SNOW JOB ON LONG ISLAND: IS THIS DAVID STERN'S HANDIWORK?

Somehow, NBA Commissioner David Stern, who's a favourite target for conspiracy theories, is behind this: it's a fiendish plot to make his friend Isiah Thomas and New York Knicks look relatively less batshit by comparison by having another New York team -- that even wears blue and orange -- saddled with even more clueless, batshit management.

The New York Islanders have canned Neil Smith as general manager and replaced him with, wait for it, goalie Garth Snow. Some of you no doubt immediately realized this already improves the Islanders, since it means Snow will no longer be playing goal for them.

Seriously, Garth Snow is now a NHL GM? Starting tomorrow? At first glance upon reading this at James Mirtle's blog a half-hour ago, the assumption was it had to be some kind of joke. Well, it is some kind of joke, but it's really happening and the few remaining Islanders loyalists probably aren't laughing.

David Stern and his NBA spies must have pulled some strings to make this happen. That can be the only possible explanation.

Either that, or it's part of an even zanier scheme to make the Islanders so irrelevant in NYC that the team has to relocate. Ideally, it would be for some mid-continent city such as Winnipeg or Kansas City, where the name "Islanders" would be completely incongruent with the local landscape.

Or maybe it's neither. It's just a day in the life of the New York Islanders -- who are not so much a hockey team as a Kurt Vonnegut or Paul Quarrington novel.

Off to watch the Ottawa Lynx on 25-cent hot dog night.

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