This has nothing to do with any decision handed down just now by Judge Redfield T. Baum

The dream never dies ... just the dreamer.



Now that the Phoenix Coyotes' status is still uncertain, can Dany Heatley buy them for $1, install himself as captain/coach/GM/president/owner and play himself for 60 minutes a game? Someone was asking about that on Ottawa's The Team 1200 today.

Snark break...

Hey, don't snap our fundies...

Long-time NBA player David Wesley is now a student manager for the Baylor Bears. Wesley made $32 million in his NBA career, making him the richest man to end up passing out towels since Conrad Black.

The upside of William Houston stepping away from The Globe & Mail: Team 1200 employees in Ottawa won't have to read that their station "is hurting."

The New York Knicks' trip to Europe next season has apparently been deep-sixed. That's good. People hate America enough already.

The easy way out: Ottawa can afford either a CFL or MLS team, but people will support neither.

Some people pay money to see Eklund's phony trade predictions. The funny part is you can see them for free, which is what they're worth.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Kingston minor hockey product Mike Murphy of the Belleville Bulls got some virtual ink from Sports Illustrated. S.I., much like John Tavares last night, failed to notice Taylor Hall. That was a heavy hit. Between Kingston native Hall and the Frontenacs' Taylor Doherty levelling Tavares in the CHL top prospect game, Kingston is really doing a number on Tavares and London this month.
  
  Too soon?
• Gaius Charles, you will be missed on Friday Night Lights. Friday marked Smash Williams' final episode and it was a beaut. Smash's three touchdowns in the 2006 state championship game and the way he was so good to his mom and little sister will not be forgotten.
  
• Please spare a thought for the guys on the Oakville Seals senior hockey team, who just lost a teammate, Myles Marchenko, who died in his sleep recently, just 26 years old.
  
  (The Seals were part of the Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic sports beat back in the day. Hang in there, everybody.)

Snark break ...

Good night for the Leafs, giving a good show before losing ... do the Raptors realize John Tavares doesn't play basketball (well, not yet)? ... here's an imagined celebrity roast of Tony Dungy . On with the dumb jokes ....

Toronto organizers will soon announce where events would be held if the city lands the 2015 Pan Am Games. Nowhere would be a good answer.

Two rules for the fratboy corner of the blogeteriat. You're not allowed to link to a picture of a female athlete, such as Serbian lady baller Milica Dabović (pictured), who's posed unclad for FHM magazine, unless you've heard of her or start following her sport. It's for your own good.

Tampa Bay Lightning co-owner Oren Koules, when he was a junior hockey player, was on the Spokane WHL team when it folded. It was good preparation for his stint as a NHL owner. The fruit doesn't fall far from the clueless tree.

(That was actually gleaned from a pretty good interview with Team 1200 personality Glenn Kulka.)

George Costanza himself, Jason Alexander, is shilling for the same poker website as Mats Sundin. It makes sense, since Sundin has been playing like he's trying to get fired.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• He's still Rick Reilly, once in a while. The former S.I. scribe's column on Larry Fitzgerald Sr., the sportswriter dad of the Arizona Cardinals receiver, is a good read.
• Please spare a thought for former Canadiens, Leafs and Hull Olympiques coach Pat Burns in his cancer fight.
  
• A tip of the cap is due to the pride of Odessa, Aaron Doornekamp, and his Carleton Ravens teammates for being honoured at last night's Ottawa Sports Awards. Veteran basketball coach John Scobie was also honoured, which is a long time coming. (Three guesses if yours truly warranted an invitation, the first two don't count.)
  
  The Ravens have a RMC/Queen's road trip this weekend, so the Kingston Whig-Standard should have some coverage of the Kingston trio of Doornekamp, Rob Saunders and Stu Turnbull.
  

That's all for now. It's oolf.writers(at)gmail.com.

CIS Corner: Gaels lose Leger

Notes on our athletes/teams of interest from The 613... including a significant injury for the parquet edition of the Queen's Golden Gaels.

HOOPS

• Golden Gaels — The news about Mitch Leger's knee injury seems pretty discouraging for Queen's. The Gaels' go-to scorer went out in the first quarter Friday night and, as Mike Koreen reported, the team is bracing itself for the loss of the best player to wear the Tricolour since Derek Richardson in the late '90s.
  
  The third weekend in January seems cursed for Mitch. As a frosh in 2007, he hit a buzzer-beater to beat Ottawa and ended up in the hospital hours later with stomach pains. One wishes him all the best in coming back from the injury.
  
  
• Ravens — It almost makes sense to lead with Carleton women's team. There is more suspense about their results these days. The Ravens beat Laurentian (63-51) and York (64-31), remaining a half-game ahead of Toronto and one ahead of Ottawa in the crowded OUA East. Fun factoid: On Saturday, Ravens guard Kelly Killoran scored 12 points, all on three-pointers, for the third game in a row. Someone call Elias Sports Bureau.
  
  Carleton has a very favourable remaining schedule. The Capital Hoops Classic game vs. Ottawa and Toronto are their two toughest matchups, followed by their two games left vs. Queen's.
  
  An early-season loss to Ryerson back in November might ultimately cost Toronto the division.
  
  Only two more games to the Capital Hoops Classic (and coach Dave Smart will be on The Team 1200 tomorrow at 10:45 a.m. Eastern to talk some hoops.
• Gee-Gees — Warren Ward had a big night Saturday vs. Laurentian, when the Gee-Gees won 83-64. The fact it was only a one-point game at half might not be such a big deal. Playing at York one night and hauling up to Sudbury is never easy in the winter, especially when they were delayed due to the women's game going three overtimes.
  
  The women's hoops Gee-Gees' triple-overtime win over York was the longest game in team history. They pulled it off.

HOCKEY

When you factor in games in hand, Carleton (11-8-2) and Ottawa (8-8-4) are in the Nos. 5 and 6 playoff seeds in the eastern half of the OUA.

