Lions by how many?

Some things from the weekend you might have missed while you were tearing up those "Run Ricky Run" signs:

From dome sweet dome to Winnipeg's great outdoors for next Sunday's Grey Cup, it's B.C. and Montreal. Lions should be clear favourites - let's see what's posted, but I make it 9 points. Arland Bruce, meantime, won't be there.

MLS - better start boning up - has enacted the "Beckham Rule" to allow teams to go over their salary cap to sign foreign stars, while Manchester United have called young  Freddy Adu in for a trial training session: "MLS — which owns his registration, as it does for all US-based players — it seems to be annoyed by the whole thing. One league official, quoted anonymously in the US, said: 'This is the same old Freddy bulls***.'"

Oh yes, Houston Dynamo won Sunday's MLS Cup on penalties with former Canadian international Pat Onstad making the winning save and a couple of Canucks - Dwayne De Rosario and Adrian Serioux - converting their spot kicks.

Brazil wins the beach soccer World Cup (at least a couple of fans found a way to jump the queue to get in), and are into the semifinals and strong favourites to win it all at the women's world volleyball championship. That'll sure ease the pain of Germany '06.

Followups from the Friday file: The U of T Blues men's ballers, whose battles with four-peat national champion Carleton this season will be must-see, will get a boost in the rankings after home-opening with a 34-point mauling of No. 7 McMaster on Saturday. And courtesy of Neate, here's your CIS football semifinal matchups: Acadia vs Laval, Saskatchewan vs Ottawa.

From the good reads department:

Jason Whitlock has something to say to all you ref-baiting David Stern haters:

Stern took the appropriate step to eliminate the problem. He acted in the best interest of his players. Not surprisingly, the players have reacted like Stern stripped them of some constitutional right or outlawed tattoos and strip-club visits. The players union considered suing the league. NBA player groupies in the media blasted Stern, and some even suggested that Stern is an old white man who can’t relate to his predominantly young black players.
Hmm. Young people in general, and young black men in particular, don’t need leaders who can relate to them. They need leaders who see their unlimited potential and have the courage to demand that they reach it.

Charlie Pierce in Slate on the Awfulness of NFL contracts (thanks to Peter for the link):

All football players are in some ways constantly in rebellion against the teams for which they play. The team makes the player play when he shouldn't and then ruthlessly disposes of him when the consequences of that coercion become obvious on the field. One of the great diplomatic triumphs Tom Brady has is that he has managed to become the public face of the Patriots without becoming perceived as a management mouthpiece among his primary constituency in the locker room.

Into the weekend: Footballin'

Time to clear the virtual desk off, ahead of Sunday's Argos-Als, which has become the eastern CFL's default setting come playoff time, the Grey Cup just about ready to be brought in by the Mounties. First, though, a trivia note to spring at your next pigskin and chili party - after one of their long-ago meetings, the mayor of Montreal did the ceremonial kickoff before sitting to watch his side win in Toronto, and before boarding the return train had this to say: "I'd be happy to come back to Toronto to kick your balls off any time you want."
Can you imagine David Miller doing the same this weekend, in Hochelaga? Sure.
There's football all around this weekend and next, actually - everywhere but here, it seems. Blog fave Neate Sager has previews on the CIS national quarterfinals. There's the usual NFL stuff - but you don't care about that. Meantime, the countdown is on for next Saturday's national college semifinals, that Ohio State-Michigan hoolie, and finally the National Drunk its ownself. Oh, and if you've got time and feel like reading up on the game, you could do a lot worse than checking this out.

BORIS SPREMO/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

Boudreau: Hockey's Crash Davis.

One last e-mail. Tim Farrell had a worrisome flashback as the 76ers' Andre Iguodala launched a last-second buzzer-beater, trying to overcome Chris Bosh's go-ahead 3-pointer on Wednesday night:

Did you notice the FREAKISH similarities to the end of "the" Carter game last year?
I was there for both games. Last night just weirded me out, I couldn't even enjoy the win. I fully expected Iguodala's shot to go in.
Raps up by 1, Calderon goes to the line, 4 seconds left, visitors have no timeouts. Calderon makes first, misses second.
I was completely certain the Raps were about to lose that game. I'm still having trouble enjoying the victory.

