SWEDES MEATBALLED ... ER, MOTHBALLED

It's all over for the Tre Kroner, and no matter of fanciful, farcical predictions was going to override it.

Germany was on this one like a supermodel on the toilet after a three-course meal. It took all of 12 minutes, the time it took for Lukas Podolski to score twice with help from Miroslav Klose (isn't that redemptive -- both Germany offensive stars today are actually Polish by birth), for it to be all over but the singing and the chanting, as Germany coasted to a 2-0 victory and a berth in the World Cup quarters. Damn.

Just wait until 2010, or Euro 2008. The Swedes will be back, although with the old guard (Henrik Larsson, et al.) slowly fading away, 2014 might be a better bet.

OTHER BUSINESS

• My friend Jay Pinkerton is fearless, because he pushes the rest of us to reveal that we like dumbass movies, too. Anyone who says, "I’m zen enough with my taste in films (or lack thereof) to come clean that I get more emotional resonance from the Die Hard trilogy than Schindler’s List," is my kind of my guy.
• This is why the Toronto Star pays Richard Griffin the big bucks: his column today notes the Jays need to pick up a starting pitching at the trade deadline, something this space pretty taken as a given since early May.
• The Star does have some worthwhile reading about the demographic crunch baseball is facing (it's mostly related to the GTA, but it's applicable in any Canadian major city). The sport's losing ground with both people born in Canada and according to one pollster "isn't even on the radar screen" for many new Canadians.
  
  Can't help but wonder if the media has a little blood on its hands. We all know people are generally sheep-like, so when a non-event (but one that produces cheap and easy programming) such as the NHL draft dominates TSN and Sportsnet's newscast, what are people supposed to think about what sport they should be following? Fifteen years ago, the Jays would have led a Friday night sportscast in the middle of summer.
• CIS football note. Only 69 days 'til another Canadian university season kicks off, there's already sabre-rattling out of Hamilton trying to call attention to the McMaster Marauders, who have played second fiddle to the little school that can, the Laurier Golden Hawks, for two years running. Not only is new head coach Stefan Ptaszek (who came over from Laurier after helping the Hawks win the national title), but 1,000-yard rusher Jordan Kozina and will be joined by newcomer Andre Sadeghian, who was UBC's leading rusher in 2004. And Ptaszek, while at Laurier, did figure out ways to use his fullback as more than a blocker, so he'll probably find ways to get both backs on the field.
  
  Thing is, with Mac, a dominant running game is a given -- it's had a 1,000-yard back pretty much every season since 2000 and yet hasn't reached the Vanier Cup once. The bigger question for its offence is how well Ptaszek adjusts from having had a mobile touch passer at Laurier (Ryan Pyear, who was about 5-foot-10 and 180 lbs.). His new quarterback, Adam Archibald, is a 6-foot-6, 245-lb. pocket passer who has a bazooka arm, but he managed to complete only 51% of his attempts last season.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.