TGIM

Column from Daily News of July 9:

With apologies to the late, great Jimmy Cannon, nobody asked me but . . .
g There are a few things that you just never do.
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.
You don’t spit into the wind.
And you don’t diss Ken Hitchcock, Bob Brown or Don Hay, and expect to get
away with it. Not even by accident. Not if you live in these parts.
Such was the case in these pages last week when reference was made to Ryan
Huska as the only person in history to have won four Memorial Cup rings.
Huska won three as a player with the Kamloops Blazers (1992, ’94 and ’95)
and one as an assistant coach with the Kelowna Rockets (2004).
Needless to say there was a brain cramp involved because Hay also is the
proud possessor of four Memorial Cup rings.
He was on the Blazers’ coaching staff for each of those three Memorial Cups,
and he won a fourth in May as head coach of the Vancouver Giants.
An apology, then, is in order.
Yes, the reminders arrived via e-mail, and one was especially good.
“I would remind you,” the individual wrote, “that Don Hay won one as an
assistant coach in 1992, and again as a head coach in 1994, 1995 and 2007. I
believe that totals four.
“Is ‘the curse’ perhaps fogging your memory?”
g While the likes of Stephane Dion, Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton, federal
stickhandlers all, may not appreciate Shane Doan, it seems the folks in the
Phoenix area absolutely love the former Blazers star and his wife, Andrea.
You may recall that it was just two short months ago when the politicos,
having saved us from terrorism and having gotten our healthcare system back
on the tracks and thus having nothing else on their plates, got up on their
hind legs in the House of Commons and took issue with Doan having been named
captain of Canada’s representative at the world hockey championship. To make
their point, they dredged up unproven allegations that Doan had made
derogatory comments about French Canadians in an NHL game some 17 months
previous. Never mind that the NHL had come up empty when it looked into the
allegations; never mind that Doan, the straightest shooter to come along
since Wyatt Earp, has denied making such slurs.
Now comes word from the sunny south that the Doans have been selected as
recipients of a 2007 Pat Tillman Community Leadership Award, which is given
to those who “have demonstrated the courage of their convictions and served
as excellent role models for youth.”
If you know anything at all about the late Pat Tillman and the high esteem
in which he is held, expecially in Arizona, you will have some understanding
of how much this award means.
Shane, the captain of the Phoenix Coyotes, and Andrea are heavily involved
in various aspects of their community and, yes, it is appreciated.
Of course, Team Canada, with Doan as captain, went on to win the world
championship.
So . . . while Doan has a gold medal and he and Andrea have a Pat Tillman
Award, what they don’t have is an apology from the likes of Dion, Duceppe
and Layton.
Gentlemen, a nation is waiting.
g Let’s see if we’ve got this right.
Edmonton general manager Kevin Lowe spoke with Buffalo GM Darcy Regier on
Thursday and told him the Oilers were going to present a contract offer to
restricted free agent Tomas Vanek, the Sabres’ young centre.
Regier, who had already lost centres Daniel Briere and Chris Drury to
unrestricted free agency, told Lowe that the Sabres would match any offer
made to Vanek.
Lowe made the offer anyway — US$50 million over seven years — and the Sabres
matched it.
After which Sabres managing partner Larry Quinn seethed: “As it comes to the
Edmonton Oilers, if there is an opportunity for us to put an offer sheet on
a player any time as long as we’re alive, we’ll be very comfortable doing
that. And they can expect that.”
Sheesh, do you think Lowe now wishes he had coughed up that extra 100 grand
and signed Ryan Smyth at the trading deadline last season?
And why wouldn’t the Sabres make some of that cash available to Briere
and/or Drury?
g And then there was the reader who, one day last week, wasn’t pleased to
open his favourite daily journal, flip to his favourite pages — that would
be, ahem, these here sports pages — and be greeted by the site of a man
regurgitating hotdogs.
“I am sure most people don’t consider gluttony a sport,” this reader wrote.
“In fact, it is not even newsworthy.”
Point made.
However, we shudder to think about the definition of “newsworthy” to a
society that spends so many of its evenings with American Idols, worships at
the shrine of hotel heiress Paris Hilton — if the hotel chain is sold, will
her title change? — and gets so much of its entertainment from YouTube,
Facebook and reality TV.

Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca.