During His Romantic Period, He Also Made Some Kick Saves

King goalie Byron Dafoe was named by his mother for Lord Byron, the 19th Century English poet who may have written better verse than Dafoe but probably had a worse goals-against average.

Naturally, Dafoe has picked up the nickname ‘Lord Byron,’ which may be only fitting. The original Lord Byron sounded as if he may have been talking about the Stanley Cup and playing goalie in his poem, “Thoughts Suggested By a College Examination.”

“The man who hopes t’obtain the promised cup

Must in one posture stand, and ne’er look up;”

Lord Byron may have warned about stiff competition on the ice:

“But should a storm o’erwhelm him with disgrace

“They’d fly to seek the next who fill’d his place.”

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Trivia time: Which team has the biggest margin of victory in the UCLA-USC football series?

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Job security . . . not: Of the 29 NBA head coaches, 17 are in their first or second seasons with their current team. Jerry Sloan, in his eighth season at Utah, has the longest tenure.

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Take 136, they’re free: The basketball teams from Union High and Marion Lakeview Christian set a national record at Muncie, Ind., with 136 free throws, nine more than the previous mark set five years ago by two teams in Tennessee.

Union won, 101-97, in two overtimes. No, NBA replacement referees were not used.

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Name change of the week: Providence freshman basketball player Shammgod Wells changed his name to God Shammgod.

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Less fattening: Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News on running marathons: “My position on running 26 miles is the same as it has always been: It’s a remarkable skill. But then so is being able to eat a lot of Buffalo chicken wings.”

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Trivia answer: USC 76, UCLA 0 in 1929, their first meeting.

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Quotebook: Charlotte center Matt Geiger had this reaction after being traded from Miami, where he was a regular at the beach: “First thing I’ve got to do is run out and find some socks.”