Coach Fred Parker's Ravens play Concordia and McGill twice each over their last seven games, along with one each vs. the Gee-Gees and against No. 2-ranked Trois-Rivieres. Carleton will earn whatever spot they end up with.

The Gee-Gees' eight remaining games include two at Trois-Rivieres, two vs. McGill and one each vs. the Ravens, Concordia and Toronto. It's a slightly better sked, especially once they get back to full health.

Incidentally, Queen's, with 34 goals in 21 games, could be threatening all established marks for goal-scoring futility.

Related:
Gaels basketball star suffers knee injury; Season in jeopardy for Kingston-born Leger (Mike Koreen, Kingston Whig-Standard)



Type rest of the post here

Riposte: Rick Anderson is outta here! Rapidz owner Zipz off to Calgary

The Ottawa Rapidz' first season was anything but dull. From a name change, to one of the team's players accusing this site's author of being "on drugs" for having the temerity to suggest it was a bad idea to fire a manager -- who probably should have been axed earlier -- while he was visiting his sick wife, it's been a trip. Oh, and for those who missed it back on Aug. 22, one of the co-owners has essentially flown the coop.

It's an open secret that Rick Anderson and the Ottawa Rapidz are no more.

Anderson has cut ties with the club not even four months after he and Rob Hall bought the team from the Can-Am League. The former co-owner is relocating to Calgary and as a source put it, "no longer has any involvement" with the team. In due time, it will get into the broader public realm that Hall is owner and Shelagh O'Connor will be the team's general manager for the 2009 season. Both of them, based on what's known, are woefully out of their element. Tom Carcione will return as manager.

Anderson is leaving, not seven weeks after the Ottawa Citizen quoted him, "Next year will be even better than this year. And the next year will even be better ... This is a good quality of ball and the fans seem to be enjoying it, and we'll keep working on it."

This is very, very bad news for Ottawa-Gatineau's loyal band of ball lovers. For starters, the Rapidz will have to hammer out a lease with the City of Ottawa after their sub-lease from Ray Pecor expires after the 2009 season. Who's going to hammer out a longer lease that the team can live with if Anderson, "a mover and shaker in political and business circles most all his adult life" (The Citizen, April 29) is no longer around?

Hall (bottom right with Anderson in photo) is self-described as "more of an operations guy," not so schooled in the art of the deal, the face-to-face negotations. O'Connor might have that in her, who knows, but as for the baseball side, her online CV (since blocked) doesn't scream that she's the next Kim Ng.*

It might not matter much to Anderson to sever his partnership in the Rapidz. It's also understood that the situation can change very quickly for a businessman who's a political animal, especially with federal election talk percolating on Parliament Hill. It might also seem like small beer to the media (there's been nothing about it online, except for one comment at the near-dormant The New Ottawa Rapidz Blog) and it's certainly not on par with, hypothetically speaking, the Senators making a change in their front office.

The fact remains that Anderson came in promising good local ownership, spinning yards about his childhold trips to Montreal to take in the Expos at Jarry Park. God forbid that the people who do turn out to watch baseball in Ottawa read that and took him and Hall to be their saviours of summer, or something.

There were bound to be a few rookie mistakes, but for those of you scoring at home, here's Anderson's timeline:

• Buys the team, with Hall.
• Changes the name, leading to a public backlash and logistical problems -- the players didn't have proper fitted, full-back caps for the first few games.
• Fired Don Charrette as GM.
• Enables, at the least, and participates in, at worst, constructive dismissal of long-time Lynx employee Lorraine Charrette, who thought her job had been saved by the arrival of the new ballclub. (Helping out Ms. Charrette was a major motivation for a few citizen-fans who went the extra mile and then some last fall trying to keep hope alive for a team here, before the Zipperheads came out of the woodwork.)
• Effectively tells Can-Am League commissioner Miles Wolff, the minor-league mogul who "bought the Durham Bulls for less than the price of a used Volkswagen, and turned them into minor league baseball's most famous team," (Baseball America, July 21, 2006) where he can stick his advice.
  
  (Wolff's Quebec Capitales have more wins, 53, this season than three major-league teams who started playing seven weeks earlier.)
• Hires Jeff Hunt as a consultant instead.
• Fires manager Ed Nottle, which rightly or wrongly, incited more public backlash. (By the way, to those you leaving comments on that Aug. 1 post about Nottle, you're politely invited to send an e-mail to neatesager@yahoo.ca identifying yourselves. Your identity is safe with me.)
• Leaves town.

Please bear in mind those bullet points are only highlights of Anderson's abortive experiment with being a baseball owner. Highlights, of course, can never completely do someone justice.

It's been said in a million and one ways that there's no end to the way that baseball can break a fan's heart, but this is ridiculous. Anderson said this was a "hobby" to him, but it's a hobby that carried with it a strong element of public trust, in market that is much more than once-bitten, twice-shy. The departure of a man who can charm and win over political folk, and the media, and having a technocrat and a public-relations person step seems like a terrible trade-off.

Sure, you can leave the door open just a sliver on the infinitesmal hope that Hall, O'Connor and the closest facsimile of a baseball person left in the Rapidz' disorganization, Mike Kusiewicz, who's still an active player, could make this work. But if you believe that, then please, kindly share whatever you're on with the rest of the group, so we can become so enlightened.

* (Kim Ng might be a bit obscure for non-baseball fans, but typing "Billy Beane in heels" would be a bit sexist.)

Update: No one should be surprised that the Team 1200, during an interview this afternoon, did not press Hall at all on who the owners and general manager will be next season. They also let him slide by with that cock-and-bull story about how first baseman Jabe Bergeron, one of maybe four players who merits a contract for next season, is doing the recruiting by chatting up opposing players at first base.

Update 2: Sorry for only getting to this now, but did everyone see the Sept. 3 Ottawa Business Journal: "Sports blog Out of Left Field also said Zip's director of communications, Shelagh O'Connor, would become the Rapidz general manager for the 2009 season."

Snark break ...

You have to be cruel to be kind, in the right measure ...

