Keeping Score

It must be spring break in Alberta. How else do you explain all the hockey fans in Phoenix these days? . . . Headline in the Buffalo News after a late-season game: Sabres are lemons in front of Lalime. . . . After his one-punch kayo of Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke last week, it is doubtful that Atlanta Thrashers forward Evander Kane will ever have to pay for another meal while in the company of NHL players. . . . Defenceman Brendon Nash of Kamloops wrapped up his college hockey career with the Cornell Big Red by being named a Reebok Division I All-American. Nash, a second-teamer last season as a junior, was named to the ECAC Hockey first all-star team. Nash, who graduates next month with a degree in applied economics and management, signed with the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens when his season ended and now is with the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs. . . . Hamilton is taking on the Manitoba Moose in a first-round playoff series. . . .
After a TMZ report that Tiger Woods paid Rachel Uchitel (aka Mistress No. 1) a cool US$10 million to keep quiet, Ian Hamilton of the Regina Leader-Post noted: “In golf terms, Uchitel now has a lot of green to work with.” . . . After Italy’s Matteo Manassero, 16, became the youngest player in Masters history, Greg Connors of the Buffalo News wrote: “That means there are only two golfers in the field whose families check to see they’re in bed by 11: Matteo and Tiger.” . . . What’s this? Tiger was heard cursing during the Masters? And you thought Billy Payne and his good ol’ boys could change the stripes on a tiger. . . . John Garrity, at SI.com: “The Phil people are delirious. The Tiger people are devastated. The good guy, a green jacket draped comfortably over his open-collared polo, addresses an adoring crowd at sunset. The bad boy, who was last seen walking past the clubhouse in his no-longer-bulletproof red victory shirt, heads for home (wherever that is) to the yawns of a surfeited tabloid press.”
Jay Mariotti, at FanHouse: “We thank the gods for intervening and back-burnering our long National (Enquirer) nightmare, replacing it with a historic sequence of golf shots from a man who deserves your love. Enough with Tiger Woods, his potty mouth and his revealing return to earth, a third-round wobble accompanied by bursts of needless profanity that violated his proper-decorum oath and confirmed he’s still a fraud.” . . .
Greg Cote of the Miami Herald didn’t have a good weekend. “Sad news,” he reported. “Heat Dancers were eliminated by the Charlotte Lady Cats in the semifinals in their bid for a fifth NBA dance-team championship. Analysts said the Miami women excelled in gyration and augmentation but disappointed on the pelvic thrust.” . . . Janice Hough, the Left Coast Sports Babe, wonders: “Which black leader now has a bigger mess to try to clean up in Washington — Barack Obama or Donovan McNabb?” . . . When the Chicago White Sox staged their home opener last week, they had four Chicago Blackhawks skaters — American Patrick Kane and Canadians Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Jonathan Toews — on hand to throw out ceremonial first pitches. Later, the Chicago Sun-Times asked who fared the best, with Seabrook replying: “It’s rough throwing a ball when you have a gold medal around your neck.” . . .
One would hope that Fred Pittendreigh and the KIJHL executives feel at least some embarrassment for the manner in which they stiffed the fine folks of Chase. According to league president Bill Ohlhausen, Pittendreigh told the KIJHL sometime prior to Nov. 1 that he intended to move the Chiefs. That means the league and its governors sat on the news for months, while the Chase fans purchased tickets, billeted players and bought advertising. . . . As one KIJHL exec told me this week: “It’s an absolute travesty the way everything happened. It just stinks and reeks of under-the-carpet stuff that I have never seen before. It’s a Mickey Mouse league when things like that are allowed to happen. You’ve got the people of Chase sitting there wondering, ‘What just happened?’ It’s an absolute joke.” . . . Yes, it is. . . . After USA Today reported that the highest payrolls in Major League Baseball belong to the New York Yankees (US$206.3 million), Boston Red Sox ($162.4 million) and Chicago Cubs ($146.6 million), Reggie Hayes of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel noted: “Spending obviously works. All three of those teams have won championships in the last 102 years.” . . .
Let’s be honest here. Loose change only serves to wear holes in your pockets or get lost in the bottom of your purse. So what a great idea to have people placed throughout our city who want only to relieve you of that loose change. They’re in parking lots, they’re standing outside of stores, they’re on various medians. Hey, is this a great city, or what? . . . Non-premium seats for Chicago Cubs’ games at Wrigley Field now carry an average price tag of US$52.56, the most expensive in Major League Baseball. . . . The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette headlined the story: Cubs win! . . . The Vancouver Sun went with: One is born each minute, and they have Cubs tickets. . . .
Mark Recchi, who owns a chunk of the Kamloops Blazers, is the Boston Bruins’ nominee for the Masterton Trophy, the NHL award that honours the player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.” Recchi, 42, is wrapping up his 21st season as an NHL player. Don’t be surprised if he hangs around for yet another season. . . . Look for former Blazers goaltender Justin Leclerc to end up going to McGill U in Montreal. Folks from McGill were in attendance at two 1-0 overtime games as Leclerc’s Saints were swept from the MJHL final by the Dauphin Kings. Leclerc is in Montreal this weekend. . . . The fine for talking on a cellphone while driving is $167. Don’t you wish the RCMP would allow you to write tickets and keep, say, 50 per cent of the proceeds?

Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. Email him at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca, or visit his blog at gdrinnan.blogspot.com. Keeping Score appears Saturdays.