{"id":301886,"date":"2025-11-23T14:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T14:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/301886\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T14:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T14:45:09","slug":"beef-quashed-mike-kelly-introduces-paul-friesen-at-cfl-media-hall-of-fame-induction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/301886\/","title":{"rendered":"Beef quashed: Mike Kelly introduces Paul Friesen at CFL media Hall of Fame induction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo: 3DownNation<\/p>\n

Where there was once discord, there is now harmony \u2014 and it came on the CFL\u2019s most hallowed day.<\/p>\n

For the Football Reporters of Canada (FRC), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame media induction breakfast is a staple of Grey Cup Sunday. This year\u2019s inductees were Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun and Judy Owen of the\u00a0Canadian Press, both of whom are talented, hard-working reporters of close to three decades.<\/p>\n

Most inductees choose to be introduced at the breakfast by a longtime colleague, close friend, or family member. Owen, for instance, was introduced by Ed Tait, who now serves as the in-house reporter for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n

Friesen, whose out-of-the-box, never-boring style has made him a legend in Winnipeg, chose perhaps the most unconventional possible option: Mike Kelly, the subject with whom he had perhaps the most highly-contentious relationship.<\/p>\n

Kelly was the head coach and general manager of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2009, a short-lived but extraordinarily newsworthy tenure. Friesen was on the team\u2019s beat, which resulted in daily must-read coverage.<\/p>\n

There was the infamous \u201chandled internally\u201d news scrum, which still often plays on television compilations, along with countless other memorable moments. Friesen asked tough questions, held Kelly accountable, and was critical of the struggling team, which drew the coach\u2019s ire. In one particular interview, Friesen recalls Kelly suggesting he take the pencil he was holding and \u201cstick it\u201d somewhere.<\/p>\n

When Kelly was let go, Friesen drove down to the parking lot at old Canad Inns Stadium for one last interview. Kelly accused the reporter of being happy about the firing but that wasn\u2019t at all true. If anything, Friesen wanted the embattled coach to stay for another year, since he consistently generated such incredible storylines.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, word spread around the FRC that Friesen\u2019s introduction would not be a live speech but a prerecorded video. This caught many by surprise given that Friesen doesn\u2019t have much use for technology developed after 1975. He also kept the identity of who would appear in the video a closely-guarded secret. Even with the increased media presence in Winnipeg, there were no leaks.<\/p>\n

Ever a showman, Kelly\u2019s three-minute video introduction was full of laugh-out-loud moments. He took a few shots at Friesen, who it turns out was a game statistician for Matt Dunigan\u2019s CFL record 713-yard passing game, which occurred when Kelly was the team\u2019s offensive coordinator in 1994.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just so impressed that the little redheaded guy could almost count to 800,\u201d quipped Kelly. \u201cThat was pretty good for him!\u201d<\/p>\n

While interviewing for the head coaching job at Widener University in 2014, Kelly said a school official handed him a one-inch stack of paper and asked, \u201cWho is Paul Friesen?\u201d Presumably, the school had done some research and read all about Kelly\u2019s tenure with the Blue Bombers through the online pages of the Winnipeg Sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked him right back in the eye and I said, \u2018(Friesen is) somebody that did their job better than me,\u2019 and that\u2019s really what it came down to. Paul was doing his job and I let him get under my skin, but that\u2019s what he was supposed to do,\u201d said Kelly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul makes people want to read about the Blue Bombers and about the Canadian Football League and anybody that does that, they\u2019re in my heart, because I love those two institutions. What Paul has done is create interest where others couldn\u2019t, so this is well-deserved. I applaud Paul for doing what he\u2019s done, I think this is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friesen was at it again during Grey Cup week in Winnipeg, asking tough questions of CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston and writing a scathing column accusing him of ignoring negative feedback to the league\u2019s incoming rule changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two days later, Johnston attended Friesen\u2019s induction ceremony, offered brief greetings to the assembled media, and shook the reporter\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just as well, since it\u2019s never personal with Friesen \u2014 just ask Mike Kelly.<\/p>\n

To watch the full video of Kelly\u2019s introduction, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: 3DownNation Where there was once discord, there is now harmony \u2014 and it came on the CFL\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-301886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}