Ah, baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and violence ... Blame this minor-league baseball brawl on the WNBA. Those women basketballers brawled the other night, and the Peoria Chiefs and Dayton Dragons clearly felt their manhood was threatened and they had to prove it in the best way, by getting involved in a rumble. That's got to be it, right?



The first inning took two hours to complete -- which has to be a record for any game that didn't involve Steve Trachsel.

Ignoring the Brett Favre story won't make it go away. The latest is that the Green Bay Packers didn't even pay for his cell phone and shouldn't have had any access to his phone records. Is the NFL or The Hills? (Oh, don't act like you don't have it PVR'd.)

It's too glib to blame Iraq being banned from the Beijing Olympics on the Bush White House. Four years after the feel-good stories from Athens, it's still a wicked what-goes-around-comes-around, though.

Roy Halladay is now 18-4 with a 2.70 ERA against the Orioles after yesterday's Jays win. If he eventually makes the Hall of Fame, he'll be introduced by Orioles owner Peter Angelos.

One hopes Team 1200 host Glenn Kulka doesn't take a nasty rap on the head during his MMA debut tomorrow in Gatineau. He might completely forget what he said about steroids three years ago. Go get 'em, Kulkster.

Oh, and the Peoria-Dayton brawl, one last time:

UP AT 6: GREENZO CATHEDRALS; A SMALLER CARBON FOOTPRINT IN THE BATTER'S BOX

The closer I got, the more those feelings grew...

• Sitting there in anticipation of Jays-Yankees game that was rained out planted a strange thought -- will there ever be a time when pro sports leagues, either for the sake of P.R. or due to political pressure, shorten their season on the vague pretense of helping the environment?
  
  Baseball has to get in a 162-game schedule in 182 days in order to get through three rounds of playoffs before it's too cold to play. That meant the "ludicrisosity," in Mike Wilner's made-up word, of scheduling baseball games in Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland and New York City on March 31. It was random chance that it rained (St. Louis' opener was wiped out), but don't miss the point.
  
  The push is on to start consuming less of everything. Why couldn't pro sports be a leader and be better off for it? It's two-fold with baseball. The crackdown on PEDs -- mainly amphetamines -- is probably going to have an adverse effect on the quality of play, since players need those to have the energy to get through the Long Season. A long time ago, Bill Lee suggested playing a shorter schedule with more time between games if MLB was really serious about getting rid of amphetamines.
  
  MLB could easily start the season on April 7, which is when it used to start. That's enough time to play a 140- or 150-game season in a 165-to-175-day timeframe. The players would get more rest, it's easy P.R., it's probably creates more demand to attend a particular game. Plus the players would have to take a hit on their salaries.
  
  The NFL could dial it back from 16 games to 14; neither hockey nor the NBA needs 82 to figure out who should be in the playoffs. The PGA can just shut down entirely, especially considering how many of those golfers have their own places burning jet fuel. Anyways, just a half-baked thought from a guy who got 65 in Grade 10 science.
  
• Man, people who work in radio really do have to get up early ... who were the two people, who soon as the Ottawa Sun sports poll went live at 3 a.m., actually voted "no" to the query, "Should the Senators' on-ice effort be questioned?"
  
  Looking at you, two of the Three Guys On The Radio. Well, who was it then? Mr. and Mrs. Mighty SOPO? Or did a couple of the subsection of the Sens Army who like to rant about how a team with a European captain will never win a Stanley Cup misunderstand the question?
• The captain of India's soccer team, Bhaichung Bhutia, is refusing to take part in the Olympic torch run in protest of China's crackdown in Tibet. Apologies in advance for being the cracker who saw this and conjured up an obvious Russell Peters joke: "We'll do anything to avoid physical exertion!"
  
  Seriously, though, Andrew Bucholtz has a post about boycotting Beijing without turning the athletes into pawns. It should get its own post here later on this week.
  
• There used to be a journeyman pitcher named A.J. Sager whose career was about as memorable as the journalism career of his namesake (so far). It turns out he was in rare company -- one of the very few players whose only career hit was a triple. And he hit it off Pedro Martinez! How about that?
  
• In the same self-absorbed, narcissistic way, that means hoping the Vikings do swing a trade for QB Sage Rosenfels -- as in Sage R., eh? The Vikes get the Monday Night Football treatment against the Packers in the season opener. The early line is Farve minus-27.5 for how many more times the announcers will mention the retired Packers QB than the actual Vikings quarterback, whoever it is that night. (The last part proves the point.)

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

EARL'S PEARLS...

Those of you who didn't catch Earl McRae's appearance on the FAN 590 this morning, consider yourselves unlucky. He was that priceless. I'll try to get a link or a transcript; it was that good.

Another sports radio note: James Mirtle, of Mirtle fame, is on 940 AM Montreal at this moment to talk about the Jonathan Roy incident. James has raised an excellent point; that the YouTube factor has amplified the attention given to hockey violence; what happened in Chicoutimi was not exactly new. The images just travelled much faster. Of course, you know what they saw about sunshine being the best disinfectant.

Could you imagine if YouTube had been around back in 1978 when Kenny Linseman kicked that guy in the head with his skate?

(UPDATE: Patrick Roy got a five-game suspension.)

OUT OF EARSHOT, OUT OF MIND

The latest joke going around: "When was the last time you listened to The Team 1200 other than for a hockey game?

"I don't know. What year is this?"

The question for the readers in Ottawa, who is counting on The Team for their daily fix of sports chat? The experience on this end across the past two years has gone from listening regularly, to occasionally, to only during hockey games, to not being able to remember the last time I tuned in. Colleagues and friends report a similar experience.

No offence; the station will be essentially listening once the Sens start to unravel during the Stanley Cup playoffs, but other than that, it's not relevant. The FAN 590 on digital cable or the simulcasts The Score and Sportsnet air of sports talk radio shows for a couple hours a day seem like a pretty good poor man's alternative to The Team's offerings.