Tim's going back to VC's game-winner last January. My flashback: Iggy's shot came from near the same spot that Carter missed from at the end Game 7 in Philly in '01. Which, tracing the arc, was the beginning of the slide that eventually led through last January's VC return, right to this retooled and new-brand approach. Twice bitten, and finally, one that didn't go down when it could have. We'll wait and see, but that might have been a little karmic payback at last.

One last Leaf memory. Another flashback, this one to former Leaf (and up and coming head coach) Bruce Boudreau, from Eric McErlain: "After just glancing at his numbers for a moment, you realize you're staring at minor league hockey's answer to Crash Davis."

One last financial note. Leafs remain No. 1 in the latest round of Forbes franchise valuations, NHL division (Note for next week: an update to the overall franchise valuations).

One last product placement. The penis basketball chair.

Sports around town. The U of T Blues have a pretty good doubleheader at the Sports Gym to open their Ontario basketball season. The women face national No. 1 ranked McMaster Saturday night at 6; the men, ranked 10th in the country, face No. 7 in the nightcap at 8 p.m.

Pooch punts. Jinks the football degenerate dog went 2-3 last week, not very good, but in his defence he was back-door covered by the Browns and got what he deserved for biting on the Raiders. He's not quite Alpo yet, but he's gotta shape up:

MONTREAL -3 over Toronto
SASKATCHEWAN +7 1/2 over B.C.
St. Louis +3 1/2 over SEATTLE
New Orleans +4 1/2 over PITTSBURGH
NY GIANTS -1 over Chicago

Photo of the Day: Zero tolerance

JEFF TOPPING/REUTERS

Sign of the times in Phoenix Thursday.

Related: The Detroit Free Press's Krista Jahnke on 'T Time.'

I Love the New NBA! from Blog Maverick.

Open Thread: Leafs at Boston

It's either this or the Suns-Mavs, and who wants to do that for two teams that are a combined 1-8?

Something a little different, at least on this little sliver of real estate: an open thread off tonight’s Leafs at Boston game. Sure, you could go to your favourite message board and sling verbal bricks, but here's your chance to get some thrown back engage in civilized discourse about one of the burning issues of the day: How can the Leafs possibly survive without Brave Captain?

Actually I’ll be downstairs watching the game (7 pm start local time; 8:30 pm in Newfoundland) and I don't have wireless hookup, but will promise to come up between periods to check you out. All three of you.

Meantime, here’s some measures of what the Leafs will have to replace with Brave Captain out for a while (I’m going to keep banging this drum as long as y’all keep salivating, so beware):

20:53 minutes of ice time a night, including 5:24 on the PP and 2:07 on the second PK unit; 28 shifts a game.

The ability to turn goalies into cab drivers.

Darcy Tucker has scored 10 goals, eight of them on the power-play - and Sundin has assisted on six of those PPGs.

Big hits, big goals, even a penalty shot, a gold medal, an animal lover and a crusader.

A (yawn) great quote. Okay, a quote, then. Been around the block a few times.

According to my penalty stats (soon to be inflicted on you) he's tied for third on the Leafs for fouls committed against with six (Tucker has been fouled 13 times, Ponikarovsky eight, and Sundin's among a group with six).

I could throw more at ya, but it's almost quitting time. Until tonight, then, and let's meet in the comments (and try to keep any sharp objects out of reach).

Book Review Week: Clemente

Time to wrap up this set of reviews – but first a book note: Next time round, I'm hoping Michael Lewis’s new one, The Blind Side, will be a part of it (if you haven’t read the New York Times excerpt from a few weeks back, check it out).

So here we go, after Messrs. Bidini, Brunt and Skyrme, it’s David Maraniss’s turn with Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero. Maraniss’s tome on Vince Lombardi from a few years back is about the best sports bio I’ve ever read. Clemente is a little different: A story about societal change, and about a life cut short - he had no second act. Just when it seemed like baseball’s first Latin American superstar was winding down his career, he literally disappeared into the ocean while taking supplies to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua on New Year’s Eve, 1972.

