Here’s Jack Todd in the Montreal Gazette, after the Canadiens dropped the Boston Bruins on Sunday and former Vancouver Giants captain Brendan Gallagher had his grinning mug in the middle of it all: “If you’re thinking Calder Trophy, the numbers don’t begin to tell the story with Gallagher. He’s everywhere. He’s a nuisance. He streaks in on goal in a crouch so low he’s head-to-head with a goalie on his knees. He makes things happen.” . . . Which isn’t news to followers of the WHL. . . . Here’s Todd, again: “Saturday night, Don Cherry blamed Sidney Crosby for causing his own concussions and said if the Penguins star played the way Cherry told him to, he would never have gotten hurt. Can you spell ‘delusional?’ ” . . .Kelly Olynyk has been named one of 14 finalists for the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Year Trophy. Olynyk, who is from Kamloops and plays for the No. 1-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs, is averaging 17.7 points and 7.0 rebounds per game. The winner of the award, as selected by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, will be announced April 5. He also has been named his conference’s player of the year and to its all-star team. . . . In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Seattle Mariners have been putting on a power display in spring training. In fact, they have belted 30 home runs in 25 games. Could be that fans will be calling them the Puget Sound Power Company this season. . . .
Three cheers for Paul MacLean, the head coach of the Ottawa Senators. Mike Lundin was levelled by a fierce and illegal check a week ago and immediately after the game MacLean said his defenceman had suffered a concussion. . . . Everyone suspected it, so why not admit it? Nothing looks sillier than a coach in that situation telling people that the player has an “upper body injury.” . . . “Tiger hasn’t won a major since 2008,” notes Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, “but continues to draw the largest galleries — mostly gold-digging blondes hoping for a relapse.” . . .
Cam Hutchinson, in the Saskatoon Express: “I get the sensation of fingers raking a chalkboard whenever I hear a coach or journalist talking about a player’s compete level.” . . . One more from Hutchinson: “Detroit has been ranked as the most miserable city in the U.S. ‘We feel your pain,’ said everyone in Regina.” . . . With Dennis Rodman spreading peace and goodwill in North Korea, Ian Hamilton of the Regina Leader-Post asked: “If the trip was all about diplomacy, why didn’t Lakers forward Metta World Peace go along?” . . .
A couple of years ago, the Philadelphia Phillies looked at Tyson Gillies of Kamloops as a potential replacement for Shane Victorino in centre field. Victorino has moved on to the Boston Red Sox, but Gillies isn’t likely to take over from him this season. The Phillies feel it’s more important that Gillies, who has been plagued by injuries and a couple of off-field incidents the last two years, play a full season, either at Double-A Reading or Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Reports out of the Phillies’ camp, before Gillies left to play for Canada at the World Baseball Classic, had him looking thicker in the upper body than last season, something that has put a bit more pop into his bat. . . .
“If there are any more lawsuits with poor Lance Armstrong,” writes Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News, “he’s going to have to think about a summer job. Maybe delivering papers from his bike.” . . . You could make the case that no one in Major League Baseball had a better 2012 season than did outfielder Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels. So what did the Angels do? They renewed the second-year outfielder’s contract at US$510,000, which is $20,000 more than the minimum for players with his experience. . . . Teammate Vernon Wells makes more than $152,000 per game. . . .
“Guido, one of the Milwaukee Brewers’ racing sausages that went missing, has been found,” scribbles RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com. “This comes as a relief to his fellow mascots, who feared for the wurst.” . . . Here’s Currie, on the NFL Combine that was held in Indianapolis: “Combine talk all week mainly revolved around Manti Te’o and Tyrann Mathieu. Except in Saskatchewan, where it was John Deere and Massey Ferguson.” . . .
If you missed it, Muscle & Fitness magazine has named Arnold Schwarzenegger as executive editor. “Apparently,” notes Jim Barach of WCHS-TV in Charleston, W.Va., “he was turned down at Good Housekeeping.” . . . Only in the Excited States could the NRA sign on as the naming sponsor of a NASCAR Sprint Cup race. The NRA 500 will run at, naturally, Texas Motor Speedway on April 13. “In lieu of a green flag,” writes Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times, “there’ll be a shotgun start.”
———
“The girls are out to bingo and the boys are gettin’ stinko,
“And we think no more of Inco on a Sudbury Saturday night.
“The glasses they will tinkle when our eyes begin to twinkle,
“And we’ll think no more of Inco on a Sudbury Saturday night.”
– Thomas Charles (Stompin’ Tom) Connors, Feb. 9, 1936 – March 6, 2013
(Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca, gdrinnan.blogspot.ca and twitter.com/gdrinnan. Keeping Score appears Saturdays, except when it doesn’t.)
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