I've got to give Mike Kelly and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers kudos.
Consider what Mike and the Mechanics have contributed to the Canadian Football League's glorious history in less than one year, and you will understand why the accolades are being handed out.
To begin, the CFL constitution will heretofore require a rewrite of the language pertaining to the nine-game injured list, specifically concerning what you can and can't do to a player without his expressed written permission. We'll call that the Barrin Simpson rule.
And it is now strictly forbidden to have a representative of your team sit in another team's stadium while said team is practicing and take notes and/or diagrams of said team's plays. We'll call that the Ron Trentini rule.
It is also now illegal for one team to make a rude gesture to another team in the form of crotch-chopping. We'll call that the B.C. Lions rule (via the Bombers). It is expressly forbidden for a team trying to organize an off-season training camp for quarterbacks. We'll call that the Mike Kelly rule, pertaining to the quarterbacks the Bombers had this off-season. And whatever became of those quarterbacks?
It is really expressly forbidden for making any derogatory remarks against the officials. We'd like to call this the Mike Kelly rule after he was dinged $1,000 for making remarks about the men in stripes after a game this year, but we believe Kelly learned this from other coaches.
It is questionable for a team official to openly talk about a player whose contract has not been registered with the CFL, in particular one who may have a difficult time crossing the border and whose knowledge of the league is, well, not very good. We'll call that the John Murphy rule as applied to Pacman Jones.
It is strictly verboten for journalists to ask a coach about a player who reportedly has signed with a team. We'll call that the Winnipeg media rule and put Pacman Jones' name beside it with an asterisk.
It is strictly verboten for journalists to ask about an alleged spying incident, lest they be told "It's a non-issue, it's been handled internally, and I'm not talking about it." We'll call that the Winnipeg media rule as it applies to Kelly and Trentini.
It is lame for Saskatchewan fans to make lame remarks about a head coach's bald pate and shout for him to be fired. Said comments need to be a little more creative to be effective. We'll call that the Kelly rule as applied to Rider Priders.
It is impractical for CFL head coach to use the shotgun as part of its offence because that's for flag football. We'll call that the Kelly philosophy to coaching offence. It is perfectly acceptable for coaches to wear rolled-up pants (what are also called floods), cleats from circa 1960 and ties on game days as a way to salute retro football. We'll call that the Kelly rule to pay tribute to Vince Lombardi, who probably is rolling in the grave thinking about it.
Lastly, it is really poor form to send out a media release announcing the signing of a player and misspelling the player's name wrong and thus re-issuing a release with the correct spelling. We'll call that the Dante Luciani rule, who signing was announced on Wednesday as Dante Luciana.
We'd like to go on and on, but this is a blog, not a book.
