FRIDAY AFTERNOON SIX-PACK: GETTING READY FOR AN AVERAGE WEEKEND

Some stuff for your Friday afternoon:

• Bad news for the Toronto Maple Leafs: Young defenceman Carlo Colaiacovo had to be taken off the ice today at training camp after taking ill. Might be related to the concussion problems he's had for some time now. (Via James Mirtle.)
• Baseball spotlight is on SoCal this weekend -- the surging San Diego Padres can move ahead of the L.A. Dodgers for first place in the NL West if 43-year-old David Wells outpitches 40-year-old Greg Maddux tonight in the opener of a four-game series at Dodger Stadium. San Diego is not only on a noble quest to set the record for fewest wins in back-to-back division-winning seasons, but it's also 11-3 against L.A. this season. That would loom large if the teams end up tied for the division and wild-card spot.
• It's always easy to be cynical, but you know going in that Blue Jays will find a way not to sweep the Devil Rays this weekend.
• Pigskin prognostications, NFL and Canadian university style. (Neil Acharya and Pat Pearce have contributed to the NFL selections.)
• The Detroit Tigers go into Baltimore and have to face two of the Orioles' highly regarded young pitchers, Hayden Penn tonight and Daniel Cabrera on Sunday. Both are wildly unpredictable (especially Cabrera), but when either is on, look out -- especially against the free-swinging Tigers. They could easily add to Detroit's growing misery.
• Don't go taking a playoff berth for the Toronto Raptors for granted. Yes, the overall talent level is much higher, but in and of itself, that doesn't mean they will be a better team. They may end up somewhere around the 33 games they won two seasons ago. The Toronto Star's Chris Young throws out this barometer for the Raptors: "My No. 1 player to watch is Joey Graham -- the lower he ends up on the depth chart, the farther ahead this team is on its growth curve."
  
  (By the way, thank you so much, Chris, for the link today.)
• Plan for the weekend: Tomorrow it's the Queen's Homecoming Game, the Golden Gaels vs. the Windsor Lancers. Here's hoping the Gaels give the CFRC play-by-play crew plenty of chances to run "You're With Me, Leather" into the ground a little more.

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