Keeping Score

We haven’t nearly heard the end of the palace coup within the NHLPA that cost executive director Paul Kelly his job. As one NHL player told me: “Ninety per cent of the players are not happy with the process of how it happened.” . . . It happened in Chicago at 3 a.m., which should tell you something. . . . As Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane can attest, nothing good happens at that time of the day. . . . Still with Chitown, here is the Chicago Tribune’s Steve Rosenbloom, wondering whether the Cubbies will be able to unload the suspended Milton Bradley and the US$21 million left on his contract: “Who’d want this guy? Which general manager would choose to infect his clubhouse with the M.B. coli virus? Cubs general manager Jim Hendry would need to find someone who’s a bigger sap than he is, and because Al Davis is a football guy, I don’t think there’s much hope.” . . . Maybe Milton Bradley could take his game to the NHLPA?
Defenceman Wes McLeod, a Kamloopsian who plays for the BCHL’s Prince George Spruce Kings, has been named to an evaluation camp for Team Canada West that will play in the 2009 World Junior A Challenge. McLeod will attend a three-day camp in Okotoks, Alta., that begins Sunday. . . . Also invited was forward Grayson Downing of the BCHL’s Westside Warriors. Downing was a fourth-round selection by the Kamloops Blazers in the 2007 WHL bantam draft but has committed to the U of New Hampshire. . . . Phil Mushnick, in the New York Post: “The continuing, often race-based debate as to whether Serena Williams’ $10,000 fine was a proper response to her vulgar menacing of a lineswoman during her last singles match in this year’s U.S. Open, has omitted the tale of Jeff Tarango, white American male. His verbal abuse of an ump during his third-round match at Wimbledon in 1995 caused his disqualification, a $63,000 fine and banishment from two Grand Slam events, including the next Wimbledon.”
Former Blazers defenceman Darryl Sydor signed a one-year deal with the NHL’s St. Louis Blues on Friday. Sydor, one of the Blazers’ co-owners, got a deal just in time to head for Sweden. The Blues play Linkoping of the Swedish Elite League on Tuesday. . . . A huge thank you to those responsible for putting the netting up high on the backside of Interior Savings Centre. It certainly is nice to walk towards the building without pigeons using you for target practice. . . . And the clean sidewalks are nice, too.
Murray Owen, who once did time as president of the Blazers, played for the 65-plus oldtimers team that won gold at the B.C. Senior Games in Richmond last weekend. And it sounds like he’s still got game. “Reminds me of Bill Mosienko when I saw him play with Winnipeg at the Snoopy tourney in California a few years ago,” a teammate told me, referencing a late, great NHLer. “Just a natural born skater and puckhandler who never seems to tire out there.” . . . Too bad Owen couldn’t have come down from the boardroom to play for the Blazers a time or two during his reign. . . . Cam Hutchinson, in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix: “When Brandt Snedeker four-putted the 18th hole at the BMW tournament, he lost at least $400,000, as well as invitations to the Masters, and British and U.S. Opens next year. Nobody has lost so much so quickly since my wife said, ‘I do.’ ”
I love the NFL on CTV but if I see one more CSI promo, I think I’ll puke. . . . By the way, why isn’t there a CSI: Kamloops? . . . They seem to have every other city covered, don’t they? . . . Jeff Blair, in The Globe and Mail: “Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire and the 40th wealthiest man in the world, is reportedly prepared to finance the NBA Nets’ move to Brooklyn by acquiring a stake in the club issuing a bond through his investment firm to fund arena construction. The New York Daily News also reports he was arrested in 2007 on suspicion he was involved in a prostitution ring, which makes me wonder: How did the NHL miss out on this guy?” . . . One has to think the pecking order of hockey teams in Kamloops runs like this: Blazers, Storm, WolfPack, Thompson Blazers. There are only four of them. I realize that ice availability sometimes dictates things but, still, how is it that all four end up playing at home on the same night, which is what happened one week ago?
Headline at SportsPickle.com: Leodis McKelvin spray-paints ‘I FORGIVE U’ onto vandal’s car. . . . The social event of the weekend goes Sunday when Lamar Odom of the Los Angeles Lakers weds Khloe Kardashian. As Dan Le Batard put it on Pardon the Interruption this week: “Third-best Laker, meet third-best Kardashian.” . . . Scott Ostler, in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Usain Bolt won his final race and says he’ll take a long vacation. When you live in Jamaica, where do you vacation? Akron?” . . . Guard Delonte West of the Cleveland Cavaliers was arrested last week after police in Maryland pulled over his three-wheel motorcycle and found that he had a loaded handgun stuffed in the waistband of his pants, another strapped around a leg and a loaded shotgun in a guitar case that was slung over his back. Sheesh, the only thing missing was Salma Hayek. . . . As Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times put it: “Looks like he was ready to shoot a three.”
Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca and gdrinnan.blogspot.com. Keeping Score appears Saturdays.