Winnipeg Goldeyes 2018 Season Three-peat?

They did it once and then did it again. As other Winnipeg sports teams struggle to get to the play-offs and win, the Winnipeg Goldeyes have done it twice in a row and look to make it three in 2018.

This year's Goldeyes home opener is this Friday at Shaw Park and sees the return of several players who helped propel the team to victory last year. As in past years, the Goldeyes are down in Texas getting their season started. They just swept their last series which is a strong indication that the team is looking strong as ever.

This year marks 25 years for the return of the Winnipeg Goldeyes and things look pretty good when reflected back over the years. In 1994, the Goldeyes joined the one year old Northern League as a transfer team and played in Winnipeg Stadium. It was less than ideal but the team itself was the real deal. In the first year, the team took the title.

The Pan-Am Games was a turning point in 1999. As the city was still reeling from from loss of the Winnipeg Jets, the chance to build a baseball field downtown reached fruition. It was not without controversy and lots of public money spent. Through three phases in 1999, 2000 and 2003, the stadium was transformed into one of the most beautiful baseball parks in North America. In 2010, the Winnipeg Goldeyes switched leagues to join the American Association and that is where they are today.

The American Association is looking the healthiest in a lot of years. A few of the teams like the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks and St. Paul Saints are strong markets with equally strong teams. Generally, it has been the southern division that has struggled with failing teams, shared teams, low attendance and poor competitiveness. Things may have stabilized for the time. Baseball seems to be on the upswing in many markets with new stadiums and ownership groups.

This year the Chicago Dogs join the league playing out of Impact Field that was just constructed this year in Rosemont, Illinois right by O'Hare International Airport. Next year Milwaukee gets a new stadium and team to join the league in 2019. Things look very good moving forward.

The continuity of the team in both front office and the field is the recipe to success. Rick Forney is back in his 13th year managing the team. Returning players are fan favourites like Reggie Abercrombie, Josh Mazzola and solid pitching group with returning Edwin Karl and Charlie Rosario among others.

At the independent league level, it is professional ball but players are making something like $800 a month and have room and board all over the city. There is no big TV contract. The radio broadcast with Steve Schuster is at an elite level on CJNU. This gets as close to on the ground sports and fans involvement as you can find. The players are heroes but earn less in a year than a Winnipeg Jets player makes in game.

As with any independent league, what happens on the field is enhanced with what happens off the field. Young and attentive cheer squads, ballpark food and beyond and simply sitting outside downtown watching a train chug along behind the grandstand so that even players watch in bemusement. And all of this that an entire family can see without breaking the bank.

When pointing out what things have happened in the last 20 years that have turned Winnipeg around, the Goldeyes and their ability to attract thousands of people downtown consistently has to me mentioned. Their success and ours have been mutual and they are back this year to entertain once again and to hopefully, take home the prize for a third year in a row.

Winnipeg Goldeyes home opener is this Friday, Many 25.

Winnipeg Goldeyes Compete on Steamy Weekend

Despite the clouds moving across the sky and making a hot night even steamier, Winnipeg Goldeyes managed to pull off a win of 5-3 against the Lincoln Saltdogs Saturday night. It was a different story the night before when they lost 11-1 to the same team in a rain delayed game Friday.

The crowd of 4.282 was competing downtown with the 1200 people in white enjoying a meal outside at Table for 1200 stretching from the Richardson Building to Market Avenue in the Exchange as well as thousands at Pride Festival next door in the Forks. Not to mention 2600 at Cirque du Soleil's Kurios opening weekend. And all on Stanley Cup night Game 3.

The Goldeyes still deliver a lot of entertainment for the buck and late eighth inning heroics from Wes Darvill with a double and newcomer Mason Katz scoring a single brought the winning run home. Closing pitching by Ryan Chafee relieving Mikey O'Brien who allowed only one run on six plus innings.

The American Association of Independent Baseball's champions from 2016 are now 11-5 for the year. It isn't always easy being in unaffiliated ball. The Goldeyes are one of the jewels in the crown with Shaw Park. Each year, it is interesting to watch one team after another fold in the southern part of the league. And yet somehow they roll on.

They keys to success for minor league baseball are a stadium, a first class operation from team management to concessions as well as a great additional entertainment component. Winnipeg has too many sport and recreational alternatives if you fail at any of those. The affordable price for families and the special event days keep people interested for the 100 game season.

