More from Thursday . . .

It was after the Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl last season when cornerback Jason David, a free agent, chose to sign with the New Orleans Saints. . . . Flash forward to Thursday night and the NFL season-opener -- New Orleans at Indianapolis. . . . Peyton Manning, who will be recognized as the greatest quarterback in NFL history when he’s done, torches David for seven completions, 147 yards and three touchdowns. . . . Do you think David was having second thoughts at any point in the second half? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, Manning’s teammates noticed what he had done? Do you think maybe things like this help make Manning so popular with his teammates? . . . Or do you think Manning’s treatment of David was all a coincidence? You know, the old ‘we took what they gave us’ thing? . . .

The Kelowna Rockets play a two-game series with the Memorial Cup-champion Vancouver Giants this weekend and it sounds as though Rockets’ general manager Bruce Hamilton has about had it with losing. The Rockets, who didn’t make the playoffs last season after a terrific four-year run, are 0-3 going into tonight’s exhibition game in Ladner, B.C. The teams play Saturday in Kelowna. “Preseason isn’t about winning or losing; it’s finding out who can play, who’s come along through the summer,” Hamilton told Doyle Potenteau of the Kelowna Daily Courier. “Our coaches have had a week to get some systems into place and I expect the guys to play hard and this series to have some bite to it. Our team used to play that way, and it’s time for them to start playing like that again.” . . . As Potenteau points out, tonight’s game also will be the first time that “pupil will face master.” Ryan Huska, in his first season as Kelowna’s head coach, and Vancouver head coach Don Hay were player and coach on three Memorial Cup championship teams in Kamloops (1992, ’94 and ’95). They also are the only people in history to have won four Memorial Cups, Huska having won one as an assistant coaching Kelowna and Hay having won last season’s championship as the Giants’ head coach. . . .

Another WHL-related blog has hit the Internet. This one, by Les Lazaruk, the veteran radio voice of the Saskatoon Blades, is on the home page of the Blades’ newly unveiled website. You also are able to link to it from the left side of this page. It may be worth knowing -- and, then again, maybe not -- that Lazaruk is a better play-by-play man than he was a Strat-O-Matic baseball player. . . .

In Thursday’s lone exhibition game, the Red Deer Rebels edged the Lethbridge Hurricanes 2-1 in Stettler, Alta. Red Deer got an early first-period goal from Tyler Penny, with Landon Ferraro, the son of Ray and the second overall pick in the 2006 bantam draft, upping the lead to 2-0 at 19:17 of the third on a power play. Josh Gionfriddo replied for Lethbridge 22 seconds after Ferraro’s goal. Morgan Clark went the distance in goal for Red Deer, stopping 20 shots. Juha Metsola started for Lethbridge and stopped 13 of 14 shots; Mike Maniago came on at 14:44 of the second and stopped four of five shots. Lethbridge was 0-for-5 on the PP; Red Deer was 1-for-7. . . .

Earlier in the day, the Rebels assigned D Caleb Suderman, 18, to the AJHL’s Grande Prairie Storm. That got the Rebels’ roster down to 24 bodies, including LW Connor Redmond, 15, their first pick in the 2007 bantam draft. . . .

There will be seven games tonight: Kootenay at Calgary, Swift Current at Moose Jaw, Saskatoon at Prince Albert, Kamloops at Prince George, Kelowna vs. Vancouver at Ladner, B.C., and, at the annual Tri-City tournament, Spokane vs. Portland and Seattle vs. Tri-City.