Without Hockey, Canadians Are at a Loss on Saturdays

No, life without hockey isn’t going over too well in Canada.

For many fans, Saturday night broadcasts of “Hockey Night in Canada” are where the memories started. It’s a national tradition that might as well date to the time Lord Stanley first sipped from a cup.

But last Saturday night, there were no NHL games in Canada, or anywhere else for that matter.

“Ever since I was a little kid, there’s always been hockey on Saturday nights,” said fan Mike Conway of Toronto.

How bad is it? Worse than we thought.

“We’re sitting here watching all this junk on TV,” Conway said.

Trivia question: Besides Magic Johnson, which Lakers wore No. 32?

Sticks and stones: ESPN’s Keith Olberman roundly criticized Ken Burns for, well, committing errors in Burns’ 18 1/2-hour “Baseball” documentary. Burns’ response?

He called Olberman a “petty-minded nit-picker.”

Ho Hummer: Once he started counting all the bad things that have been happening in sports, Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had sort of a bleak outlook for the Toy Dept.

The headline on Hummer’s column: “Sports enters bleakest period in its history.”

Hummer said the summer’s greatest highlight was “a soccer tournament.”

Said Hummer: “Heaven help us, we’ve turned into England.”

Good luck: Shaquille O’Neal on how he defends against NBA most valuable player Akeem Olajuwon: “I just put my hands up and hope he misses.”

Start thinking, Wade: Yes, there’s a lot of head-shaking going on in Denver, where the 0-4 Broncos have given up 34.2 points a game. There is also a lot of finger-pointing going on, often in the direction of Coach Wade Phillips, who wishes he knew what’s going wrong.

“If I knew what it was, I’d change it,” he said.

Or just pro sports: Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t think much of the owners’ tactics in the NHL labor dispute.

Said Lyon: “This doesn’t sound like negotiation as much as it sounds like extortion.”

Tough, uh, love: Dallas Maverick Coach Dick Motta doesn’t sound as if he is going to use the sweet-talk approach on Roy Tarpley, reinstated by the NBA after being banned for running afoul of the league’s drug policy.

Said Motta: “I don’t want him contaminating my team. . . . I don’t want to get into baby-sitting. I can’t give him preferential treatment.”

Trivia answer: Jim Krebs, Jerry Grote, Bill Bridges and Cazzie Russell.

Quotebook: From Shreveport Pirate linebacker Mario Perry on the struggling Canadian Football League team’s lack of unity: “We should be like brother to brother. Instead, we’re more like cousins.”