“Carmelo Anthony is apparently planning to opt out of his contract with the New York Knicks,” notes Janice Hough, aka The Left Coast Sports Babe. “What a shame to break up such a great 37-45 team.” . . . “LeBron James will opt out of his Miami Heat deal. Assume the Spurs have already told him, ‘No thanks.’ ” . . . Hough again: “Wonder how many Miami fans are checking Cleveland websites for advice on the best way to burn jerseys.” . . .

Headline at SportsPickle.com: Pentagon unveils plans for new $390 million T-shirt cannon. . . . “Second seed Li Na was upset at Wimbledon,” reports RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com. “Barbora Zahlavova Strycova overwhelmed her 23 letters to 4.” . . . “A sign of prosperity or waste in Riderville,” wonders Cam Hutchinson of the Saskatoon Express. “Every retired player seems to have a job in the front office.” . . .

My wife and I were in our car in the parking lot at our doctor’s office on Thursday afternoon when a guy pulled up in his truck. It was a Ford F350 Lariat Super Duty Powerstroke Turbo Diesel V-8. . . . He sat in it and left it running. Then he lit a cigarette, put down his window and let us share in the smoke. . . . My first thought was that the guy is a disrespectful clown. My second thought was that the guy must be a lottery winner. . . . “I'm on a 3-week cleanse,” tweets Vancouver radio personality Torben Rolfsen. “No vegetables or fibre.” . . . Rolfsen also noted that the World Cup took Friday off because “all the FIFA officials are huge NHL draft junkies.” . . .

“Tired of British voices on World Cup broadcasts?” writes Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot. “Then turn to Univision’s coverage of the Copa Mundial, where announcers and analysts excitedly talk and shout and always appear to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And that’s before the games start.” . . . Russia and South Korea played to a 1-1 draw during the World Cup, after which, according to Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald, “Vladimir Putin suggested the tie be broken by a military invasion.” . . . Contributor Bill Littlejohn, after Uruguay’s Luis Suarez was suspended for four months for a biting incident: “He asked FIFA if he could serve it in bite-sized increments.” . . . Headline at Fark.com: Chewy Luis in the news. . . . Headline at SportsPickle.com: FIFA officials discover dozens of gnawed-off body parts in Luis Suarez’s locker. . . . The British version of The Huffington Post went with: Chewy Luis and the Blues. . . .

Here‘s comedy writer Alex Kaseberg: “In the World Cup, Mexico faced Croatia. Or as they call that in Los Angeles, the three hours where nobody’s lawn was cared for.” . . . Bennie Logan, the Philadelphia Eagles’ nose tackle, has upped his weight at the request of the coaching staff. As Logan explained: “Most people, when they picture a nose tackle, they picture a 330-plus guy, just clogging up the middle. But the way we play our defence, you’ve got to be able to run. And I don’t feel I’d be able to run or do the things our coaches, in our scheme, require us to do. That’s why I’m not 330, or put on that much weight.” . . . So how much does Bennie weight? He tips the Toledo at a dainty 319 pounds. . . .

Kibwe Johnson, who lives and trains in Kamloops, won the men’s hammer throw title at the U.S. Outdoor track-and-field championships in Sacramento, Calif., on Thursday. It was his third national outdoor title in the last four years. “I really thought I had another meter or two in me, so I am not terribly happy,” Johnson told Michael Wagaman of The Associated Presss. “But the main goal was to win and I did that.” Johnson threw 243 feet 4 inches; he won in 2011 by throwing 266-9. . . . Johnson, who was born in San Francisco, moved to Kamloops in order to train under the tutelage of Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk. . . .

“An American Legion baseball game in Juneau, Alaska, was briefly interrupted because a bear was roaming along the outfield fence,” reports Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times. “It nearly became the first game called on account of game.” . . . One more from Perry: “The Milwaukee Brewers scored three runs on one wild pitch by Colorado Rockies pitcher Christian Friedrich (last) Saturday. No word on whether Rockies manager Walt Weiss took the team to Dairy Queen after the game.”

(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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Kibwe becomes hall of famer

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.)

There has never been a subscription fee for this blog, but if you enjoy stopping by here, why not consider donating to the cause? Just click HERE. . . and thank you very much.