Clemente’s baseball bona fides are undisputed and well-documented. But it’s his life in his native Puerto Rico, his desire to help those in need, his love-hate relationship with America, and especially that last flight in a rickety, overloaded, fly-by-night charter airplane (and its aftermath, Clemente’s death plunging his native Puerto Rico, and a Pittsburgh that had come to embrace him, into deep mourning) that Maraniss sketches out with precision that sometimes chills to the bone. Drawing on official documents and investigations from over three decades ago, these read like short sharp daggers unsheathed and pointed, as in this excerpt detailing the negligence of the doomed plane’s owner, after a series of repairs suggested but not ordered by the FAA were due:

“The airplane ought to be ready for a test hop,” one inspector said, after seeing the repair work. But Rivera couldn’t do the test hop himself. He still didn’t know how to taxi his own plane, let alone fly it.

The fatal flight is the climax of the story, but only a piece of a satisfying whole. This is a portrait of the baseball artist as a noble young trailblazer, and three decades on, Clemente's legacy is as plain as the playing fields of the big leagues, where the likes of Manny Ramirez, Ozzie Guillen and Pedro Hernandez owe a great deal to his figure and his story. Maraniss puts it this way:

The mythic aspects of baseball usually draw on cliches of the innocent past, the nostalgia for how things were. Fields of green. Fathers and sons. But Clemente's myth arcs the other way, to the future, not the past, to what people hope they can become. His memory is kept alive as a symbol of action and passion, not of reflection and longing. He broke racial and language barriers and achieved greatness and died a hero. That word can be used indiscriminately in the world of sports, but the classic definition is of someone who gives his life in the service of others, and that is exactly what Clemente did.

An elegant read from a writer who has already set the bar very high for writing about sports.

Photo of the Day: Garbage picking

J.P. MOCZLUSKI/REUTERS

Jorge Garbajosa and Steven Hunter hit the floor at the ACC.

Related: Los Españoles en la NBA (El Pais photogallery).

Say it ain't so, 'Zou

France's media is rushing to his defence, after rumours and questions about whether national icon, headbutter and family man Zinedine Zidane is having an affair with French pop star Nadiya have hit the newsstands. This from The Times Online:

VSD WEBSITE

Nâdiya, who is of Algerian origin, as is Zidane, angrily denied the tale, which had been circulating in Paris and on the internet for weeks. “This has to stop. I am a mother and I want people to respect my integrity . . . All those people can go and jump in the lake,” she told Fogiel. She had met the footballer only once, at a charity event, she said.
The chat show, on the M6 channel, enabled other media to bypass the usual French taboo over private life. They have resorted to an old ploy — devoting space to decrying the rumour while adding fuel.
“Fogiel — hands off Zidane,” screamed the front page of France Soir, which was relaunched this year as a British-style tabloid. Denouncing Fogiel’s “nasty tackle”, the newspaper said that the host had “asked a question which has frightened the media world for several months and which no one dared ask”.
The tale was then given a boost by Voici, a celebrity weekly. Its cover said that it was impossible that Nâdiya could be involved with “our national icon, whose discretion and legendary modesty matches his role as exemplary father and family man”. But Voici published without explanation photographs showing a disguised Zidane and Nâdiya entering the same Paris apartment building minutes apart last month. Nâdiya lives in the building, in the prosperous 17th arrondissement of Paris, according to Switzerland’s La Tribune de Genève.

Related: Bangladesh president offers Zidane a job.

France coach not angry at Zidane but still bitter: "He cracked up, that's only human."

Nadiya's official website.

Book Review Week: The World Cup, a Verse Chronicle

The limerick: Maligned. Under-appreciated, or not appreciated at all. Tossed off.

Ray Skyrme, a retired University of Toronto professor of modern languages, believes in the lure of the limerick, and in this self-published book that arrived at the Mansion last month, he collects all his five-line rhymers from the summer’s World Cup (and a few from friend and colleague John Kay).

Readers of the blog during its relocation to Germany for the tournament may well recall, a couple of weeks in, the daily hits from Ray that started arriving (somehow I got on his e-mail list) – Sarky Ryme, according to one blog reader who thought the whole thing was a put-on – and here they all are, the prematch previews, the postmatch postmortems, all of them laid out in the familiar aabba scheme.

