If You Copy Him, Prepare for 12 Rounds

Let’s get ready to ... sue!

Dapper ring announcer Michael Buffer, known for growling, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” doesn’t take kindly to those who violate his copyright on that phrase.

He and his brother, Bruce, got the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to copyright the phrase and his image, and they are vigilant about taking legal action against anyone who appropriates it.

“It’s no different from someone using Pepsi’s name to sell another cola,” Buffer told Associated Press. “It’s my business, it’s what I do for a living.”

Buffer makes a comfortable living uttering those words before professional boxing matches as well as at bar mitzvahs, bass fishing tournaments, birthday parties, building implosions and corporate meetings. He also has appeared on TV and in movies such as “Rocky V” and “Ocean’s Eleven.”

But his pet phrase almost didn’t come to be.

“I tried, ‘Man your battle stations,’ ‘Fasten your seat belts,’ that kind of thing,” he said. “I wanted a hook that would get a little energy back into the fight. [Muhammad] Ali used to say he was ‘Ready to rumble,’ and ‘Rumble, young man, rumble.’ I took that and fine-tuned it.”

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Trivia time: Who was the first Los Angeles Laker to wear No. 33, now retired in honor of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

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The not-so-frozen north: Global warming apparently is causing the demise of hockey in the far northern reaches of Canada.

Villages where people once skated on outdoor rinks from September through April have had their seasons cut because the ice doesn’t freeze until mid-December and melts in March.

“You’d think we’d be skating all year round,” amateur hockey coach David Kilabuk, who lives in the remote Canadian village of Pangnirtung, told Bloomberg News. “That’s not the case.”

Said Canadian hockey official Tom Thompson, “Who would have thought that in the winter we wouldn’t be able to freeze ice?”

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He knows a real jam: Cuban-born Euclides Rojas, hired last week as bullpen coach of the Boston Red Sox, came to the United States on a 15-foot rowboat that had lost its motor and was adrift in the Gulf Stream until it was spotted by a Coast Guard cutter.

He and his family were taken to a refugee center in Guantanamo and remained there until former teammate Rene Arocha sponsored their immigration bid.

“It was not easy,” Rojas told the Boston Globe, “but it was easier than what the Cuban people are passing through now.”

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Trivia answer: Hot Rod Hundley, longtime voice of the Utah Jazz, the Lakers’ opponent tonight.

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And finally: Tennis great Rod Laver, inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame last week, said big prize money had influenced many prominent players to abbreviate their careers.

“If you look at Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad, my hero, we just couldn’t bail out at an early age,” Laver told the Sydney Morning Herald. “We put a lot of credit in those years, whereas Boris Becker and whereas Stefan Edberg, well, when the player pockets are full, they are out of there.

“But Lleyton Hewitt, I don’t feel that way about. I think he is a great competitor and a great Australian.”

-- Helene Elliott