WHERE'D THE YEAR GO... JANUARY

As 2006 draws to a close, we are reminded of a few of the events that brought us closer to you: Dick Cheney shooting a guy in the face, premium ice cream price wars, dogs that were mistakenly issued major credit cards, and others who weren't so lucky ... In our continuing quest to secure a lower rung on the inferno, Out of Left Field looks back at the wild 'n' nutty month of January.

Vince Young's Texas Longhorns beat the Reggie Bush-Matt Leinart USC Trojans to win college's football Bogus Championship Series national title. For many of us, it indirectly ruined college football.

Morals, schmorals, who cares when there's a world junior hockey gold medal to be won? Steve Downie was never pressed to tell the whole truth on his role in a hazing scandal with the Windsor Spitfires, but the media pretended it away when he was helping Canada beat Russia. (It would be bad karma for Hockey Canada, as we would see.)

Bruce Sutter is a Baseball Hall of Famer? Whatever.

Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie set a world record for the 13-mile half-marathon: 58 minutes, 55 seconds. Meantime, some guy in Toronto was sitting in traffic for at least that long on his drive home.

In the most predictable playoff defeat the NFL has seen since their last appearance in 2001, the Chicago Bears are beaten out by the wild-card Carolina Panthers in the NFC divisional playoffs.

Mario Lemieux retires from the Pittsburgh Penguins for the 17th and final time.

Kobe Bryant does Raptors fans a friggin' favour, dropping 81 points on Toronto -- which turns out to be the last straw for overmatched general manager Rob Babcock. Team management promised they wouldn't go get another "bargain basement GM." Little did we know...

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