If cornerback Richard Sherman’s shoulder holds up, the Seattle Seahawks will win the Super Bowl. If not, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots are winners. . . . With the NFL mounting an investigation into Deflategate, Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee tweeted: “If New England was to be DQ’d . . . We’d be their replacements, right?? . . . I should probably lay off these strawberry margs.” . . . “Due to irregularities in the earth’s rotation, an extra second will be added to clocks on June 30,” reports Richmond, B.C., blogger TC Chong. “I hope they don’t add this time onto the end of NBA games.” . . .
Dan Carcillo of the Chicago Blackhawks, one of the NHL’s few remaining slugs, drew a six-game suspension for a brutal cross-check from behind on Winnipeg Jets forward Mathieu Perreault, who had scored four goals in a recent game. Carcillo has been suspended nine times and fined on three other occasions for this kind of stuff. And there, on Monday night, was Sportsnet analyst Brad May telling the world that he didn’t mind the play on which Perreault was injured. Hey, Sportsnet, it’s OK for you to suspend May. He would be missed about as much as the NHL would miss Carcillo. . . .
If you didn’t notice, the Vancouver Canucks’ bandwagon is beginning to fill up again. If you hurry, though, you may be able to get a seat near the back. . . . “Man,” wonders Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, “why can't we give Bill Belichick credit for finding a way to deal with runaway inflation?” . . . “Good thing,” Ostler adds, “that Belichick isn’t in charge of the Macy’s Parade.” . . . Seattle Times reader Bill Littlejohn has a suggestion for the Super Bowl halftime show: “How about Air Supply?” . . .
On Monday night, as the host Toronto Maple Leafs were losing 4-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes, three fans threw their replica sweaters onto the ACC ice surface. Toronto police charged two of those fans with public mischief; the Leafs were then charged with impersonating an NHL team. . . .
@mirtle @MapleLeafs this is why people are LOSING it. Pay this kind of money to watch these despicable clowns! pic.twitter.com/mHGn9pVODV
— Marko Bernuchi (@MBernuch) January 20, 2015
You may not have been aware that New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon now heads up Major League Baseball’s finance committee. You also may not be aware that Wilpon was taken to the cleaners by Bernie Madoff as part of perhaps the biggest scam of our time. . . . Headline from TheOnion.com: “NFL investigating whether Patriots played game with properly inflated Vince Wilfork.” . . .
Urban Meyer, the head coach of the national champion Ohio State football Buckeyes, appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and, as usual, refused to say ‘Michigan.’ . . . Not speaking the name of his No. 1 rival is an old act for Meyer. As Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel wrote: “Meyer used to do the same thing (during his Florida tenure) when asked about the Gators’ biggest rival — the Gainesville Police Department.” . . .
Here is Seattle Seahawks punter Jon Ryan, on the 19-yard TD pass he threw out of field goal formation last Sunday: “It was a moment I won’t forget, even though I don’t remember it all right now.” . . . Ryan, who is from Regina, was a goaltender in his hockey-playing days. In fact, he says he was cut by three different WHL teams — the Brandon Wheat Kings, Medicine Hat Tigers and Regina Pats. . . . Larry Walker, who had a terrific baseball career, also was a goaltender back in the day. He was cut by the Regina Pats before deciding to focus on baseball. . . .
During the week, Ryan’s fiancee, Sarah Colonna, sent a tweet in the direct of supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who is married to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady: “My fiancé throws touchdown passes too, so if you wanna hang at the Super Bowl just let me know #twinsies.” . . . “It’s hard to adequately describe just how lurid Victoria Azarenka’s neon-yellow outfit is at the Aussie Open,” writes RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com. “I’ll put it this way: it’s almost as loud as her grunts.” . . . One more from Currie: “I wasn’t surprised to hear ESPN analysts saying Kobe Bryant might pass up the rest of the season. I was surprised to hear ‘Kobe’ and ‘pass’ in the same sentence.” . . .
“(The Twelves) might be a fitting nickname for the collective IQ of the legal team for the Seahawks, who seek trademark protections for various uses of the number 12 and the word ‘boom,’ ” writes Ron Judd of the Seattle Times. “Who do you people think you are, the U.S. Olympic Committee?” . . . One more from Judd, who sums things up nicely: “Deflategate has a touch of evil genius to it, inspired by the very corporate ethic that rules the land. Everyone involved in the Patriots’ blatant cheating scam has built-in, plausible deniability — except the poor, bottom-feeding sap who actually deflated the footballs, who at some point will get canned. God Bless America.”
(Gregg Drinnan is a former sports editor of the Regina Leader-Post and the late Kamloops Daily News. He is at gdrinnan.blogspot.ca and twitter.com/gdrinnan. Keeping Score appears here on weekends, except when it doesn’t.)
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