Carl Kiiffner gets credit for picking up on this at the UORB; judging by the makeover the station gave its website, only two teams exist — the Senators and 67's. It could be that the all-Sens, all-the-time approach has put off some people, who believe the best sports talk radio is where everyone gets a say about all things sporting. Listen to The FAN 590; Chuck Swirsky has the 1-4 p.m. slot and oftentimes they won't talk about the NHL.

In the late-morning slot, you can hear Mike Hogan and Mike Toth on The Bullpen talk knowledgeably about second-tier stuff such as CIS football or Provincial Junior A Hockey because they're into it. Perhaps that vibe exists at The Team, but judging by the presence it didn't have at the Ottawa Rapids' first press conference on Feb. 14 and at the CIS Final 8 men's basketball championship the weekend before last, they're hiding it under a bushel. Of course, with respect to the hoops, maybe they just couldn't find the building where it was being held.

CASE OF SIAC-ITICA STRIKES A NERVE...

Typically, the best comment on sports broadcasting in Ottawa* (the Team 1200 and the Senators' local broadcasts on A-Channel) is no comment. Now, did anyone else notice how Dean Brown's boosterism blew up in his face in the Sens' 3-2 shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets last night?

Before the shootout, the commentators, like everyone watching, were armchair-coaching and trying to guess who the shooters would be (which is about the only fun part of the shootout). Brown, the play-by-play man, said, "Well, Columbus has only two 20-goal scorers, so you just know Rick Nash and Nikolai Zherdev will be in the shootout." (They were and they both scored to win the game for the Blue Jackets.)

It was all in the tone, which suggested, "There's no way the Senators possibly lose to this plug team, since they have more top-end forwards." (The Senators have four players with 20 goals this season, although that includes Cory Stillman's stats with Carolina.)

Maybe Brown honestly didn't mean to dismiss the visitors who had gone toe-to-toe with the Sens for 65 minutes to reach the shootout. However, "the only two 20-goal scorers" crack was at best misleading. At worst, it was the SIAC-itica (Sens Army Inferiority Complex) flaring up again.

Nearly half the teams in the NHL -- 13 out of 30 -- have "only" two guys who have each hit the 20-goal mark. Rest assured, though, those are all total plug teams. For instance, take the Montreal Canadiens. They're a whole entire point behind the Senators for first overall in the whole league. The Minnesota Wild lead their division, although apparently not by enough to avoid the crappiness classification. Another bunch of sorry excuses on skates with only two guys who've hit the 20-goal plateau this season? The Anaheim Ducks, who won the Stanley Cup last season. It's a little fuzzy since it was over rather quickly, but does anyone remember who the Ducks beat in the championship series?

The New Jersey Devils have managed to stay a point behind Ottawa with just one 20-goal scorer. The Boston Bruins and San Jose Sharks both didn't get their first until last night, but they're both holding playoff berths at this writing.

Nash and Zherdev each beat Ray Emery stickside to end the game before three of Ottawa's four big scorers even got a chance. Anyway, that underscored the point that Brown didn't acknowledge. Who has the most big scorers can mean squat in the crapshoot shootout. You could have the '70-71 Boston Bruins with four 40-goal scorers -- and some guy named Orr who scored 37 from his defence position -- and it wouldn't matter. The coach would still only be able to pick three guys.

Sens fans deserve someone to point that out, not slag the opposition to build false considence. They might have played up that the Jackets might go stickside, since as Sun Media's Chris Stevenson pointed out, that where's both regulation goals on Emery also went in.

Anyway, please don't shoot the messenger. You could take this up at Brown's blog, if you're so inclined. (He doesn't have comments enabled and averages about five posts a month, bear in mind. Getting a response before the weekend might be a tall order.)

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

WRONG WAY RAY; WE'RE TALKING ABOUT PRACTICE

Pro athletes are paid to practise and prepare. They play for free. Ottawa's prodigal puckstopper Ray Emery, at the relatively advanced age of 25, seems to have trouble commiting to that idea -- no more, no less.

He goofed big-time, but please, people -- especially the older gentleman who called into The Team 1200 and called Emery "a rap singer on blades" -- get a little perspective. Try to act like you've read a book without pictures at least once. This is little more than (a) media over-saturation and (b) the impression of a collective impulse by puckheads to make Emery a straw man for all those supposedly selfish, irresponsible black athletes in sports that aren't hockey -- the NFL and (especially) the NBA. The media's not even to blame -- they have to do what they have to do to draw eyeballs. Playing to people's worst impulses does that, ultimately.

Battle of Ontario either captured that perfectly, or at least knew how to pander to its audience:

"Somehow, amongst all of the flashy suits, big cars, and assorted blingery, Ray Emery ran out of money before buying a watch. He was once again late for practice today. No word on whether he lost track of time while playing in the snow."

Right. Presumably, all the other Senators buy suits at Moore's, drive used Honda Civics and their timepieces were birthday gifts from their grandparents, or Jason Spezza.

Like I said before the season: "The point is that (Emery's) a marked man in the Ottawa region ... his tastes and how he lives will always be brought into the story quicker than with anyone else, especially if his game slips."

(The second link from Battle of Ontario takes readers to the Sun Media hockey blog which, as discussed, has a borderline-libelous comment accused the Senators of having several drug users. In fairness, the BoO-birds did point out that even if Emery had driven to the correct rink, he still would have been late.)

This Emery situation -- and judging by his numbers this season, his game has slipped -- will come out in the wash. Meantime, think about why a common knee-jerk reaction was to believe the absolute worst when word came late yesterday afternoon that Emery didn't show up to practice until four minutes after the Senators were on the ice. If it had been a white guy, he would have probably got the Sean Avery treatment: "Typical, what a guy."

Point being: Emery has to skate a line that's twice as fine as it for his more monochromatic teammates. Please keep in that in mind as this saga unfolds.

Related:
Emery craps out (Bruce Garrioch, Ottawa Sun)
Emery may have pushed Sens too far (Ken Warren, Ottawa Citizen)

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

FRONTS: YOU CAN STILL SPELL "POOR PREPARATION" WITHOUT P-P

The Kingston Frontenacs were basically given a win on a platter in today's 3-1 loss to the Ottawa 67's Ottawa and shoved it away like someone who'd overdone it on the snack foods at a Grey Cup party.

