HOCKEY WEEKEND: HELP A COACH OUT

Battle of Alberta has, half tongue in cheek, set up the MacT Relief Fund to pay for the $10,000 fine Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish (top photo) received from the NHL for his post-game comments about referee Mick McGeough (bottom photo) on Friday. McGeough made some, uh, controversial calls, including one that nullified Edmonton's apparent tying goal in the final seconds of a 3-2 loss.

It was so abject that even the newspaper guys, who as a general rule shy away from commenting on referees since they want to avoid accusations of hometown bias, pretty much came right out and said Mr. Magoo could have done a better job than Mick McGeough.

At this writing, BofA has $232.28, and they say they'll be stoked if they raise $500 -- which as one wag pointed out, could be donated to the CNIB.

My donation is in the mail, lads. Meantime, Edmonton sports fans, take it easy.

It's November, the CFL division finals are next Sunday, so the Eskimos... what do you mean they didn't make the playoffs? Just kidding.

Only one game last night -- Daniel Brière scored in overtime to lift the Sabres past the Rangers, 4-3, so here's some loose ends left over from the weekend.

• It always looks different from afar. Mudcrutch puts a positive spin on the Ottawa Senators' slow start, pointing out they've managed to go 5-7 -- with four one-goal losses -- despite having the league's worst power play. By the way, word has it that the Canucks' Brendan Morrison could be that No. 2 centre the Sens are coveting.
• The Leafs beat the Sabres in Buffalo, which like never happens. Like Elaine Benes on an old Seinfeld episode, I am speechless. I am without speech. To top it off, a fellow Leafs fan and I were tracking it on the out-of-town scoreboard at Scotiabank Place, where we were watching from the good seats as the Sens blew a two-goal lead and lost to Carolina. We were cheering for Ottawa for one night only. It seemed odd that not everyone joined in the standing ovation for Daniel Alfredsson when he finally ended his scoring drought.

HOMETOWN BREAKDOWN

Friday night, I related how I ended up catching a bus home from the vicinity of the Ottawa Civic Centre. The passengers were kept entertained by, some, uh, sufficiently lubricated guys around 19 or 20 years old who'd been cheering for the Plymouth Whalers that night against the 67s, apparently since they knew Whalers forward Andrew Fournier, who's from the Kingston area.

Yesterday, Fournier was one of several Whalers who sat in the stands in Kingston, suspended for violating curfew on Saturday in, of all places, Belleville. Well, who among us hasn't been seduced by the bright lights of Bellevegas?

So like Conan O'Brien's Halloween show, the Whalers employed a skeleton crew -- 12 skaters -- and the result was a gift 5-2 win for the Frontenacs. Hey, with the kind of start the Fronts have had, they'll take any win right now, even if it's over a team that decides to play short-handed in its third game in three days.

Fournier was turning 19 yesterday, which is legal drinking age in Ontario. "Not the way I wanted to spend my birthday," he dryly observed to the Whig-Standard's Doug Graham.

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