UP AT 6: NO AMOUNT OF JERKS WILL HURT THE JOHNSONS

I don't want to get into a semantic debate. I just want the protein.

• Remember the Boise State footballer who proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend after scoring the winning points in that timeless Fiesta Bowl vs. Oklahoma last January? Ian Johnson, who's African-American, is facing numerous racial threats over marrying Chrissy Popadics, who is white.
  
  No matter what, there's always going to be jerks to ruin a good sports story. (Deadspin now has a thread going.)
• Alyssa Milano might be past he-should-start-the-all-star-game phase with Canada's own Russ Martin, the L.A. Dodgers catcher.
• The Senators have signed goalie Ray Emery to a new contract. He'll make almost as much as his backup!
• There's absolutely no way Bob McCown will make a big deal out of this: An irate soccer mom went berserk at, wait for it, an under-8 game in Toronto last weekend and tried to go after a 14-year-old ref. The incident led to assault and resisting arrest charges. All together now: It's such a great game for kids, it's not overly intense, the focus is on fun.
• In these times of uncertainty, it's reassuring to know sportsnet.ca's Hockey Hearsay is still bent on being a forum for apparent plagiarism:
  
  

  "One selling point seems to be that Katz might invest some of his vast supply of dollars into a downtown arena. You know the story: provide more bells and whistles for the paying customer and simultaneously inject life into a neglected corner of our city."

  Now let's bring in John Short of Sun Media:
  
  

  "One selling point seems to be that Katz might invest some of his vast supply of dollars into a downtown arena. You know the story: provide more bells and whistles for the paying customer and simultaneously inject life into a neglected corner of our city."

  Is it that hard to type "Short writes" and use quotation marks?
• Moving around is the nature of the radio game, but still: For Kingston-area readers wondering where former K-Rock 105.7 morning man Shadoe Davis went, he's starting a new gig at 106.9 The Bear in Ottawa.
  
  Don't worry, though. After the way he campaigned for the downtown arena, surely Davis will opt for the 4 1/2-hour round trip to Kingston every time he wants to see a favourite band instead of just going to Scotiabank Place.
• It's never too early to start the Hec Crighton hype in the CIS: Chris Ciezki is returning to the UBC Thunderbirds after being cut by the CFL's Lions. How good was Ciezki last season? Throw out a farcical game when Ciezki was left in to run 30 times for 328 yards in a 67-13 rout of Simon Fraser (which went winless) and he still would have led the country in yards-per-carry.
  
  Ciezki and Windsor's Daryl Stephenson, the reigning Hec Crighton winner, give the CIS two returning 1,000-yard rushers. Now, here's where it would make sense to market the Hec Crighton race better. The archaic system where the Hec candidates only become known nationally after each conference picks its outstanding player near the end of the season might have worked in 1980, but not today.

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