The 67's played poorly, boned all seven of their power plays (including a two-minute 5-on-3) and gave Kingston eight chances with the extra man. It didn't hurt them one bit.

Now what's odd is that whenever a Fronts player (today it was Cory Emmerton) is interviewed between periods on an out-of-town broadcast, he's inevitably asked about the coaching change. Inevitably, he'll respond that a big difference is that GM-for-life Larry Mavety doesn't make the players watch as much video as Bruce Cassidy did. Fair enough, but did anyone think that there's a connection between the coach's de-emphasis of video analysis and how the team reacts in a game?

Remember when you'd get in the exam room back in school, flip through the test paper and dwell more on what you didn't know than what you did? That's the Frontenacs in a nutshell, and that can be put upon the coaching. They didn't get a shot on an odd-man rush early in the game, and right after that, goalie Anthony Peters, according to The Team 1200 broadcast, "didn't look prepared for either play" (a pass or a shot) on Ottawa's first goal.

Peters is a young goalie, but if no one took the time to take him through a lot of tape on the 67's, how he is supposed to know if Logan Couture was more likely to pass or shoot the puck on the 2-on-1 rush? (Couture shot and scored.)

The same goes for the Frontenacs power play (1-for-15 this weekend, two shorties allowed), which is as predictable and has about as much going on as this blogger's social life. Talent plays a part, but maybe teams know what's coming, or the Frontenacs don't.

Part of what makes junior hockey fun is that it is imprecise. It's a little more sponteneous. It feels real. However, it doesn't seem like Larry Mavety has the kind of philosophical bent that would lead him to try and make a point about the plague of overcoaching. These days, with the Frontenacs sitting 18th in a 20-team league, he's making a great argument for the overcoaching side.

For anyone who is clinging to the shred of factual truth that the Fronts have a better record under Mavety than with Bruce Cassidy, please, do the match. If the Frontenacs keep up their current pace under Mavety (10 points from 11 games) over the final 45 games of the season, they would finish with 56 points. Keeping up the pace is no guarantee, either.

That would not have been enough to make the playoffs in the OHL's Eastern Conference in any of the past five seasons. This in a league where 80% of the teams make the playoffs, by the way.

IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN... BUT IT PROBABLY WILL

Here is the Soo Today story that forced a red-faced Team 1200 (as detailed in the Ottawa Citizen today) to issue an apology after one the hosts of Three Guys On The Radio said most of the women in Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie "basically smell like boxed wine."

Nothing against of the current talent at the station; all of them, no doubt, are good Joes and probably feel embarrassed and will come in for some ribbing from their friends and colleagues.

However, this is hardly the first time the Team has been left with egg on its face after a lapse in the use of adult-level judgement and sensitivity. There's been Don (Dandyman) Romani insinuating Tie Domi beat his wife; Arash Madani's horrible Hurricane Katrina analogy, just to name a couple. They seldom get called on it in Ottawa, but there comes a point when it strains credibility to hear the station's bosses say it was "unlike" a person to say what he said or that it was "no intention."

Poppycock; this is exactly what happens when you put people on air with a good-ol'-boy mentality to capture a good-ol'-boy demographic and expect everyone else — minorities, women, bleeding hearts who also play in fantasy leagues (we're out there) — to lump it, because sports is "strictly entertainment" and it's not informing anyone's worldview. (Which it does of course.)

There's a reason Russell Peters can bag on every ethnic group out there and no one gets mad, because he's laughing with everyone. Snide comments about a city's female population; no, that's not cool.

It is possible to do sports radio that's funny, insightful and entertaining without putting down women or minorities. One day we might have that in Ottawa.

FRONTS: PROOF LIES AHEAD, WHILE MORE LIES COME OUT

Taking the high road means being happy for the Kingston Frontenacs that they completed their first four-point weekend of the OHL season, beating Ottawa 6-4 today.

That 5-in-8 stretch of games that is looming after a six-day break is a better proof. The Fronts' focus is probably on just trying to make hockey feel fun again since the ax fell on Bruce Cassidy. Well, making it fun doesn't shut down John Tavares and the Oshawa Generals. It doesn't win in Belleville and it probably doesn't beat heavy hitters from the tougher Western Conference, Kitchener, Sarnia and London. That's the Fronts' schedule over the next week.

In the here and now, 13 goals in two games probably is pick-me-up. The worker bees had a nice day: James Marsden got his first in the OHL to put Kingston ahead to stay late in the second today vs. the 67's. Jonathan Sciacca, who was plus-3, was the second star, a nice treat for a stay-at-home defenceman. Ultimately, this is just an evenout after about three weeks of being perpetually starved for goal scoring.

By the way, talk about classic Larry Mavety: The Team 1200 disclosed how the players learned Cassidy was no longer their coach. Apparently, last Monday night they ate together. No Cassidy. They asked where he was and were told he was watching tape, then the players went off to a do a team activity that was already planned. Only when they got back were they told the GM-for-life was taking over behind the bench.

Needless to say, Dave Schreiber and Buzz (who was doing colour) did not sound impressed by this. What did lying to the players accomplish?

UP AT 6: MEET THE NINETY-FIVE PERCENTERS

The 95 Percenters within Leafs Nation have probably already decided Vesa Toskala is Finnish for Allan Bester after seeing him get beat through the five-hole on the first shot of his first exhibition game with the Leafs.

Don't judge. If they knew how to think matters through and not overreact, they wouldn't be 95 Percenters. Toskala's shaky pre-season debut is as good a jumping-off point to get into the 95 Percenters theory a friend came up with back in the day. It's pretty basic -- 95% of Leafs fans submit to the worst kind of cliché-clouded, casual-fan groupthink.

It's not their fault. Life in and around Canada's counting room, the one-time Toronto the Good, has given them such a case of anhedonia when it comes just savouring a team, a game a sport for what it is, that they can't enjoy anything unless the team is close to a winning a championship and well, you know how that chapter unfolds. So yes, Toskala has a shaky start and already he's the worst goalie in the NHL.

