MOTHER'S DAY MISSIVES

In the past 12 hours, I've watched Kicking & Screaming and the fourth quarter of a NFL Europe game. Call me crazy, but I'm starting to wonder if I have too much time on my hands.

• Question: Roy Halladay put so little strain on his arm last night -- throwing only 88 pitches and facing just one batter more than the minimum in an 8-1 Blue Jays win over the Devil Rays. So can he take Josh Towers' turn in the rotation today? No? Why not?
• Halladay had serious no-hitter stuff last night. That, in my mind at least, created a potentially embarrassing situation for the Jays owners. The game wasn't on Rogers Sportsnet -- it was treated as one of those dud games that gets shuffled off to the free preview for the MLB Extra Innings package that Rogers offers for cable customers. So essentially, they could have ended up with a major moment in Jays history, being described for Jays fans by some anonymous Fox Sports Net Florida announcers or whatever.
• New NHL, Same Old Sens: You won't see the John Muckler Face next year, if the Toronto Star's game story is to be believed; Damien Cox calls it a damning indictment; Chris Stevenson of the Ottawa Sun says they "waited too long for the desperation to kick in." But at least Daniel Alfredsson still has his sense of humour, telling the Sun's Don Brennan that he was, "All Swedish, no Finnish." And a "defensively, he was a little bit Pylon," Brennan adds.
• James Mirtle calls Alfredsson's play on Jason Pominville's game-winner "downright disgraceful." You can say a lot about Alfredsson but Dany (Mr. October) Heatley coughed up the puck to give Pominville his chance. And Jason Spezza was taking his sweet time coming back to his own zone. Of course, that's because he's not exactly sure where his own zone is half the time.
• With respect to Alfredsson, it appears the captain has to go down with the ship. The fans have moved on to Stage 2, Anger, and they're calling for someone's head to roll. Of course, Leafs fans do this every spring (well, when the Leafs actually make the playoffs) with Mats Sundin, who's not the problem.
• Bottom line, Ottawa will have to make some changes to pacify their fan base. This isn't Toronto. People still expect you to try and fix your team.

That's all for now. Happy Mother's Day.