Taking Note

The world-champion Finnish hockey team, having beaten Sweden for the gold medal, was flying home from Slovakia on Monday when Juha Hiitela, a Finnish journalist, tweeted: “Charter plane of Team Finland will take a quick turn to Sweden's airspace before Air Force f-18 escort will carry them to Helsinki.” . . . Now that’s a rivalry! . . . Mike Lupica, in the New York Daily News: “It's funny how these things work out, but I'm not missing Manny Ramirez nearly as much as I thought I would.” . . . Another tweet, this one from Jeff Blair of The Globe and Mail, in reference to a certain Toronto Blue Jays infielder: “I don’t want to say Edwin Encarnacion is, you know, useless, but Stephen Harper just named him to the Senate.” . . .
After a gimpy Tiger Woods walked off the course and withdrew after nine holes of The Players Championship last week, the New York Post went with this headline: Tiger Goes Limp. . . . Over at SI.com, Joe Posnanski has it figured that the Los Angeles Lakers, realizing they were toast, packed it in early in their series with the Dallas Mavericks. “Hey,” Posnanski wrote, “they’ve won their championships. Quit happens.” . . . Headline at SportsPickle.com: Yankees bat Jorge Posada 10th behind Derek Jeter. . . . In 2008, Major League Baseball experienced 18 rainouts. In 2009, that figure was 19. Last season, there were eight. This season, there already have been 30. . . . Climate change anyone? . . .

The Cope twins, Amber and Angela, will drive
into history on Sunday.

Amber and Angela Cope are twins and they are set to make history Sunday afternoon when they drive in the NASCAR Nationwide race at Iowa Speedway. They will be racing against their uncle, Derrike Cope, who is a former Daytone 500 winner, too. They ran in a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on Oct. 23, with Amber finishing 26th and Angela 30th. . . . Do you know what is more dangerous than the feral horses on Shuswap Road? The feral idiots who feel they have to drive 100 km/h in a 70 zone. . . . Double yellow lines? Where? . . . They should be calling it the WHL Tour because Steve Earle, one of the great troubadours of our time, will hit nine of the 22 cities with WHL franchises on a tour that includes Seattle on June 9, Portland on June 10 and Spokane on June 11. . . .
Someone at the Denver Post thought to ask Mike Ditka, the former NFL player and head coach and pitchman: How are things going? Ditka, who is 71, replied: “I’ve had four hip replacements. I probably need a shoulder replacement right now. . . . My mind, I think I’m OK, but I find myself going from one room to the next sometimes and wondering why the hell I went. Other than that, I think I’m OK.” . . . If we’re not already, we should be giving some love to Chevron in these parts, shouldn’t we? . . . The Kamloops sporting world is a whole lot poorer these days, having lost Fred Nicholson and Stan Baric, a couple of tireless volunteers, to cancer over the last while. . . . It’s true. Sometimes life really isn’t fair. . . . The WHL will next play host to the Memorial Cup in 2013. So far, the Kelowna Rockets, Lethbridge Hurricanes, Red Deer Rebels and Saskatoon Blades have said they will place bids to serve as host team. . . .
Sorry, Hockey Canada, but you missed the boat when you gave the 2013 World Women’s Championship to Ottawa and not Kamloops. Especially if it was all about the money that can be generated by playing some of the games in Ottawa’s NHL facility. If the development of female hockey was the thing, the tournament would be coming here, because it would have given the sport in Western Canada a tremendous shot in the arm. . . . Of the 48 female players invited to Hockey Canada’s U-18 camp, three each are from B.C., Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with six from Alberta. . . . On its home page, the Ottawa Sun ran a poll, asking: “Are you excited that the (WWC) is coming to Ottawa?” While it didn’t reveal the number of respondents, No was leading 57 per cent to 42 in midafternoon Thursday. . . .
“As seen on Versus’ Stanley Cup coverage,” writes Phil Mushnick in the New York Post, “the visitors’ penalty box in San Jose is sponsored by — we kid you not — Bad Boys Bail Bonds.” . . . Jumbo Joe Thornton of the San Jose Sharks says he is able to ignore his many critics. "I don't really read what you guys write,” he explains. “I read Playboy and things like that." . . . Hey, TSN, how could you show so many IIHF World Championship games live and then tape-delay the gold-medal game? . . .
Paul Romanuk, a former TSN play-by-play voice who now lives near Liz and Phil in London, tweeted this earlier in the week: “Place: London. Task: repair a bridge. Time Taken: 2 years. I kid you not. You could have built a new one. I'm sure the Olympics will go well.” . . . And then there is Toronto Maple Leafs forward Colby Armstrong, who tweeted Thursday: “People wanna hear my comment on (Ben) Eagers hilarious game last night. I'm to much of a pro to comment on another players awful awful game.” . . .

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