The twist is the remaining 5% of Leafs Nation are the smartest, albeit self-loathing hockey fans alive. So they defend the 95 Percenters from any and all onslaughts from fans of other teams, especially expansion teams that have a lameass kitty mascot. Very few 95 Percenters know they're 95 Percenters, but they usually betray their status fairly quickly.

Five telltale signs:

1. Went down to the Air Canada Centre when it opened in 1999, but have never actually been inside for a Leafs game.
2. Have Nik Antropov in their hockey pool.
3. Say 50 Mission Cap is their favourite Tragically Hip song "cuz it mentions the Leafs."
4. Whining about how the Jays "haven't done anything since '93," never pausing to consider tthe baseball team is only 26 years behind the Leafs in this regard, baseball is 10 times more sophisticated than hockey (and thus several times harder to dominate unless you're the Yankees or Red Sox), and that back-to-back World Series should be worth a lifetime exemption. Besides, in a true sports city, you have your favourite teams and don't crap on the others. Yankees fans don't build themselves up by dumping on the Knicks.
5. Coming from Oshawa.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Senators 5, Capitals 4: Team 1200 cheerleader Gord Wilson is already in mid-season form, describing penalties against the Precious Team as "two minutes for being Brian McGrattan."
• It's hard not to wonder if Canada's gut-wrenching early exit from the Women's World Cup over in China (needing a win, they tied Australia, giving up the tying goal in injury time) heralds a slow decline for the national women's soccer team. Even Pellerud is probably going to leave as coach and of course, the national body for soccer is a total gong show.
  
  Speaking of which: The footy fans who organized last week's Black Wednesday show of action have started a Facebook group -- 34 people have signed up.
• CTV has already figured that what Global seldom did in its years carrying the NFL: Not everyone in Canada wants to see the Buffalo Bills every week. Even Bills fans don't want to see the Bills every week; they need reminders of what good football looks like.
• Sort of good news for Canadian-based Syracuse Orange fans: Andy Rautins' ACL isn't as bad as it could be, although he'll still miss a year (hat tip to cishoops.ca).

About the pic: That's Mayko Nguyen, the hottest Canuck actress you've never heard of. The new season of Showcase's Rent-A-Goalie is only five weeks and two days away, and she's in it. Remember, if you support Canadian cable sitcoms, the sooner N. Sager gets one.)

HOCKEY COUNTRY SHOULD 'BE RED' WITH SHAME AFTER BEATDOWN OF FEMALE BUFFALO FAN

The assault of a female Buffalo Sabres fan, Renee Luck, a couple of nights ago by two individuals with the money to attend Senators playoff games was no isolated incident.

There's no pretending otherwise. Here's what would be great to see. Just for starters, sports-talk radio station, The Team 1200, a huge engine behind the local Be Red rhetoric and its us-against-the-world mentality it nurtures, should begin their 27 hours of daily hockey chatter one morning by saying, "There won't be one word about the Senators until we get it out in the open why this happened in Ottawa."

Don't play it off as a couple guys who lost their cool. Answer the question: What is there in The World Of The Sens Fan that shaped this ugly incident? No NHL team we know of ever had two of its supporters beat up a woman in public -- they gave Ms. Luck a concussion, for pity's sake! -- just because she supported an out-of-town team. If it's not something specific to Ottawa or Canadian hockey fans, at least we would have a clearer picture. Does the lack of common decency toward opposing fans have anything to do with the perceived lack of respect shown on the ice?

The all-sports station and other electronic media which have tremendous reach and influence with Sens Army and Hockey Country followers should examine the mindset of local fans and its own role in possibly shaping it.

The Team is on the record as considering sports "strictly entertainment," but so long as it uses public airwaves, it has some social responsibility. That's why it can't ignore that small element in the Hockey Country culture that believes lashing out at other teams and their fans is OK, which was evidently present the other night when Luck and another young woman, Kristin Brown, were set upon in the Scotiabank Place concourse.

Examples of twisted fan behaviour have long been present in Sens fan culture: The Leafs Suck shirts (printed by The Team) from a few years ago that you still spot around town; the one idiot who shows up for the games wearing a Leafs sweater with the crest X'd out; the scoreboard incident that evoked the tragic loss Montreal GM Bob Gainey had recently suffered; the morning radio host who got fired for making jokes about Tie Domi beating his then-wife. Even one Team 1200 personality posting video online of him burning a Pittsburgh Penguins cap earlier in the playoffs no longer seems innocuous. (It's still lame, though.)

FRINGE, BUT NEVERTHELESS

There's always been this fringe -- let's stress that it's a fringe -- of so-called Senators fans who get off on running down the opposition. The hockey club and local media for too long have looked the other way, or pandered to it. It can't do that anymore, not when there's a woman in Buffalo with a concussion and who knows what emotional damage, all because she and her spouse were able and willing to spend their hard-earned money to travel and support the Buffalo Sabres. (As an aside: Does the NHL have so many fans that it can afford to have its supported treated this way?)

It's time have a long talk about what it is in Hockey Country that gave a couple of A-holes the slightest license to physically attack a woman in public. It might not be Ottawa-specific but it certainly doesn't belong here.

These as-yet-unidentified culprits are not representative of 99.99% of Senators fans, but since you can't psychologically screen every fan who enters the arena to see who's most likely to go apeshit, it means examining the local hockey fan environment, unlike Ms. Luck on Wednesday night, is fair game.

Otherwise, that well-intentioned offer of a free return trip to Ottawa that the Senators have made to Ms. Luck and her husband Sean is the shallowest of shallow gestures.

Last thing, it's a rotten shame this spoiled what is otherwise the franchise's finest hour.

Related:
Scotiabank Place offers regrets, return trip to attacked Sabres fan (Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen)
Don't Let Them Back In The Arena (KuklasKorner.com)
Pair of Senators Fans Embarrass Country (The Nexus of Assholery)

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

PLAYOFFS? PLAYOFFS?! DAY 36

What you might have missed while avoiding paying the paperboy his "two dollars!"

