Welcome to my weekly monthly very occasional NHL Grab Bag, a feature that, it may surprise you to learn, has tended to focus on the NHL.

In theory, I should continue that trend this week. But that would involve a level of dishonesty, because I’d be implying hockey’s been the top sport on my mind lately. And as all my fellow good Canadians know, that’s just not the case.

No, we’re all about the Toronto Blue Jays up here, as they sit one win away from an unlikely World Series championship. With the World Series up for grabs in Toronto tonight, it’s been hard to focus on much of anything else. But I’m going to try, which means this is my promise to you: This week’s Grab Bag will feature some hockey, and I’ll only bring it around the Blue Jays in like three or four sections.

From the headlines

So yeah, the Blue Jays. They’re pretty fun. But I realize that they’re also probably the source of confusion for some of you diehard hockey fans out there, since they’re easy to mix up with the Maple Leafs. Both teams are from Toronto, both wear blue and white, both are playing right now. But while that’s all true, there are several subtle differences that fans can use to tell the two teams apart.

For example…

Blue Jays: Have a prominent statue outside of their stadium in recognition of Ted Rogers, because he spent almost a decade owning the team.
Maple Leafs: As of yet, have not announced plans to erect a statue of Brad Marchand.

Blue Jays: If you hear loud chants of “Bieber! Bieber!” it’s probably the fans recognizing trade deadline acquisition and Game 4 winner Shane Bieber.
Maple Leafs: If you hear loud chants of “Bieber! Bieber!” it’s probably Auston Matthews trying to find the one Leafs fan left who isn’t getting worried about him.

Blue Jays: Can occasionally motivate underperforming players by threatening to send them to Buffalo, which is a minor-league operation.
Maple Leafs: Same.

Blue Jays: If you see everyone standing around and happily shouting “OK!” over and over again, it’s because the fans are singing along with the team’s traditional seventh-inning-stretch anthem.
Maple Leafs: If you see everyone standing around and happily shouting “OK!” over and over again, it’s because the front office is driving a hard bargain on negotiating another superstar’s contract.

Blue Jays: Receive coast-to-coast coverage in Canada on account of being the nation’s only big-league team.
Maple Leafs: Yeah, that sounds about right, according to every media executive in the country.

Blue Jays: In this year’s ALCS, George Springer hit a legendary Game 7 home run while wearing batting gloves inspired by the NHL’s Hartford Whalers.
Maple Leafs: Nobody wearing an NHL logo has come through in a Game 7 in decades.

Blue Jays: If you see a red-faced man who is wider than he is tall running as fast as he can, it means Alejandro Kirk is trying to stretch a single into a double.
Maple Leafs: If you see a red-faced man who is wider than he is tall running as fast as he can, it means a sportswriter heard the ice cream bars were just put out in the press box.

Blue Jays: Bo Bichette is the son of former major-league slugger Dante Bichette, and in terms of batting average, has slightly better career numbers than his father.
Maple Leafs: Nick Robertson is the brother of current Dallas Star winger Jason Robertson, and in terms of goal scoring, also has slightly better career numbers than Dante Bichette.

Blue Jays: Released an hour-long DVD to commemorate their most recent championship way back in 1993, a collector’s item that can often be found on auction sites or at secondhand stores.
Maple Leafs: If you want to spend an hour hearing about 1993, you’ll have to find literally any Leafs fan and whisper the words “Kerry Fraser.”

Blue Jays: Season is just about over.
Maple Leafs: Same.

The three stars of comedy

The third star: This confused ref – We all make mistakes. The important thing is to own it and fix it.

The second star: Mason Marchment – He might not be scoring much, but he’s doing the next best thing: working the old “made you flinch” tricks on guys and then laugh-pointing at them.

The first star: Max Hairston – He’s a cornerback for the Buffalo Bills, and apparently not much of a hockey fan until he got to watch his first game, and let’s just say it was a journey.

Be It Resolved

A few nights ago, while watching the Jays and Dodgers, I had a question:

I haven’t watched a ton of baseball in recent years so apologies if this is a dumb question, but do we really need the home plate ump’s mic to be louder than either of the announcers?