The CJNU broadcast with Steve Schuster is first rate and the sport coverage by Winnipeg's media treats the team like any major league contender. Want to sell a newspaper in this town? Treat local sports coverage seriously and make it water cooler talk. Shaw TV, Free Press, Sun and Metro and CJNU and TSN cover the team because the sports fans want to follow their team.

It a long season but if this Goldeyes team has shown anything, they intend to contend this year for a repeat at the championship both on and off the field.

Goldeyes Make the Play-offs

The unrelenting rains on Sunday pushed the Goldeyes/Redhawks game to Sunday and a double header was scheduled on Labour Day. It quickly became known that the Goldeyes needed one more win to clinch a play-off spot ahead of the hard driving Laredo Lemurs.

The first game of the double header was won by 6-1 by the Goldeyes and the result was a jubilant celebration on the field with all the players and managers. It is the 18th time in the 23 year history of the team that they make the play-offs. Only a very strong performance in the latter part of the year got them the spot this year.

On Wednesday, the Goldeyes will face another old rival in the first round of the the play-offs. The Saint Paul Saints will arrive for a best of five series. Shaw Park will host Wednesday and Thursday and CHS Field in Saint Paul will host game three on Saturday and if need be games on Sunday and Monday.

This past weekend also saw the Goldeyes make history with the first play by play called by a woman in radio broadcast. Danielle Doiron did an excellent job and will continue to be a force in the Goldeyes front office.

Goldeyes Making Play-Off Run

The Goldeyes are a beloved summer tradition in Winnipeg and this year is no different. With 14 games remaining in the season, the Goldeyes are positioned for a play-off run into the fall. Monday and through till Thursday, Goldeyes are playing one of their longtime rivals Fargo Redhawks.

After a nine hour drive back from Sioux City and playing the Explorers, batting practice was dispensed with. This was fine because the team pounded the Explorers 6-1 Sunday after losing the previous two games.

Winnipeg's baseball team has been hot in the second half of the season with a record of 30-13 in the last 43 games. In the American Association North Division, the Goldeyes are 3.5 games behind Saint Paul Saints to hold the wild card spot for the play-offs. This is 3.5 games ahead of the Laredo Lemurs.

It is a pivotal series of games against Fargo this week. The overall 51-35 on the year Goldeyes are second in their division. However, the bulk of the remaining games are against the third place Redhawks and they can never be counted out.

At game time Monday, the temperature was a steamy 30 C and the crowd was packed to the rafters. The Redhawks scored first and the Goldeyes battled back late in the game to tie it 2-2. The extra inning saw them go down to defeat 5-2. Three games remain this week.

And so it goes at Shaw Park with the most approachable athletes in sport and one of the best game day experiences. For those not able to attend the game the radio broadcast on 93.7 CJNU with Steve Schuster makes you feel like you are right there. The move to nostalgia radio has been a good match after bouncing around the radio dial.

In the coming weeks, expect some feature player profiles and interviews of Goldeyes personnel as the play-offs grow closer. Photographer Matraisa Klippenstein will feature some of her shots of the ballpark including some great game day footage.

TV Changes in Manitoba...What does "skinny" mean?

The CRTC has set a deadline of March 1st, 2016 for changes to cable.

The regulatory body for Canada has mandated a new "skinny package" of basic cable for $25. It would include the local stations, provincial education stations and national stations. In short, that is the CBC, CTV, Global. City, access TV, weather and most likely APTN, YTV, a news service and some American channels.

So far only Shaw has released their skinny package despite warnings from the the government that telecoms must promote the service.

Shaw will have a mix of 44 channels, some HD and some standard definition.

There is a catch. If you want to watch any high definition, you need to rent a box at $5 a month of $138 outright. Want to record anything, it doubles to $10 and more to buy the box outright.

Skinny includes NO sports channels.

Their packages start at $6 a month. If you select two of them, it is already at the price of Shaw's Personal TV package which offers a greater selection at pretty much the same price.

Will their be customers of the skinny package? Most likely. If you have no interest in high definition, not recording stuff, don't like sports and watch TV on an older TV with a picture tube, this package is for you.