A labour of love, for sure, but no off-the-cuff production. As Skyrme explains in the introduction, the genesis of the project came during the 2002 Mundial, gathered with his friends watching at his local Toronto pub, and then again for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. This was far more ambitious. There was a fair amount of pre-tournament research to do, including team and players’ names, history, geography and culture:

I tried, especially in the pre-match verses, to built a limerick on a sustained image (the AD 711 Moorish invasion of Spain in KSA vs ESP, or Julius Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul in FRA vs ITA). I also tried, within the limits of general understanding, to inject a foreign flavour into the verse, where the context warranted it and made it comprehensible. (In a few limited cases I felt the need to add an explanatory note). So there are words and expressions in French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, Trinidadian patois, and Strine (Australian English), which, I hope, all add spice to the mixture.

Some examples now. Here’s the very first one, written before the draw nearly a year ago:

FIFA World Cup next June in Westphalia,
Match-by-match verse I’ll emailia.
Will Brazil win again?
Or their hope be in vain?
Will Deutscheland once more meet with failia?

Later on, setting up Japan vs Brazil:

Hirohito invades Ipanima.
(For this conflict can I find a rima?)
Though it wasn’t her ball
Brazil may well recall
How the Marines fared at Iwo Jima.

And one more, this little gem recapping the tournament’s roughest match (I'd take you to the last one, but it's not really fair game to give away the ending, is it?):

Second half the Dutch lose Boulahrouz,
Then goes Deco: the game’s a rough house!
That head butt by Figo,
Não é futebol, amigo!
Lisbon wins (with her head in a noose!)

This is a cute and altogether unique way of revisiting the tournament in little bite-sized pieces. Like eating potato chips, it is. You won't find it in any bookstore, though. If you’re interested in getting a copy, let me know and i'll send you along to Ray (and no, if you're wondering, I'm not getting any cut out of this).

Sundin out

Into every Leafs season a little angst must fall.

RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR

Stajan, Wellwood, Steen: Time to step it up, kids.

So here it goes. So far a little more than a month into the season the Leafs front lines have been pretty much intact. But losing Mats Sundin for three to four weeks - which would amount to between 10 and 13 games on the schedule - puts them in something of a bind. And being out that long means that there will be some adjustments when he comes back.

So what do you do now if you're Paul Maurice? Shifting Kyle Wellwood back to centre is probably the first option - it's certainly the first one I can think of, but who would move up on the depth chart to fill Wellwood's spot from there? Matt Stajan to the first line seems a reach. Mike Peca, anyone?

This is a blow, for sure, Sundin in all-star form this season. But if there's a bright side, it's that Pavel Kubina is due back Thursday night - those defenders who limped out of the lineup before Kubina are getting closer to returning, too. A renewed commitment to defence, and continued good goaltending from Andrew Raycroft sounds like Maurice's overarching theme for the next month.

UPDATE: This from Mark Zwolinski's latest report:

Leafs coach Paul Maurice said Kyle Wellwood, who had been on Sundin's wing on a regular line and on the power play, will centre the club's top line with Alex Ponikarovsky and Nik Antropov when the Leafs faceoff in Boston tomorrow night.
Wade Belak was dressed as a forward in practice today and may be see work on the fourth line to complete the forward lines.
Alex Suglobov, who has been a healthy scratch for over a month now, may also get back into the lineup in Sundin's absence.

UPDATE II: It almost is too eerie, but Raking Leafs is saying just about the same thing I'm doing here. (What's that old saying about great minds?)

The Don goes to Ottawa

With purported political philosopher Tie Domi a healthy scratch from the TV pundits panel and the Republicans losing control of the House, it was time for a little buck-up Tuesday from Don Cherry.

Mr. Cherry went to Ottawa Tuesday, (naturally) getting in a few plugs for Coach's Corner and, at least the way he told it, turning down the PM's request that he run for parliament: "I'm too great on television, I can't." he explained. Vancouver Canucks Op Ed put it best: You gotta love a man who loves himself.

Off that segue, a pointer to a newcomer to the blogroll: not really a blog at all, actually, but a nice one-stop-shop for your morning hockey fix, with more widgets than you'd find on a Paul Maurice scouting report, I reckon. The Hockey Recap. Check it out.