A little this, a touch of that, a dose of the other thing as we wind up another week.

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This might be flying a bit further under the summer basketball radar than it should be in parts of Canada but the CEBL championship weekend that’s going on now in Saskatoon is a bit of thing.

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It’s the culmination of the six-team, ultra-Canadian league that began a few months ago and maybe you don’t know about it but I’ll tell you again that you should.

You know what I think of the league (here’s a step back in the time machine to refresh your mind) and now that the first season’s basically in the bag, it seems it surpassed some expectations.

Yeah, there were very many things that need to be examined over the next few months to see if they can be improved but getting an honest assessment from people within the league and those with no skin in the game results in pretty much nothing but raves.

I did have the pleasure of chatting a couple of weeks ago with Chantal Vallee, she’s the coach and general manager of the Hamilton Honey Badgers because I wanted to know how that unique situation unfolded.

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She told me she didn’t meet with any resistance at all throughout the season and that’s another feather in the collective cap of the league and the people involved in it.

Sure, there was the odd agent who wondered who was really in charge when she was recruiting or negotiating or coaching but once it was made clear it was her gig to run, there was respect given and earned.

I only saw a couple of games live – I wish I’d gotten to both Niagara and Guelph on mini-road trips but that didn’t happen – but I can tell you she had the players attention, the respect of the officials and coached the crap out of the games.

I guess the underlying point is that it was entirely business as usual both on the court and in the locker room and in the meeting rooms and we can now put any concerns about that to rest.

That’s a testament to league, to the way people here are accepting and not at all denigrating and now we move on.

As I said, there were lessons learned, some hard ones, but the folks who run the teams and the leagues but everyone got paid, the franchises fit into their communities and now with a winter to fix things that need to be fixed, there’s no reason the CEBL won’t continue to grow in Year 2.

The CBC, which has really jumped into basketball in a pretty big way the last few months in a welcome development, is live-streaming the championship semifinals tomorrow and the final on Sunday. If you’re around a computer with some time on your hands, you might want to spend a minute checking it out.-

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I don’t know Mette Frederiksen from someone on the street but I hope she serves as Denmark’s Prime Minister for as long as she wants or is allowed to by Danish law.

And I would suggest anyone who vacations in Florida consider going to Greenland to spend their money for the next little while. After all, the way things are going, the climates aren’t all that different.

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The Raptors have done nothing of consequence in weeks and I am entirely fine with that.

You?

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This is cool.

Remember the other day when I mentioned that 2000 game in Melbourne between the United States and Australia that almost devolved into some major international sporting incident involving our own Vince Carter?

Well, so did ESPN Australia and reading this suggests my memory was pretty bang on.

And, no, I didn’t get up at 5:30 in the morning to watch the Americans beat the Aussies yesterday and I’m darn sure I won’t get up at 5:30 on the morning to watch the second of two exhibition games.

I’ll wait and get a report, I hope, from whoever Nick Nurse has in Melbourne scouting Canada’s next two opponents.

This whole Eastern Time-Australian Time thing is killing me and I’ve got to deal with Monday and then prepare for the ridiculousness of 3:30 a.m. ET starts for two of Canada’s three first round games at the World Cup and that might be the end of me.

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I do know one thing I’m going to do in mornings and that’s take tomorrow off so if you want to get in on the fun and frivolity of the weekend mailbag, this is your last reminder.

It’ll show up sometime Sunday morning here and all you’ve got to do is click on askdoug@thestar.ca and ask away and, like magic, replies show up on the interwebs.

It’s sorcery, I tell you. Flat out sorcery.

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I guess the folks who run the U.S. Open tennis don’t read this little offering with regularity.

If they did, I don’t think we would have gotten Felix Auger-Aliassime against Denis Shapovalov in the first round at Flushing Meadows.

Another of conflicting Canadian sports support, I see.

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