Will a $25 service attract the people who cut the cord to television? Probably not. Those people will watch, if they watch, downloads both legal and illegal and mostly subscribe to Netflix (and U.S. Netflix at that). The only reason some of these people have cable is to watch live sports which may be harder to get via other means or is of poorer quality.

Zero dollars is better than any dollars for those who want their content free. It is hard to convince people that it is wrong or comparable to going into a grocery store and walking out with whatever you want and not paying.

So far MTS has not revealed their skinny package.

These changes won't save the telecoms, local TV or borderline channels. A revolution is taking place and Canada and the rest of the world are likely to see wholesale collapse of parts of the industry in due course. It remains to be seem how content will be produced and be profitable under any plan thus revealed.

Calder Cup on Winnipeg TV

Winnipeg fans will be able to watch the St. John's IceCaps starting tonight on Shaw, Bell and MTS TV.

The farm club of the Winnipeg Jets won the third round of the play-offs to go into the Calder Cup against the Texas Stars. The best of seven series looks to be epic.

Todd Crocker and Bob McGill will be on duty for play by play and colour while Paul Hendrick and Jon Abbott will be hosting. Leafs TV will broadcast every game.

Here are the channels to look for the broadcast in Winnipeg:

MTS	What's on MTS TV (channel 9)
Shaw Direct	454/398 (HD), 466 (SD)
Shaw Cable	255 (HD), 147 (SD)
Bell	1422 (HD), 422 (SD)
NHL Network Radio	Sirius 207, XM 211
AHL Live	www.ahllive.com

Go Caps go!

Edit: It appears Shaw does not have the rights till game 4 till the end if it goes to 7.

Blockbuster Video

We recently saw Blockbuster Video in the Osborne Village close down. It has been something happening across North America although at a slower pace in Canada than the U.S.

Now, we hear that Blockbuster in Canada is being forced into bankruptcy due to missed payments from the parent company. The Canadian operations were used to help finance the U.S. ones. We have seen this type of issue before where Canada's operations were doing better and then the U.S. went under and took the Canadian part of the company down too. Linens and Things Canada was profitable but the U.S. closed the while company including in Canada rather than spin off the division.

I have mentioned the problems for Blockbuster here before. However, their situation in Canada has not been as dire. This is in part due to our slower Internet and that companies such as Rogers and Shaw who are determined to make companies like Netflix super expensive by extra billing if you download high def Titanic from them.

Shaw, Rogers and the other Internet providers are acting in their self interest by pricing their video on demand services at the forefront and pricing everyone else's out of reach.

The advent of video kiosks also has had an impact on Blockbuster. Safeway stores in Winnipeg have them. However, I have found they don't carry a large selection and not as convenient to return since you actually have to enter the store to put the video back in the kiosk. Perhaps if there were a lot more and a large selection, this would be a good option. As it is, it isn't as an attractive option for people who shop once a week at the store.

In recent months, the greed of the Internet providers and the inconvenience and lack of selection of the kiosks has made me appreciate Blockbuster a lot more.

It remains to be seen what the chosen delivery system for entertainment will be. The Internet providers want it to be video on demand but their ever greater gouging turns people off and makes stores like Blockbuster a good option.

It is funny how I think my options for watching a movie at home have become more limited rather the other way around.

Shaw And Data Usage

I wondered back in December if Shaw was going to raise rates with the introduction of Netflix. Their response to going over download limits was to cut customers off. Now, they will charge if someone goes over their limit three months in a row.

Expect more tweaks as more people start accessing television and movies via but the bottom line is that Shaw will charge more and more for their service and act as gatekeeper. Moreover, they will likely try to kill competitive services and direct more people to their video on demand services instead.

Netflix and Television Downloads

The continued makeover of how people get their television and other entertainment is being re-written by Netflix. CBC has made available many of its programs for downloads to PCs, Macs, iPhones and iPads, Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray players.

The rub is that companies like Rogers will do anything to cripple Netflix by raising Internet fees so that people will choose on demand and pay per view from cable. Essentially, Rogers wants to make Netflix more expensive.

It remains to be seen whether Shaw and MTS will jack up their rates as well.

A big fight is brewing but technology is changing so quickly. The first casualties in the States have been companies like Blockbuster but if companies like Rogers try to kill the new services by acting as gatekeeper, the federal government might not have any choice but to step in.