
As I have watched the momentum shifts in the various hockey games at the Olympic Winter Games, I find myself waiting for an enforcer to come off one team’s bench and attempt to regain the momentum for his side. . . . If you have been watching the Olympic hockey, you will be aware that no one has had a better couple of weeks than play-by-play man extraordinaire Jim Hughson. . . .
Some of Sochi’s stray dogs have been adopted by Olympic athletes. As blogger T.C. Chong wrote: “One American is bringing home a dog, and has already named it Sochi. A British guy wants to adopt one as well. Name? Eddie the Beagle, of course.” . . . According to Chong, retired American figure skater Johnny Weir, who has been working for NBC-TV at the Olympics, badly wants to meet Don Cherry. “Weir wants to ask him what he does with his old clothes,” Chong reports. . . .
Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the gold medal in ice dancing at the Olympic Winter Games, with Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir taking silver. Both pairs have the same coach, Marina Zoueva. Somewhere Scotty Bowman is thinking: “Why didn’t I think of that?” . . . “I've devoted more time in the last five minutes to ice dancing than my entire life to date,” Ray Ratto of CSNBayArea.com wrote during the final of the Olympic figure-skating event. “I just want to see what an actual fix is like.” . . .
“Saskatchewan skip Brad Heidt told the CBC that curlers get frustrated because they can't vent anger like NHL players,” writes RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com. “True, but if that changes, I want Ryan Harnden as my enforcer.” . . . One more from Currie: “I think we can all agree that the perimeter of a curling rock is round. So how can you corner freeze to it?” . . .
Headline at SportsPickle.com: Kurt Russell begs Team USA to win hockey gold so he can maybe get another acting job. . . . Headline at the Onion.com: Richie Incognito Disappointed Wells Report Left Out Best Stuff He Did To Jonathan Martin. . . . Judging by his reaction to a bit of a nosebleed during a Thursday night game, there isn’t any hockey player in LeBron James. For a minute, it looked as though they were going to have to give him a stretcher ride to the dressing room. Yes, The King is soft. . . .
During a Toronto Maple Leafs game prior to the Olympics, a wedding proposal was shown on the Kiss Cam. After which Randy Turner of the Winnipeg Free Press noted: “First time anybody’s got a ring there since 1967.” . . . Congrats to Kibwe Johnson, who will be inducted into the Gwinnett County, Ga., Sports Hall of Fame on May 9. Johnson, one of the United States’ top hammer throwers, lives and trains in Kamloops. He is one of three Americans to have broken the 80-metre barrier in his sport. . . .
You will recall that one of the five Olympic rings didn’t light up during the Winter Games’ opening ceremony. As Seattle Times reader Bill Littlejohn explained: “Rings have a way of disappearing when Vladimir Putin is around, said Robert Kraft.” . . . A San Francisco radio station apparently left the Olympic hockey game between the U.S. and Russia before the game ended in a shootout. Littlejohn noted: “The show that it picked up was called Hooked on Golf. In this week's show, the golf pro gives lessons to a girl named Heidi.” . . .
Here’s Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, with a Winter Olympics-related tidbit: “I have been told there is one actual sport, biathlon, that involves both cross-country skiing and shooting guns. That happens to be a very popular sport in Miami, but without the cross-country skiing part.” . . . Someone asked the great Charles Barkley about curling. His response: “It’s dusting.” . . . Comedian Erik Rolfsen, after Derek Jeter announced that 2014 would be his last season as a pro baseballer: “Derek Jeter has played in more post-season games than the Cubs and White Sox franchises combined. He's also broken more hearts than the Cubbies.” . . .
Social note: Julianne Hough, who visited Splitsville with Ryan Seacrest just last year, now is being seen out and about with Brooks Laich, a former WHLer who plays for the NHL’s Washington Capitals. You‘re right, Laich has come a long, long way from Wawota, Sask. . . . Here’s Janice Hough, aka the Left Coast Sports Babe, who isn’t related to Julianne: “The Clowns of America president says that membership numbers are plummeting because the younger generation isn’t going into the profession, and that the country may be facing a clown shortage. Well, we can always borrow some from Congress.” . . . Gee, there might even be a Canadian senator or three available. . . .
If you missed it, Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the non-profit organization known as the NFL, was paid US $44.2 million in 2013. Someone broke it down to approximately $850,000 per week, or $170,000 per day, or $21,000 per hour. . . . And then there’s swimmer Jaring Timmerman of Winnipeg, who has worked through injuries, including torn shoulder ligaments, suffered in his younger days to set age-group records. “That’s what they call a swimmer’s shoulder,” Timmerman, who is 104, told CBC News. “I got that when I was about 100.”
