His Word Just Might Be as Good as Gold

Bobby Brett has issued a money-back guarantee to fans of his junior hockey team, the Spokane Chiefs, the Associated Press reported.

Brett, team president, said if the Chiefs don’t make the Western Hockey League playoffs next season, he will refund $100,000 to season-ticket holders.

“I feel extremely confident that the 2006-07 team will make the playoffs,” said Brett, who, with his brother, Hall of Fame third baseman George Brett, are members of a group that bought the team in 1990.

But he should strengthen his check-writing hand, because Spokane hasn’t finished out of the cellar in its five-team division in the last two years, much less qualified for the playoffs.

Trivia question: Which are the only former World Hockey Assn. teams to meet in the NHL’s Stanley Cup finals?

Headbangers’ ball: Many athletes pump themselves up before a game by listening to music, but not goalkeeper Kasey Keller, whose U.S. soccer team opens World Cup play today against the Czech Republic:

“I’m a big heavy metal guy -- Soulfly, Slipknot, Metallica. But I don’t listen to it before a game,” Keller, 36, told SI.com. “There’s no reason to get fired up from listening to something that’s just slamming when sometimes you don’t have anything to do for 70 minutes.”

Bowl him over: On the U.S. soccer team’s ranking of fifth in the world by FIFA’s computers, Sportscurmudgeon.com wrote: “At first, I was astounded by that. Then I wondered if FIFA used the same computers and the same programmers as the BCS uses.”

Rocket power: Torii Hunter, Minnesota Twins center fielder, said on the “Best Damn Sports Show Period” that he isn’t looking forward to facing Roger Clemens, who is scheduled to make his 2006 debut against the Twins on June 22 in Houston.

“I’ve got to get all my hits before I get to him,” he said. “I’m like 0 for 22 with 10 or 12 strikeouts, and he’s like Kryptonite.”

Never-ending story: Wrote Bud Geracie in the San Jose Mercury News: “Johnny Drennen is the Class-A kid who homered off Roger Clemens ... and his unborn grandchildren already are tired of the story.”

Looking back: On this date in 1970, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates walked eight and hit one but threw a no-hitter in a 2-0 win over the host San Diego Padres.

Years later, Ellis claimed he pitched that game under the influence of LSD. “Sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I saw the hitter,” he said in a 1990 interview. “Sometimes I didn’t see either one.”

Trivia answer: The Carolina Hurricanes and Edmonton Oilers, who play Game 4 of their series today in Edmonton.

They met twice in WHA postseason play. In 1978, the New England Whalers, who became the Hartford Whalers and eventually the Hurricanes, beat the Oilers in a five-game, first-round series. In 1979, the WHA’s final season, the Oilers won a seven-game, second-round series.

And finally: On the NBA Finals, Dwight Perry wrote in the Seattle Times: “If the Mavericks lose in seven, we assume, Dallasites will simply shrug it off as close but no Cuban cigar.”