You had to know Sunday’s Grey Cup game couldn’t live up to expectations, not after Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca set the bar so high like that. . . . Here’s Tony Kornheiser, on Monday’s PTI: “Joe Kapp was a caveman 40 years ago. . . . Even with that Berkley education, Joe Kapp was a swing-first guy all the time. This was the best thing I saw all weekend.” . . . The video of the Kapp-Mosca fracas got play from CNN and The New York Times, as well as ESPN’s Monday Night Football pregame show. It also went international thanks to BBC World TV. . . . The CFL couldn’t buy that kind of exposure. . . . Kapp and Mosca each turns 74 early in 2012. As Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times noted: “Hey, they don’t call it the Grey Cup for nothing.” . . .
One more from Perry: “The good news is that the NBA will kick off its season on Christmas Day. The bad news? It’s this Christmas.” . . . In advance of last weekend’s Grey Cup game, Ian Hamilton of the Regina Leader-Post scribbled: “Everyone’s ready for Sunday’s Grey Cup in Vancouver. The teams are prepared, the fans are set to cheer, and the merchants have hammered up sheets of plywood in their store windows.” . . .
The Miami Caliente of the Lingerie Football League has folded. “At least,” writes Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, “every player was given a pink slip.” . . . Here’s Cote, recalling the roots of the American Thanksgiving holiday: “Some know the history of the holiday traces to 1621, and if that year sounds familiar, it should. That was the last time the (Florida) Panthers made the NHL playoffs.” . . .
If you’re around the McArthur Island Sport and Event Centre this weekend and think that woman looks familiar, it’s because she is Melody Davidson, who these days is coaching a Red Deer bantam team and working as Hockey Canada’s head female scout. Before helping with the female bantam Chiefs, the last game she coached was — you guessed it! — the gold medal game at the Vancouver Olympics. . . . Headline at Onionsports.com: Rex Ryan Clothes Hundreds of Needy Children With Donation of Sweater Vest . . . .
When the Washington Capitals juggled things this week, head coach Bruce Boudreau and assistant Bob Woods were dismissed. That means Dean Evason, the former Kamloops Blazers star and head coach, remains on the Capitals’ staff as an assistant under new man Dale Hunter. . . . Janice Hough, the Left Coast Sports Babe, has a novel idea: “Listening to all these NFL players introduce themselves and their colleges, I propose a new rule — you only get to mention your college or university if you actually have graduated.” . . .
A.J. Eathorne of Penticton, a veteran of the LPGA tour, has signed on at Predator Ridge and will be part of its Golf Academy team. When the 2012 season gets here, she will be responsible for, among other things, ladies’ instruction and continued development of the junior program. . . . So under the NHL’s new standards with Sheriff Shanahan in charge, Sidney Crosby skates away scot-free after delivering two cross-checks to the left arm and a sharp elbow to the jaw of Nick Foligno of the Ottawa Senators. . . . As someone told me, “Put Torres or Carcillo on that name plate and that player is suspended.” . . .
Len Berman, at thatssports.com: “It’s official, they’ve run out of things to trash on all-sports radio. I actually heard a radio host say . . . that the ‘Thanksgiving feast is over-rated.’ I didn’t stick around to hear his opinion on Santa pulling his weight or whether the Easter Bunny is in the twilight of his career.” . . . Berman, by the way, is rooting for Denver Broncos QB Tim Tebow. “I love the fact that he gave his team a pep talk by quoting the Bible,” Berman muses. “I wonder how many of his teammates had read a good book lately?” . . .
NBA analyst Charles Barkley, who was knows as the Round Mound of Rebound during his playing days, is doing some hot yoga these days. But he’s trying to be patient. “105 (degrees) bro,” he told ESPN Radio in Chicago. “It’s 105, but I like it, it helps me with my flexibility. But like I said, I still have got a long way to go. You take a glass of water out of the ocean, it’s still the ocean.” . . . Eric (Badlands) Booker is a competitive eater who goes through two heads of boiled cabbage as he prepares for a turkey-eating contest. As he told the New York Daily News: “Your stomach is like a muscle. You gotta train for any sport you do.” . . . Competitive eating? Are we living in a great time, or what? . . .
The sooner Boxing Day gets here, the better. Why? Because TSN will have to stop assaulting our senses with those World Junior Championship commercials. . . . Once an hour is enough, isn’t it?. . . . With the Los Angeles Dodgers for sale, comedian Argus Hamilton notes: “It will take a while to sort out the best offer. Peter O’Malley’s interested in buying the team, Mark Cuban’s interested in buying the team and Kim Kardashian is interested in marrying the team.”
(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.)
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