Drinnan column

From The Daily News of Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007. . . .

With apologies to the late, great Jimmy Cannon, nobody asked me but . . .
x You have to admire Dale Hladun, the head coach of the junior B Kootenay International Hockey League’s Princeton Posse, for being most forthright in admitting his team was responsible for starting a line brawl with the Chiefs in Chase on the evening of Sept. 29.
“Yeah, we initiated the brawl,” Hladun told Daily News reporter Mark Hunter. “The guys were just tired of the whole game.”
If you’ve seen the video, you witnessed something straight out of Slap Shot.
Trailing 7-1 with over 14 minutes to play in the third period, Hladun calls a timeout and changes goaltenders. The referee then drops the puck at centre ice. The moment the puck hits the ice, the Posse players drop their gloves and begin looking for white jerseys. The Princeton goaltender makes a rink-length dash to the Chase crease and jungle B hockey is back in town.
After knowing that Hladun has said he and his squad were completely to blame, and perhaps after seeing the video, you’re thinking he’s gone for the entire season, if not more.
“I’m sure I’m going to have some time to go scouting. . . . It’ll probably be six, eight, I don’t know,” Hladun told Hunter.
And now, here we are, more than a week later and . . . nothing.
Oh, Hladun got three games, but that was automatic based on a KIJHL rule which calls for coaches to be suspended one game for every fight after three. Lorne Cumming, the Chase head coach, drew a two-game sentence and there wasn’t a thing he or his players could do about this mess.
Now we are told the situation is in the hands of the KIJHL’s disciplinary committee and that Hockey B.C. also is looking into things.
Which leads one to wonder exactly what is the problem here? You’ve got the video and the admission of guilt. You’ve got a league that should be completely embarrassed and extremely angered by an incident that, because of the Internet, will be hanging around forever.
The message to Hladun should be: We appreciate your honesty, but don’t call us, we’ll call you.
x If the WHL isn’t concerned about attendance figures in Cranbrook, home of the Kootenay Ice, and Prince George, home of the Cougars, it should be.
If things don’t improve in either city, you’ve got to wonder: When does the race to Victoria begin?
Or perhaps there is another option. Apparently, the BCHL, for political reasons, no longer is interested in Wenatchee, Wash. So maybe the finish line will be in Wenatchee.
x Vancouver businessman Tom Gaglardi, who heads up River City Hockey Inc., will appear in front of the WHL’s board of governors in Calgary on Wednesday. He will present RCH’s business plan and answer questions, and if all goes well the Kamloops Blazers will have new owners by Thursday.
Yes, it’s true. Your Blazers are about to become River City Hockey’s Blazers.
And it is going to be interesting to see what RCH’s plan of attack is as it works to get the missing bums back into Interior Saving Centre’s seats.
x After the debacle that was the winning run in the sudden-death playoff game between the San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies, you are wondering why baseball doesn’t leave the dark ages and introduce video replay?
Not for routine plays in the infield, or for balls and strikes, but for situations like the ones that developed in that game, and especially for close calls at home plate.
But so long as Bud Selig is commissioner, you can forget about it.
As Bill Dwyre wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Most of the dinosaurs were extinct when Bud Selig took over.”
x Should Major League Baseball’s two division championship series each end in four games, there will be a week off before the World Series begins. By which time fans may have forgotten whether the Arizona Diamondbacks or Colorado Rockies are representing the National League.
x The Asiago Lions, the Italian Serie A club for which the late Darcy Robinson played, returned to action Thursday with a home game. They lost 8-2 to HC Fassa.
x In case you missed it, Marion Jones confessed Friday. Marion who?

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