(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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Dillon, 17, and a conditional fourth-round selection in the 2015 bantam draft. . . . According to Edmonton’s news release: “If Dillon plays in the WHL, a fourth-round pick is returned to the Broncos.” . . . Shmoorkoff is pointless in 16 games with the Oil Kings this season. . . . The Edmonton native had four points, one of them a goal, in 34 games last season. . . . “(Shmoorkoff) is a veteran defenceman with experience in a winning organization,” Mark Lamb, the Broncos’ general manager and head coach, said in a
news release. “He is a very physical player and will bring his physicality and wealth of experience to our young defensive group moving forward.” . . . Dillon, from Victoria, is a 6-foot-5, 170-pounder who was a fifth-round selection in the 2011 bantam draft. He is with the BCHL’s Victoria Grizzlies, going 2.49, .917 in 13 games. . . . At the same time, the Broncos sent F Brandan Arnold, 16, to the midget AAA Tisdale, Sask., Trojans. Arnold, from Dodsland, Sask., was pointless in one game. He was a seventh-round pick in the 2012 bantam draft.
F Anthony Ast of the Vancouver Giants has been honoured with the Canadian Diabetes Association’s National Young Volunteers of the Year Award. . . . Ast, 18, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in January 2002. . . . The Giants’ news release is
Old friend Ben Laursen will be in the spotlight in the first intermission Friday as the Brandon Wheat Kings play host to the Prince Albert Raiders. Laursen, who has been a volunteer with the Wheat Kings since before Rudy Pilous was the head coach, will be saluted by the Wheat Kings and Atom-Jet Group as the Innovator of the Month. . . . These days, Laursen is the director of off-ice officials.









Former WHLer Jonathan Milhouse (Everett, 2005-07) made his professional debut with the ECHL’s Victoria Salmon Kings in a 3-2 victory over the visiting Idaho Steelheads on Tuesday. F Mark Derlago (Brandon, 2003-07), playing his eighth game, scored his eighth goal of the young season for Idaho in that one. That gave him a share of the league lead. . . . F David Toews (high ankle sprain) may return to the Brandon Wheat Kings’ lineup tonight as they meet the visiting Spokane Chiefs. Rob Henderson of the Brandon Sun reports that Toews, who hasn’t played in a month, skated Thursday on a line with Mike Ferland and Scott Glennie. . . . The Wheat Kings also will have F Jens Meilleur (broken hand), D Ryley Miller (jaw, concussion) and F Shayne Wiebe (leg) available tonight. . . . However, Brandon has had illness in its dressing room and F Hampus Gustafsson and D Eric Roy didn’t practise Thursday. . . . One of the WHL’s best rivalries resumes tonight as the Moose Jaw Warriors visit the Regina Pats. Regina will be without F Andrew Rieder (shoulder), while the Warriors are listing F Joey Kornelson (shoulder) and F Brendan Rowinski (knee) as day-to-day. Rowinski, a 30-goal man last season, had major knee surgery over the offseason and is getting awfully close to returning. . . . This also is the first meeting between Moose Jaw and Regina since the Pats hired former Warriors general manager Chad Lang as their GM. . . . Regina hasn’t played since absorbing an 11-1 beating at the hands of the visiting Spokane Chiefs on Saturday night. . . . And, yes, the teams will meet again Saturday, this time in the Crushed Can. . . . Rowinski just may return to the Moose Jaw lineup on Saturday. . . . Spokane F Levko Koper had six points, including two goals, in that Saturday victory. The last Chiefs player to enjoy a six-point game? F Ned Lukacevic had three goals and three assists in a 7-4 victory over the visiting Portland Winterhawks on Dec. 15, 2004. . . . Spokane F Anthony Bardaro, who had 11 points in 63 games last season, is enjoying a six-game point streak. He has all four of his goals and seven of his nine assists over his last six games. . . . The Saskatoon Blades have assigned D Davis Vandane, 18, to the SJHL’s Yorkton Terriers, while moving F Austin Daae, 17, to an as-yet-unnamed junior A team. . . . F Joel Ridgeway (Tri-City, Portland, 2006-10) of the Selkirk Steelers is the MJHL’s RBC player of the month. He put up 26 points, including 13 goals, in his first 18 games.

