That’s $200 More Than NHL Guys Make Now

The coach of a minor league hockey team has been suspended indefinitely for allegedly offering a $200 bounty to the player who took out Flint General forward Kevin Kerr during a recent United Hockey League game between the Generals and Motor City Mechanics.

Kerr’s offense? He had criticized three Detroit Red Wing players who had agreed to play for the Mechanics, saying it was hypocritical for Chris Chelios, Derian Hatcher and Kris Draper to play in a minor league with a salary cap when their union wouldn’t agree to a cap with the NHL.

Those comments allegedly prompted Mechanic Coach Steve Shannon, a former Detroit cop hired the previous day, to put the bounty on Kerr, the all-time leading scorer in minor league hockey. There were no fights involving Kerr during the Generals’ 5-1 victory.

“Some rookies in this league make $300 a week,” Mechanic President John Tull told the Detroit Free Press. “So you can see where that would be a lot of money.”

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Trivia time: The Atlanta Braves have won 13 consecutive division titles. What was their smallest margin of title victory during the streak?

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Dieting for the halibut: Baltimore Sun columnist Peter Schmuck says he is going on the Sidney Ponson diet, having been impressed with the weight loss experienced by the Baltimore Oriole pitcher on a meal plan that emphasizes grilled fish.

“[It’s] a little like the South Beach diet,” Schmuck wrote, “except that you actually spend a lot of time at South Beach while you’re on it.”

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What not to wear: Kobe Bryant’s wife, Vanessa, will have to remember to leave the pink tank top with “Fashionable ... “ on it, which she once wore to a Laker exhibition, behind from now on when she attends games at Staples Center.

The NBA’s new fan code of conduct, which took effect Tuesday, forbids “any obscene or indecent messages on signs or clothing.” Fans violating the code will be subject to ejection and loss of season tickets.

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Talk about a free throw: ESPN Page 2 columnist Bill Simmons, who engaged Shaquille O’Neal in a good-natured game of P-I-G over the All-Star weekend, called the Miami Heat center’s emergence as “a goofy, larger-than-life character in the post-Kobe Era” the best story of the NBA season.

“For over a decade,” Simmons wrote, “we always heard that Shaq was a different guy behind the scenes, that the mumbling, monosyllabic behemoth with the media was just his way of keeping his privacy. Now, there isn’t a more likable athlete in sports. Who doesn’t love Shaq? I feel terrible that I’m going to have to embarrass him in front of all these people.”

Not quite. O’Neal won the contest on a dunk.

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Trivia answer: Atlanta won its division title by one game over the Dodgers in 1991, one game over the San Francisco Giants in 1993 and one game over the New York Mets in 2000.

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And finally: Jay Leno, noting the cancellation of the NHL season on “The Tonight Show,” said, “If you want to see people on TV with bad teeth, you’ll just have to wait for the Prince Charles wedding.”