Kings’ title brings ice age to L.A.
Ochocinco seeks fresh start in Miami
Stanley Cup
When Jack Kent Cooke got the Los Angeles Kings as an expansion franchise in 1966, he thought he had struck oil because of the large number of transplanted Canadians in Southern California.
When the team tanked at the box office, Cooke said he finally figured out those Canadians moved because they were the only ones who “hated hockey.” Now every Californian is a hockey expert. I’m just wondering what kind of odds you could have gotten betting that the Kings would beat the Dodgers, Lakers, Clippers, UCLA, USC, Angels, Galaxy and Sparks to the next title.
When fans start getting the reputation of arriving late and leaving early and Jonathan Quick starts being referred to as the “White Mamba,” we’ll know that hockey has gone totally mainstream in L.A.
Chad Ochocinco
All my relatives go to Miami to retire. Ochocinco goes back there so he doesn’t have to. That is just another indication that he’s a different breed of cat, albeit one with 85 lives.
You’d think there wouldn’t be a big market for a guy who caught 15 passes last year. But the Dolphins are betting on the roll, and when your returning receivers barely have double-digit TDs combined, a guy who has 67 touchdowns looks that much better at closing time.
With Ochocinco and Randy Moss both back in the good graces of teams, Terrell Owens must be wondering if he should be switching to a cellphone service where his calls don’t get blocked.
U.S. Open
Shouldn’t Rory McIlroy be getting more love this week?
For a guy who took a flamethrower to last year’s U.S. Open with an eight-stroke win, he’s entering the Olympic Club under the cloak of invisibility.
It could be the three consecutive missed cuts (before the FedEx St. Jude) but probably has more to do with the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson
Bubba Watson pairing coupled with a 14-yearold qualifier and the return of Woods’ old roommate Casey Martin and his golf cart.
Woods has known for decades what McIlroy found out after his win at Congressional last year — that when you win a major, “people always view you a little differently.”
With his swashbuckling style, McIlroy has a lot of Arnold Palmer in him, but it is a different king — Henry IV — who speaks for the defending champion when he says “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
Roger Clemens trial
The legal system has nuances I can’t even pretend to understand. Still, it is hard to believe that a competitor like Clemens has chosen not to take the stand. When you have been charged with 13 lies, obstructing Congress, two counts of perjury and three counts of making false statements, don’t you want the ball in your hand? Or at least the ball in your court?
Even if only to clear himself in the court of public opinion, you’d think Clemens would have wanted to throw a couple of high, hard ones.
Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Mayweather sits in a jail cell, and the boxing world thinks the biggest criminals are the three guys who judged the Pacquiao- Timothy Bradley fight. Couple that with the fact that most of us couldn’t name three heavyweights.
Now Mayweather claims his career is over if he can’t be home-jailed because 23 hours a day of lockdown with no workout is destroying him.
If boxing stepped on its tail any more or had worse luck, it’d be horse racing.