robertson plus key reserves Derrick Barnes, Ifeatu Melifonwu, Khalil Dorsey and Ennis Rakestraw Jr. What team could possibly overcome so many injuries?

Acts of Desperation – There are no silver medals in baseball when it comes to contract negotiations. After coming up short time and time again, the Blue Jays signed slugger Anthony Santander to a huge five-year, $92-million-dollar free agent contract. No doubt Santander makes the Jays lineup better. Our concern is how the deal will age. He’s already a below-average outfielder and may end up spending more time as a DH. The Jays seem to conduct business in reverse. The deal makes sense if you sign Vladdy first. If Guerrero Jr. walks at the end of the season, you are then stuck with a fat contract you probably can’t move on a team that may be headed for a rebuild.

The Jays have been down this road before. George Springer is now 35 and his production has declined every year he’s been in Toronto. Worse yet, Springer still has two years and $48 million remaining on his contract. Will we see something similar with Santander? You could justify the commitment if the Jays were going to be in contention but that’s highly unlikely.

One last item – why would the Blue Jays front office even remotely consider signing veteran pitcher Max Scherzer? He’s 40 years old and has pitched a grand total of 88 innings over the past two seasons. Move on you dolts!

A Star is Born (1) – They say legends are born at the famed Hahnenkamm in Kitzbuhul, Austria. It’s the Yankee Stadium of World Cup downhills and over the weekend, it was conquered by Canada’s James Crawford who became the first Canadian in 42 years to win the prestigious downhill. The last Canadian to post a victory at Kitzbuhul was Todd Brooker in 1983. Vancouver’s Cameron Alexander placed third. The last time two Canadian downhillers shared a World Cup podium was in 2012, when Jan Hudec won and Erik Guay finished third in Chamonix, France. Crawford apparently played on the same minor hockey line as Connor McDavid when he was growing up in Aurora, Ontario.

A Star is Born (2) – What a story being written by Canada’s Sudarshan Yellamaraju! The Mississauga, Ontario product captured the second event on the 2025 Korn Ferry Tour, golf’s premier feeder circuit, by a tournament record seven shots.

It’s been anything but a smooth journey for Yellamaraju. He was born in India and immigrated with his family to Winnipeg, later moving to the Greater Toronto area when he was 11. He’s basically self-taught. He’s never taken a lesson and still does not have a swing coach. Yellamaraju learned the game by watching YouTube and PGA Tour events on TV. After turning pro, he played on PGA Tour Americas in 2022 and 2023 before earning Korn Ferry Tour status last year.  However, Yellamaraju finished 99th in the season-long points list, missing 12 cuts in 25 starts. Last fall, he battled his way to the final stage of the tour’s qualifying school and earned eight guaranteed starts on the Korn Ferry Tour this year. It didn’t take him long to make good on the opportunity.

Winning the Great Abaco Classic in the Bahamas was a big step toward his dream of earning a PGA Tour card.  The top 20 golfers on the Korn Ferry Points list at the end of the season earn PGA Tour privileges for 2026. For Canadians, there’s something about playing in the Bahamas. Adam Svensson and Ben Silverman kick-started their pro careers with victories there in 2018 and 2023.

Random Leftovers – The playoff seedings seem meaningless after Ohio State rolled to a national championship with a resounding win over Notre Dame to cap off the expanded NCAA college football playoff. The Buckeyes won four games in a row by an average score of 36-21. They rang up 445 yards of offence in the title game and led the Fighting Irish 31-7 before settling for an eight-point victory. Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman was trying to make history as the first black head coach to win a national championship. Hopefully, that’s going to happen soon.  

Here’s an apt comparison. Someone just called Novak Djokovic the Aaron Rodgers of tennis. The personalities do seem to match. One moment genial. The next prickly. Both are prone to offer up odd opinions and both have latched onto bizarre healing methods. Like Rodgers, Djokovic seems to suddenly come up injured every time a match isn’t going his way. Grimace in pain, bow out, instead of just facing defeat.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how anyone would fail to make Ichiro Suzuki a first ballot Hall of Famer. Altogether, 393 of 394 voted Ichiro into the Hall on the first ballot. Just one idiot did not. Our guess is he still hasn’t forgotten Pearl Harbour.

We have no argument with relievers being inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mariano Rivera was a slam dunk. But Billy Wagner? Wagner pitched just over 900 innings over 16 seasons. Yes, he was good but Hall of Fame good? Don’t think so. Andruw Jones played 17 seasons with the Atlanta Braves and won 10 gold gloves in centerfield. He hit 453 home runs and played in more than 19 thousand innings. He deserves to be in the Hall a lot more than Wagner.

On August 24, 1919, Cleveland Indians pitcher Ray Caldwell was truck by lightning while on the mound in a game against the Philadelphia Athletics. The Indians were leading 2-1 with two out in the ninth inning. Caldwell was knocked unconscious. Once revived, Caldwell remained in the game and retired Joe Dugan on a ground ball to end the game.

When you hear about amazing feats like that, it highlights the overpaid stiffs who are playing pro sports today. Basketball players are the worst. Hockey has iron man streaks of more than one thousand games. Baseball has consecutive game streaks of 2,000. Not in basketball. It’s not surprising NBA viewership is down 53% this season. The average middle-class American can’t afford to buy tickets. Who wants to support players who can’t go 20 games without pulling themselves from the lineup? The quality of play across the league has never been worse. Teams are taking and making more 3’s than ever before. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has admitted the league needs to do something about it. Team defense went out the window long ago.

And then you have Jimmy Butler who has been suspended twice by the Miami Heat for what amounts to insubordination. According to the Heat, Butler has shown “a continued pattern of disregard for team rules, insubordinate conduct and conduct detrimental to the team including missing a team flight.” If the 35-year-old Butler wants to find a new home, he should play better. That may work.

Goodbye Garth – It seems like every week we’re saying goodbye to a musical great. Quiet, unassuming Garth Hudson, keyboardist for The Band, has died at the age of 87. Hudson was living in an assisted living facility in New York state. With the passing of Hudson, all five members of The Band are now gone.

Hudson was the last member to join the group when they were called The Hawks and backing up Ronnie Hawkins. They would back-up Bob Dylan when he went electric on his famous 1966 world tour. Hudson is recognized as one of the all-time great multi-instrumentalists. Over the course of The Band’s recording career, Hudson played piano, organ, accordion, clavinet, piccolo, saxophone, melodica, and synthesizer. He helped shape The Band’s unique sound. The music now known as Americana didn’t even exist before The Band came along. They spawned a whole music genre.

With more on Hudson’s brilliant life and career, check out this tribute released prior to his death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLBux4PNvl8

As a tribute to Garth Hudson, here’s the band performing “Up on Cripple Creek” on the Ed Sullivan Show on November 2, 1969.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKu0OTDvQ-w

Here’s The Band performing “The Weight” with Pops Staples and The Staple Singers from the Last Waltz in 1978.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-w9OclUnns

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