Sabres 3 Senators 2 (Ottawa leads East final 3-1): Obviously, the organizing principle of the universe was not going let Senators fans have it both ways -- a trip to the finals and the entire May long weekend free from fretting over their Beloved Team.

Mike Comrie hit the crossbar in the first period when the Sabres were scrambling just to get back to the dressing room with a 1-0 lead. If Antoine Vermette gets the puck over Ryan Miller's left pad on a short-handed chance when it was one-goal game early in the second, the Sens might have fed off that and come back to win the game and close out the series. Instead, Miller made the stop, Dean McAmmond got a high-sticking penalty to put Buffalo on a 5-on-3, and miracle of miracles, the Sabres actually potted a power-play goal.

So please, Senators fans, don't stew and sweat during the two-day layover before Game 5 on Saturday afternoon (thanks a lot, NBC) in Western New York. Take a load off, don't clog up The Team 1200 phone lines fretting about a possible collapse. Buffalo might win Saturday and really wreak havoc with everyone's May 2-4 weekend, but the Sens have come too far to blow it now. Tonight was just an evenout, just an evenout.

SOCIOLOGICAL FRAILITIES ON SKATES... THY NAME IS THE LEAFS, CANADIENS AND SENATORS

Don't worry, hockey fans -- if someone informs you that your id is showing today, it's no reason to check that your fly is zipped.

Hate to use a corporate buzzword, but talk about convergence. The sore spots of all three Eastern Canadian NHL teams have never been on display simultaneously quite like they have been across the past 24 hours, even if the whole process is arbitary.

Montreal Canadiens: Conspiracy theorists -- there are few in Quebec -- must be bouncing off the walls and ceiling. The Canadiens took and/or received four straight penalties across the final minutes of the second period and first couple minutes of the third, which helped the Leafs score the tying and winning power-play goals to prevail 6-5 and eliminate the Habs from the playoffs.

Sounds like the fix might have been for the team from English Canada to win, compliments les maudits anglais, the monied English-speaking boogeymen. It would have to been a pretty elaborate fix, since it also involved making sure Alexei Kovalev would fail to take a shot on goal in a game which had less defence than France in World War II. The Leafs also played the last half of the game with native Montrealer Jean-Sebastien Aubin in goal, but that was probably all part of the plan hatched by the boys in New York and Toronto.

Relax, Quebecers. The Habs are going golfing, but you have so much to live for. Three words: Cheap lap dances. Two words: Federal transfers. One word: Youppi!

Toronto Maple Leafs: It was fun, it was exciting, just like a great night out on the town. Now here comes a throbbing hangover and the I'll-never-drink-again repentance to compound the aggravation of spending Easter Sunday with your extended family.

The Leafs barely won even though the Canadiens were hornswoggled royally by the officials. Andrew Raycroft soiled the bed in a big game, going to pieces after his defencemen once again showed they can set a screen better than half the players in the National Basketball Association.

Nevertheless, the people who make up what co-blogger Neil Acharya calls the "95 percent ratio" of Leafs fans (and remember, Neil is a Leafs fan) treated it "like the Stanley Cup." For pity's sake, it won't amount to a hill of beans since the Islanders can nab the final Eastern playoff spot by beating New Jersey today. (There's a good reason why Leafs fans have no idea what the Stanley Cup is like, but please don't go there.)

Following the Leafs' win, Don Cherry was on about how the Devils "have to play" goalie Martin Brodeur today vs. Islanders even though it's a nothing game for New Jersey. Sure, Grapes. It always has to be all about the Leafs, eh?

Being a smart guy from Kingston, I checked Brodeur's game log and he's played in all seven previous Islanders-Devils games, going 6-1 with three shutouts. Martin Brodeur has done quite enough already to help the Leafs get into the playoffs. Why should the Devils risk their best player being injured? Besides, it's not like the Leafs had a chance to take out Islanders on Thursday. Oh, wait, they did.

Ottawa Senators: The Denialists can't bring themselves to admit that only big boy teams get first crack at playing in weekend prime time during the first round. The Precious Team will play in the afternoon, up against That 70's Show reruns.

Rob Brodie of Sun Media has cleared it up, confirming that the Penguins-Senators series will begin Wednesday at Scotiabank Place. In his latest post, Brodie also explained that elements of an Il Divo concert on Friday and NBC's territorial imperative to slobber over Sidney Crosby dictate that Games 2 and 3 will be weekend matinees -- 3 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday.

Nevertheless, in the face of all that logic, someone -- and if it was a Senators employee or one of their puppets at The Team 1200,* please have the dignity to put your name to it -- actually left a comment last night that the concert booked for the Senators' arena next Friday "has nothing to do with the (playoff) scheduling." Really? Playoff games tend be held on alternating nights and Friday is two days after Wednesday, presumably even in alternative realities.

The Sens are playing in the afternoon; that's win-win for NBC and Hockey Night in Canada. That leaves the evening timeslot open for Calgary-Detroit and/or Dallas-Vancouver. It's not a diss to be playing in the afternoon, Senators fans. You're good enough (until the playoffs, at least), you're smart enough, and doggone it, pople like you.

Anyway, as for that final Eastern playoffs, yesterday's stance stands:

Whatever happens, happens, but the joke would be worth it if the Leafs beat the Canadiens in dramatic fashion tonight ... then the Islanders beat the Devils tomorrow to win the eighth playoff spot.

Remember, it's all arbitrary!

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

(* It probably wasn't someone from The Team, since everything was spelled correctly.)

WORST FOOTBALL ANALOGY EVER, PART 2

Chris Gordon, vice-president and general manager of CHUM Ltd.'s Ottawa media outlets, which include the A-Channel and The Team 1200 sports radio, spoke to us this morning in the wake of last Friday's Worst Football Analogy Ever.

