News you need to get through the day …
THE CONTEST
The New Jersey Devils had a public contest to design new goalie pads for backup Keith Kinkaid. Forward Adam Henrique appears to have won.
His submission? A design showing free agent Stephen Gionta’s head on the body of “Seinfeld’s” George Constanza in his Timeless Art
of Seduction pose with the image covering both pads. He calls the design the Pads of Seduction. Brilliant.
MISS, MISS, MISS, MISS …
The Los Angeles Lakers retired both No. 8 and No. 24 this week in honour of Kobe Bryant, who wore those two numbers at different times in his career.
Multiply those numbers together and you’ll get roughly the number of shots he missed every game rather than passing to his teammates. Bryant holds the NBA record for most shots missed in his career with 14,481, which is roughly 1,000 more than anyone else and over 2,000 more than Michael Jordan.
AWKWARD. OR WORSE.
Interesting that the Los Angeles Lakers honoured Bryant in the middle of the #MeToo campaign and with Hollywood roiling over recent and historical allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment. You will recall that Bryant was accused of rape by a hotel worker and settled out of court a little over a decade ago.
In this climate, the timing is certainly interesting.
WEIRD STAT OF THE WEEK
Last year when the Hamilton Bulldogs were a mediocre team, nine players were on the negative side of the plus-minus stat. Now that the team is really good and sitting third overall in the OHL, 10 players are in the minus.
BIG SHOOTERS
Before reading any further, stop here for a second and ask yourself how many of the top five all-time Canadian scorers at the World Junior Championship you can name. OK, carry on. The tournament opens on Boxing Day. Pretty sure not even the most-dedicated hockey fan would be able to solve this list, so don’t feel badly about whiffing. Because Wayne Gretzky isn’t here. Neither is Connor McDavid. Or are a lot of the greats.
Here’s who is (points and games played in brackets). 1. Eric Lindros (31/21) 2. Jordan Eberle (26/12) 3. Brayden Schenn (26/13) 4. Ryan Ellis (25/19) 5. Jason Allison (24/14)
THE BEST EVER
Despite Canada’s overwhelming success at this event, Lindros only comes in at No. 10 on the overall list. The top five from any nation are Peter Forsberg (42/14), Robert Reichel (40/21), Pavel Bure (39/21), Esa Tikkanen (36/21) and Alexander Mogilny (35/20).
RARE AIR
One last World Junior note. Only four of the top 50 scorers all time (Forsberg, Bure, Lindros and Sergei Fedorov) went on to have hall-of-fame careers in the NHL.
WELL, THAT’S NOT TERRIFIC
Mike Sherman was hired as coach of the Montreal Alouettes this week. Sherman may have coached Green Bay once upon a time, but his last coaching gig was as head man at Nauset Regional High School — yes, high school — in Massachusetts. He held that post for the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
His team went 4-18.
AH, POOP
Burglars broke into the Dallas home of former Toronto Raptor Charlie Villanueva this week. And what did they steal? His toilet. Seriously. They unscrewed it from the floor and left with his toilet.
They have weird burglars in Texas.
THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR
Sports Illustrated came out with its early power rankings for Major League Baseball teams. The Blue Jays landed at No. 20.
In other words, it’s going to be a long summer.
HOT HEAT
The Miami Heat are not playing on Christmas Day this year. They wish they were.
No NBA franchise has a better record playing on Dec. 25 than the Heat, who are 10-2 all time. Just a tick behind them are the Portland Trail Blazers at 14-3.
The Raptors have only played in one Christmas game. They lost to New York in 2001.
DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS ONE
Each year around this time Google publishes a list of the most-searched topics and people around the world. You can look up the hot topics country by country. Doing so shows searches are almost all about local issues or massive global stories that cross borders. Except in Bangladesh. Don’t know why this seems so bizarre, but the eighth-most-searched thing there was WWE Extreme Rules.
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS
For every Maple Leafs fan giddy about how well their team is doing and excited about all the young talent assembled in blue and white, remember one thing:
They’re three points behind the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS II
The least-happy person with the Golden Knights’ success? Whoever gets the job as Seattle’s GM when that city’s expansion team lands.
If they can be in first in their expansion year, no reason you can’t be, too.
sradley@thespec.com 905-526-2440 @radleyatthespec Spectator columnist Scott Radley hosts The Scott Radley Show weeknights from 6-8 on 900CHML