— Sean McIndoe (@downgoesbrown.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 9:26 PM

I’m still not completely sure of the answer, and I didn’t learn much from the responses other than that American baseball fans really seem to hate John Smoltz, but I think this guy is on to something. So be it resolved: MLB umpires and NHL refs need to switch mics.

The MLB mics seem to pick up everything the umpire says, even if he’s just speaking at normal volume. And sure, it provides some valuable insights – oh OK, he called that pitch that was three feet outside a ball because it was “outside.” That’s super helpful to know. I hope he keeps me up to date on the 14 timeouts being called every inning.

Meanwhile, NHL mics never work, a problem so annoying that it was featured in the very first Grab Bag ever way back in 2013. That was 12 years ago, but good news: The NHL hasn’t remotely come close to fixing the problem.

But MLB apparently has, so let’s kill two birds with one stone. Let the NHL refs get the mics that work, so that when they call penalties or announce replay reviews, we actually have some earthly clue what they’re trying to say. And let the umpires have the ones that only work 10 percent of the time, since it would add an element of randomness to their otherwise eye-glazing parade of saying “nope” 95 times a night.

I’d suggest we make this happen right now, but then I remembered trading is impossible during an NHL season. But check back with us over the summer, MLB, we might be able to put something together by then.

Obscure former player of the week

Continuing our baseball/hockey hybrid theme, this week’s obscure player is Jeff Ware. Both of them.

Back in the 1990s, Toronto sports had a weird glitch-in-the-matrix moment where both the Leafs and Jays had top prospects named Jeff Ware. The hockey version was a defenseman picked in the first round of the 1995 draft, four picks after Jarome Iginla went off the board, one pick ahead of Marty Biron. That’s right around the time the baseball version, himself a first-round pick, was making his MLB debut for the Blue Jays.

At this time, this all bothered me way more than it probably should have. It still does to this day.

Neither guy ended up living up to expectations, at least partly due to injuries, which may have been part of my problem. The defenseman debuted for the Leafs in 1996, but lasted just 15 games in Toronto and never recorded a point. He was eventually traded to the Panthers for David Nemirovsky, who never played a game in Toronto. For his part, Ware got six more NHL games in Florida, where he recorded his lone NHL point on an assist on a goal by Radek Dvorak – ironically in Toronto, in a game the Leafs won 9-1.

The pitcher had similar results, debuting with the Jays in 1995 and lasting parts of two seasons. He appeared in 18 games, half of those as a starter, and went 3-6 with a career ERA of 7.47, which I am told is not great. The Jays lost him on waivers after the 1996 season, and he never pitched in the majors again.

Baseball Ware’s biggest claim to fame as a player actually came in AA ball, and it’s a cool story: He was one of only three pro pitchers to give up a home run to a White Sox prospect named Michael Jordan. Ware would later credit that moment with helping him get to the big leagues, and after his playing career ended he went into coaching. He eventually worked his way up the Blue Jays system, and was back in the majors as their bullpen coach for the last few years before being replaced at end of last season.

So that’s Jeff Ware — a hockey player and also a baseball player who was best known for a play involving a basketball player. The lesson, as always: First-round picks never work out, so draft schmaft.

Classic YouTube clip breakdown

Fair warning: This week’s clip is not about hockey. But it is extremely and almost distressingly Canadian, so that makes it at least hockey-adjacent. If that bothers you, feel free to click away. Honestly, you really should probably click away.

Still here? Bad call, but OK. Tonight’s Game 6 and tomorrow’s Game 7 (if necessary) of the World Series are being held at the Rogers Centre, or, as everyone over the age of 21 still calls it, the SkyDome. Would a Blue Jays win result in the biggest celebration the building has ever seen? No, because that’s not possible, because we’ve already had this:

