You have to wonder how Seattle SuperSonics fans are feeling as they watch their old franchise, now the Oklahoma City Thunder, play in the NBA final. . . . Here’s columnist Steve Kelley in the Seattle Times: “Watching the celebration in OKC made me feel a little bit like the jilted boyfriend who hears his ex-girlfriend just won the lottery. The part that angers me most watching all the yahooing in Oklahoma City is that the city hasn’t earned this team. It hasn’t suffered. OKC fans remind me of Florida Marlins or Arizona Diamondbacks baseball fans, who practically inherited championship teams.” . . . “What do Seattle and Miami have in common?” asks Dwight Perry of the Times. “They’re the only cities in America rooting for the Heat.” . . .
If you watched B.C.’s 44-10 preseason whupping of the visiting Saskatchewan Roughriders on Wednesday, you saw Lions head coach Mike Benevides get precariously close to the Bill Belichick look. Benevides needs to get a few more games on that hoodie, however, before he gets that real homeless look like Belichick. . . . You also may have noticed numbers on the helmets of the Saskatchewan players. I’m told they are to make the players more easily identifiable when the coaches are watching video and that they will be gone when the regular season opens. . . . Rob Vanstone of the Regina Leader-Post, after Wednesday’s game: “The Riders-Lions debacle ended just in time for me to (change the channel) and see the final out of Matt Cain’s perfect game — the first in San Francisco Giants history. The Giants, who won 10-0, put as many points on the board as did the Roughriders. Saskatchewan’s defensive ends, meanwhile, were working on a no-hitter.” . . . Gotta think there’s lots of room on the Green and White bandwagon. . . .
Just because it’s summer here doesn’t mean it’s not speed skating season. Jessica Hewitt of Kamloops and her national short track teammates are training in Budapest, Hungary, these days and will stay there until June 23. Then it’s on to Montreal and more training. . . . “Miami Beach Polo World Cup ended,” notes Greg Cote of the Miami Herald. “Horse crap was the second-most unappealing sight in South Beach, after overweight male t-ourists in thongs.” . . .
One of these days, Ken Olynyk, the head honcho over at the TRU athletic department, will get around to telling the world that he has signed two of his coaches — Pat Hennelly and Scott Reeves — to three-year contract extensions. . . . As for TRU soccer moving to CIS, that won’t be happening until at least 2014. . . . Former Kamloops Blazers defenceman Shaone Morrisonn (1999-2002) is taking his skates to Russia. Morrisonn, who has played 480 NHL games with Boston, Washington and Buffalo, has signed a one-year deal with Spartak Moscow of the KHL. He played last season with the AHL’s Rochester Americans. . . . Forward Jarret Lukin, who played 286 games with your Blazers before being dealt to the Medicine Hat Tigers during the 2004-05 season, has signed on for another season with the Central league’s Allen Americans. He had 43 points in 61 games for the Texas-based club last season. . . . It sounds as though former Blazers star/head coach Dean Evason is soon to be unemployed after a five-season stint as an assistant coach with the NHL’s Washington Capitals. General manager George McPhee has yet to hire a head coach to replace Dale Hunter, and told media this week that Evason and fellow assistant Jim Johnson will “probably not” return. He then added: “We’ll see.” . . . Don’t think that vote of confidence would be enough to secure a loan from a friendly banker. . . . .
There were only 22,028 folks in Safeco Field a week ago when the host Seattle Mariners used six pitchers to no-hit and beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 1-0. Included among the crowd were Michele and Guy Charron, and the Blazers’ head coach was all smiles as he talked about it in a parking lot in Bellingham the next day. . . . It was only the second time in MLB history that as many pitchers had combined on a no-hitter. . . . The first time it happened was in 2003 by the Houston Astros. . . . No, Charron wasn’t at that one. . . . After former L.A. Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda was hospitalized in New York following a heart attack, Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson, who played for Lasorda, told The Associated Press: “Probably went out and pounded a huge meal, and went down. I’ve eaten several meals with him, so I know what it’s like. I felt like I was having a heart attack after eating with him as well.” . . .
Former pro grappler George (The Animal) Steele is 75 but he hasn’t lost a thing. The guy who used to bite chunks out of turnbuckles took a piece out of a baseball the other night before he threw out the first pitch at a Rochester, N.Y., Red Wings game. “We had these little softer balls that we toss into the crowd during the seventh-inning stretch,” Nick Sciarratta, the team’s director of corporate development, told Fox Sports. “He took one look at it and said, ‘No, I want a real ball.’ It got a great reaction from the crowd.” . . . No one has better promotions than minor league baseball teams. Some junior hockey teams should be paying attention. . . .
Scott Ostler, in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Floyd Mayweather Jr., preparing to serve his three-month jail sentence, gets a pedicure. Is this really the time to pretty up?” . . . One more from Ostler: “You had to love how beautifully Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili played the game before they ran out of gas. But maybe their downfall was karma payback for all the atrocious flopping. Best flopping team ever.” . . . You have to think the window of opportunity has slammed shut on the San Antonio Spurs. The deeper the series went with the OKC Thunder, the older Parker, Duncan and Ginobli seemed to grow. . . . Sheesh! It was like the reverse of Cocoon. . . . A tweet from Mark Whicker of the Orange County Register: “Scrolling, in vain attempt to find tennis, I saw Pilates With Susan Lucci. I believe she used to date Pontius.”
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