Only in Canada

The Canadian Football League has stepped it up in terms of ridiculous rulings in a desperate attempt to keep up with their Canadian brethren — the NHL. But this could be a landmark in stupidity we're looking at. What happened prior the CFL draft is even worse than the NHL changing a rule MID-PLAYOFFS. It's that bad.

Now, following in the NFL's and NBA's footsteps of stripping teams of first round picks for cheating (See: SpyGate), when the league found out that the Montreal Alouettes had violated salary cap rules by going over, the looked to punish them. Here's where the problem and stupidity comes in.

Montreal had traded away their pick to Hamilton before the draft.

Now common sense would tell you that Hamilton is not the team that the league was trying to punish for breaking a rule, therefore they could keep the pick since they traded for it before it was stripped. No. Hamilton lost the pick.

I could go on an angry rambling about how dumb this league is but, the way I see it, why complain about a minor league football organization. It's not like any of the guys could compete in the NFL.

Coach of the year eh?

Let me just say this before I start complaining: Congratulations Byron Scott, you did a great job coaching the Hornets this season and are quite deserving of the Coach Of The Year award.

Now, does he honestly deserve it? There were a ton of great coaches this season. Greg Popovich did a great job while missing at least one of his big three for parts of the season and dealing with his roster aging. As much as I dislike Mike D’Antoni, having to change his team’s style of play while still maintaining position in the West gets him some kudos. Nate McMillan did an amazing job with a team that had been written off before the season started – even if the Blazers petered out. And let’s not forget that Phil Jackson won the West with Kobe, almost a half season with Gasol, and a roster full of “not that good”
players.

That’s right, absolutely no love for Doc Rivers. We know that it’s KG coaching that team.

The COTY award too often goes to coaches who are simply at the helm of teams that had a tremendous turnaround from the previous season. Look at last year’s winner, Sam Mitchell of the Raptors. The only reason he kept his job because the media looked past the roster overhaul and saw a big win-total jump. Now, I’d hardly be surprised if Sam was fired after another first round exit.

How would my ballot have looked you ask? D’Antoni would be third, Scott would be second and Phil Jackson would be first. Did you know that would be the Zen Masters second COTY award? How does a guy with nine – NINE – NBA championships win the coach of the year award only once? A tad ridiculous, don’t you think?

Isiah Thomas gets the comedic vote and a landslide victory.

Two awards in one day?

Sure it may not have been completely official, but the NBA pretty much announced two of its regular season awards in one day. After announcing the Magic's Hedo Turkoglu had won the Most Improved Player award, word started spreading that the Hornet's Byron Scott would be the coach of the year winner.

Turkoglu played amazing this season and was a huge reason why Orlando won their division. He may not be the best player on his team but still was an integral part of the Magic's lineup. He also had big shoes to fill after Grant Hill's departure. Nobody took as big of a leap talent-wise as Turk did.

As for coach of the year — to be formally announced today — Scott is a good choice. He helped turn around the Hornets and coached them to second place in the hardcore West. He may have had Chris Paul running the floor but he didn't have as much depth up front as I thought they did going into the season.

I would really like to know who does the voting for some of the NBA awards as well. It is apparently by a panel of sports writers across North America but some votes are just too dumb to have been cast by people who follow the sport for a living.

Honestly, who could possibly think that Shaquille O'Neal was the second most improved player this year? What an idiot. Oh, there were other questionable votes too: LeBron James, while steadily improving on his greatness, should not be getting a first place vote. Al Jefferson falls somewhat into the same category. Giving Monta Ellis some votes is kind of questionable considering he won the award last year. Come on, most improved in the entire league twice in a row? Andrew Bynum greatly improved but was injured for half the season.

Personally, I think that Hedo deserved it and I would have given the second place vote to Jose Calderon while David West would get my third place vote.

What an NFL weekend

Sure the draft went down on Saturday and Sunday but there is a much more pressing subject that needs to be brought up. Brett Favre on the cover of Madden 09? This can mean one of two things: Either somebody thinks No. 4 is coming back this season or this is a good homage to a great quarterback who was one of Madden's boys forever. If the first scenario is the case, somebody should have told the Packers before they drafted Chad Henne. And we can all look forward to a lot of jokes along the lines of Favre never throwing another touchdown after getting the cursed cover.

As for my draft thoughts:

Picking Chris Long second makes sense for the Rams. If they had taken Glenn Dorsey there, Adam Carricker would have to switch positions again. Putting Long outside and having the former Cornhusker inside makes the most sense.

You heard it here first, Matt Ryan is going to be a dud in Atlanta. I can't wait to see the mocks three years from now with the Falcons taking another "stud" QB with a high pick. Either that or D.J. Shockley will have stepped it up by then.

I really hope nobody was shocked that the Raiders took Darren McFadden. It was out there from every insider for weeks now.

The Jets taking Vernon Gholston ahead of the Patriots is more than just a spite pick. Eric Mangini is going to love that guy.

Picking Felix Jones over the higher-ranked Rashard Mendenhall looks risky for the Cowboys. The clincher for Jones had to have been an acceptance of a supporting role to Marion Barber. Remember, Jones split time with McFadden at Arkansas.

And as for Mr. Irrelevant, David Vobora, an outside linebacker for Idaho, was the lucky guy taken last in the draft. Vobora was drafted with the 45th pick of the seventh round — 252nd overall — and will go down in history as a trivia answer. Congratulations buddy.