Newz Forum: OTHER: The Sports Curmudgeon on the NHL, Nascar, The football food chain plus more...

Here is incontrovertible evidence that the NHL strike/lockout/whatever is of minimal import to the sporting world. Washington DC has a hockey franchise which is one of the ones that purportedly has hemorrhaged cash.

News of some kind of change in the status quo in the negotiations wherein there might be some kind of settlement on the horizon which might bring economic relief to the beleaguered local franchise should be news in Washington, right? Well, it's not. Yesterday, the NHL and the NHLPA resumed their negotiations and the players offered significant salary reductions to existing contracts. That is a first in sports labor negotiations. So, how did the Washington Post value this news item? It appeared as a single column item on page 2 of the sports section and - not counting the headline - took up all of six inches of space. On the front page of the sports section there is:

A Sally Jenkins column (always a good idea to put her stuff front and center),
A huge story about a local high school football player being recruited by all the top colleges in the country (locally important story),

A story about how those plucky Hoyas of Georgetown put up a fight against Illinois in basketball before losing by 15 (every cloud still has a silver lining for John Thompson III),

A story about Kwame Brown being suspended for a game because he and the Wizards' coach quarreled (this is not important to anyone outside the Kwame Brown household),

Yet another mid-week filler article on the upcoming Redskins' game this weekend (how many times can you say that the Redskins' players intend to give it their all this weekend and fly around and make plays?) and finally,

An article on the University of Maryland soccer team (yes, college soccer!)

They buried the NHL labor news to create space for that.

Memo to NHL combatants: If this does not convince you that your league is losing its balance at the precipice of irrelevance, you are out of touch with reality. In politically correct terms, you are all "differently clued".

Speaking of the "differently clued", a senior assistant to the president of Notre Dame has shaved her head in protest of Tyrone Willingham's firing there. And she told the South Bend Tribune that she will remain with shaven head until Notre Dame wins a national championship. That brings back memories of the mid to late 60s when irrelevant protests became an art form. To protest the oppression of women in some far-off land, you might find a group of folks who pledged to sit on the roof of a building holding hands and singing folk music until the oppression stopped. Of course the oppression never did but the protest stopped because it was pointless in the first place and had no relevance whatsoever to the oppressors. Well, this Notre Dame administrator has "awakened the echoes" of that kind of irrelevancy here. I'm sure that players will now regard her shorn locks and decide to "Win one for the (hair) Clipper".

Memo to Sports Media Everywhere: Please do not make this person out to be someone who is important. However, make a note to go check her out in 2014 to see if she is still bald and ask her then if even she can remember why she is...

Sometimes you are treated to an interesting insight into how the food chain is organized in some sport. Here is one such datum. Ed White (formerly an All-Pro offensive lineman with the Vikings) was named as the president of the San Diego franchise in the Arena Football League. After two weeks in that job, he resigned to take a job as an assistant coach at San Diego State University. Keep this in perspective; San Diego State is not a major collegiate football power. If someone were to fire the head coach there, no one would bother to shave his or her head in protest.

The County Prosecutor in Auburn Hills Michigan has filed all the charges that he feels are appropriate after the Pacers/Pistons dust-up. There was a report that he made his decisions after watching the videotapes of the melee and reading 1000 pages of reports on the brawl. Assuming that these reports did not go off on sociological flights of fancy and stuck to what happened there and what the applicable laws might be, how the hell could there have been 1,000 pages of "stuff" generated by this incident?

Memo to County Prosecutor: Trees are dying here...

If you have watched ESPN at all in the last month, you must know that they have made yet another of their biopic movies; after all, the damned thing has been hyped at least six bazillion times. This time it is about Dale Earnhardt, Sr. None of these ESPN movies is any good but the trend for ESPN's creations is not heading in the right direction. Season on the Brink was maudlin; The Junction Boys was maudlin but with more sweat; Hu$tle was unwatchable - it was the TV version of Gigli; now comes 3-The Dale Earnhardt Story. I shudder to ask how bad it can be - only because I'm afraid I'm about to find out...

Finally, here is an item about another NASCAR driver from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

"Kasey Kahne has cashed his NASCAR Rookie of the Year Award into an endorsement deal for Avon Products.

"Hey, we like to see a local guy make good as well as the next guy, but is the world really ready for Pit Stop deodorant?"

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...

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