  • So it’s June 3, 1989. After several delays, the SkyDome is finally completely ready to go. It will host its first Jays game in two days, and Rod Stewart will perform the first concert in a week. But first, we have to give the new stadium the sort of opening night that it deserves. And there’s only one man for that sort of job…
  • Yes, it’s Friday Grab Bag legend and first-ballot YouTube Section Hall-of-Famer Alan Thicke. You may remember him from the legendary “Second Row Guy” performance at the NHL awards show, or from his intro work for the brand-new Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992. Or maybe some of his lesser-known work, like being the star of Growing Pains or weirdly having written the theme song to like every 1980s sitcom. You may also remember him from the time you ran into him on Elgin Street and he smoothly shot down you and your drunk friends for trying to talk to him. No? Just me on that last one? No problem, we’ll always have Second Row Guy.
  • Anyway, I don’t have a good way to describe what you’re about to see, other than that it’s pretty much the most Alan Thickest thing that’s even possible. You’ve been warned.
  • But first, this being Canada, we start with some hockey, in the form of an ad for the NHL awards. It features a lot of Mario Lemieux, because he just had 85 goals and 199 points and it would be crazy for anyone else to win the Hart this year.
  • On to the show. We open with famed broadcaster Brian Williams – no, the Canadian one – who’s in a helicopter for some reason. He welcomes us to a celebration of the opening of the SkyDome, titled “The Opening of SkyDome: A Celebration” because creativity hadn’t been invented yet.
  • Man, if that murderer’s row of Canadian celebrities doesn’t have you glued to your seat, I’m not sure what would. There’s Glass Tiger! And an emergency task force! And the “golden helmets,” who I assume are these guys! And Dave Thomas! And another Dave Thomas!
  • “Hey, what should we surround the stage with for our big, nationally televised debut? I’m thinking acres of plain concrete, but I also could be talked into acres of unadorned concrete.”
  • “The world’s largest retractable ceiling” bothers me a lot and I’m not sure I can articulate why.
  • I was going to make a joke about the choreography with this supporting cast of dozens, but let’s be fair: some of them look like they’re in their 70s, it would have been irresponsible to go with anything more complex than “stand here, then go stand over there.”
  • We get four fake Blue Jays players singing a modified version of “Raindrops keep falling on my head,” followed by a modified version of “Let the sun shine in.” Did we mention this stadium is a dome? It’s a dome. But it’s also not a dome, which is the big hook. Don’t worry if you don’t get it, they’re going to hit this point roughly eight dozen more times before we’re done.
  • If they seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time on opera, well, that’s a weirdly big part of the Dome’s first-year schedule. It, uh, did not go great.
  • Thicke picks up Andrea Martin and carries her around the stage before striking a dramatic pose to the rapturous applause by the audience, who think this opening number is finally over. Fools! We haven’t even had an appearance by the Toronto Argos yet.
  • Ah, there they are. This is Toronto’s CFL team, which hasn’t been bought by Wayne Gretzky yet so nobody cares. They do a number based on “Singing in the Rain.” How many rain-themed showtunes can there be? I fear we may be about to find out.
  • Gentle readers, I swear to you, I have spent way too much time watching this performance and I am being completely honest when I tell you that I can’t figure out if it’s meant to be taken seriously or not. Remember, this is 1989, a time when not every single piece of culture was dipped in a dozen layers of irony. Are we… are we supposed to like this? Are they winking at us? Does Thicke think he’s going to win a Gemini here? Is the whole thing a send-up or satire? If so, of what – other stadium-opening musical acts? That category of things does not exist! I’ve gone back and forth on this question a dozen times and I think it may have permanently damaged my brain. Please help me, before I start putting deposits on Canucks playoff tickets.
  • On that note: Oh look, the Blue Jays are dancing with the Argos and Martin is hugging Thicke’s crotch. In related news, I may be having a stroke.
  • By the way, in case you’re wondering: While the Toronto Raptors did play their inaugural season at the Dome, that’s years down the line, so they won’t be part of this. Too bad — I’m sure those early uniforms would have meant Thicke giving us a kick-butt rendition of the guitar solo from “Purple Rain.”
  • And that’s it. We end with a spelling lesson, then the clip mercifully cuts off. If for you’d like to see the entire two-hour production, featuring two Dave Thomases where somehow neither is the Wendy’s guy, then it is also on YouTube and also there’s something very wrong with you.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com.