Chris Gordon, vice-president and general manager of CHUM Ltd.'s Ottawa media outlets, which include the A-Channel and The Team 1200 sports radio, admits that panelist Arash Madani messed up royally last Friday. Toward the tailend of The Team's 9 a.m.-12 noon show the A-Channel sports anchor said, "The biggest storm to hit New Orleans since Katrina is going to come this weekend when the Eagles stun them," referring to the Saints-Philadelphia Eagles NFL playoff game that was held the following night. Just one day earlier, New Orleans residents had marched in the still ravaged city to protest a crime wave that had seen seven people murdered in the first seven days of 2007.

"It sounds pretty left of centre on the poor taste scale," Gordon says. "It's unlike Arash and I am going to speak to him about it... he was obviously trying to make a joke, or be sarcastic and it didn't come out right.

"It's not abusive or discriminatory, but it is certainly over the line of good taste."

Gordon says he was out of town last Friday and didn't hear the show. He figures Madani "wasn't making the connection between the destruction and devastation of Katrina and the resulting violence," but was simply trying to draw an analogy which at best fell flat. It was a spark to throw around terms such as "astoundingly stupid" and "breathtaking insensitivity."

Others in the media (most notably in Canada, Stephen Brunt in last Saturday's Globe and Mail) certainly have made the grim connection, though. That's what eats away at the sports nut who can't separate the football team who represents New Orleans from what happened there in August 2005. That's why I went off the deep end.

It would have been journalistically right to name Madani as the culprit, but it seemed fair to pull a punch a) Ottawa's sports media isn't that big and isn't held to the same public scrutiny seen in bigger markets or with national broadcasters; b) CHUM deserved a chance to respond; and c) who said it is kind of secondary to the reality that the talk radio format is wide open to someone saying what Madani did -- that's part of being off-the-cuff and damn the torpedoes.

It spins off into a question about what sports radio is -- is it journalism (information given in a funny way), or stand-up comedy (funny with a bit of information in the way)? Gordon says he leans toward the latter.

"All talk radio is a form of entertainment," he says. "Sports, by its nature, is strictly entertainment. People take licence with things all the time and sometimes they go a little bit over the line."

Gordon adds, "The most popular sports commentator in this country is Don Cherry (on Hockey Night in Canada) and I wouldn't exactly call him a journalist."

That's the operative phrase: "strictly entertainment." That is what The Team 1200 does, plain and simple. Credit Chris Gordon for realizing the error and responding to a mere blogger. Meantime, I've apparently got a lot to learn.

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

WORST FOOTBALL ANALOGY EVER...

On The Team 1200 just now, a panelist whose name shall remain generic as a public service actually said, "The biggest storm to hit New Orleans since Katrina is going to come this weekend when the Eagles stun them," referring to the New Orleans Saints.

Let's see... one thousand eight hundred thirty-six people dead (at least), probably $100 billion in damages, 200,000 Louisianans uprooted. On the other hand, the Saints are hosting a second-round playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles tomorrow night. Yeah. That's a totally valid analogy.

Yes, Hurricane Katrina was almost 17 months ago and sensitivities aren't so heightened today among the general public, including sports radio listeners. Yes, a sense of humour gets you farther in this life than being a lemon-sucking nitpicker, but that wasn't cool. Having had the chance to meet the commentator in question, it was disappointing to hear him say that.

That Katrina line is one you maybe say at a bar at 10 beers to 2 a.m., and even then you make it clear that you're not serious. You play it off as a joke. This commentator said it in full seriousness -- he totally owned it -- in front of a live microphone on a commercial radio station at midday, all while presumably sober as a judge.

The anger here isn't so much at the guy -- whom we've met and believe is good at what he does -- as the format that allows you to say something so astoundingly stupid and get away with it. It is sports radio, and it is supposed to about saying silly things, "going off," guys being guys, sounding like they would in front of TV and with a few libations in hand, but it's still professional, it's still journalism, so don't say things like that. Granted, they want people who speak off the cuff and damn the torpedoes, but you can be off the cuff -- and damn the torpedoes -- and still be intelligent.

Do you think, in the big leagues of sport media -- this is Ottawa, so that would mean Toronto -- that Bob McCown says that on The Fan 590? Do you think Jim Rome says that on his syndicated show which is playing on The Team 1200 at this very moment? No, they don't.

Most people have moved on from the shock and horror that came with seeing the TV images and reading the media coverage from Louisiana, but people all along the Gulf Coast are still displaced, and the city is ravaged by violent crime.

People used to draw analogies between war and football all the time. Eventually, they pretty much stopped, since they realized that was really dumb. Think about what is implied when you say, "The biggest storm to hit New Orleans since Katrina is going to come this weekend when the Eagles stun them." Listeners will hear that and figure, well, the Saints are back in the Superdome, so everything must be fine down there. So it's OK to care more about a football game than tens of thousands of uprooted people. So be it.

(UPDATE: Just to show you how dumb this viewpoint is, over at Deadspin A.J. Daulerio is writing, "Just bear in mind that the Superdome is only a symbol of hope and renewal to some people; to others, it's still the 'hot, crowded building where I stayed for 10 days eating diaper sandwiches and using my dead grandmother as a cot.' ")

A.J. is making the point that 17 months later that are raw wounds gaping from Katrina, and to think football can fully heal all of that is optimistic by half. So drawing an analogy between the human catastrophe of Katrina and what the Eagles might do to the Saints is in the worst possible taste.

(UPDATE: Of course, New Orleans won, and as Daulerio noted, Fox stayed away from that theme. Perhaps the blogosphere had some influence.)

This is coming from a pathetic wannabe (that'd be me, not Daulerio), but one who had some experience with a sports radio program back in university. Take it from the pathetic wannabe that it's not impossible to be unrestrained and off-the-cuff without making a statement of nearly breathtaking insensitivity.

(Of course, this is the same station whose morning man has a blog where he posts a picture of Lindsay Lohan with the Stanley Cup and writes, "Please look away if you've just eaten." Wow, way to tell your fans that it's OK to hold anti-woman sentiments. Although that could just be me overthinking it. Sorry.)

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