NBC Gets a Laugh Out of NHL Ratings

Can you name the teams playing in the Stanley Cup finals?

NBC’s telecast of Game 3 of the Carolina-Edmonton series, which like Games 1 and 2 on OLN failed to get good ratings, did not escape Jay Leno’s barbs Tuesday night.

“The Stanley Cup finals on NBC in prime time last night got a two. Not a two rating. Two people watched,” he said.

“Even Stanley wasn’t watching, and it’s his cup. I don’t think we have ever done worse in the ratings.”

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Trivia time: Miami and Dallas are in the NBA Finals for the first time. When was the last time two teams made their Finals debut together and what was the result?

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Unbearable: How nerve-racking is it for a coach to watch Shaquille O’Neal shoot free throws in crunch time?

On his Sirius Satellite radio show, Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said, “I stopped even watching it after a while. I just looked down to the other end of the court and would look up at the scoreboard to see if he made the shot or not.”

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A gigging they will go: Ukraine’s World Cup soccer team cried foul before its game against Spain, telling the Sovetsky newspaper that frogs in the lake near their hotel were keeping them awake.

“We have agreed we will take fishing rods to hunt these frogs,” defender Vladislav Vashchyuk said.

Alas, the weary Ukrainians, as though playing on webbed feet, were trounced, 4-0.

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Protecting the rock: Seattle Seahawks Coach Mike Holmgren told the Post-Intelligencer that he did not preach to his players after Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was injured in a motorcycle crash while riding without a helmet.

But Holmgren, who rides a Harley, did say this to the newspaper: “A helmet is not asking for the moon.”

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Wasabi clause: Many athletes have contract clauses that say they can’t do risky things such as skydive or drive race cars.

Coach Jacques Lemaire of the Minnesota Wild indicated recently that he’d like to add another item, after several of his players were sidelined because of food poisoning.

“It’s the ... sushi,” Lemaire told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “How many guys have gotten it this year? It’s raw fish, come on! You can’t keep that under the sun too long.”

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Frontier humor: How deep is the rough at New York’s Winged Foot Golf Club, site of this week’s U.S. Open?

Writes Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune:

“A scythe and an Indian guide would come in handy on Fenimore Road, where this navigational menace of a golf course sits.”

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Trivia answer: In 1971, when the Milwaukee Bucks swept the Baltimore Bullets.

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And finally: From Jim Armstrong of the Denver Post: “Talk about sweating it out. Those 10 players Jason Grimsley gave up to the feds must be on needles and needles wondering if their names will go public.”