Morning Briefing

And it wasn’t even ‘North Dallas Forty’

The NFL had “Heidi” and now the Canadian Football League has . . . Nick Nolte?

The CBC last Saturday night “chose not to resume coverage of the [CFL] Edmonton Eskimos-Saskatchewan Roughriders game after a power outage at Mosaic Stadium in Regina caused a delay,” according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Instead of returning for the last 13 minutes of the game, the CBC “stayed with a movie that had been running as filler for about 55 minutes,” the paper reported.

Edmonton was ahead, 32-27, in the fourth quarter when the power outage stopped the game, but Saskatchewan scored 12 points after play resumed and won, 39-32.

The movie, starring Nick Nolte and appropriately titled “The Good Thief,” robbed viewers of the comeback.

Trivia time

In the infamous 1968 Heidi game, the New York Jets led the Oakland Raiders, 32-29, with 65 seconds to play when NBC cut away to the children’s movie. What was the final score?

Dog piling

The Atlanta Humane Society recently received a dozen or so packages containing Michael Vick No. 7 Atlanta Falcons jerseys.

It was a surprising development for workers there, considering Vick has agreed to plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges. But the notes accompanying the jerseys cleared the air.

Many asked that the jerseys be used as liners for the cages used to keep dogs, or to clean up the mess those dogs leave behind.

“Kind of appropriate,” Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, told the Associated Press.

Back to basics

John Elway is back on the sidelines, Denver television station KDVR reported Wednesday.

He’ll be coaching his son, Jack, a senior quarterback at Cherry Creek High. The elder Elway, 47, will be quarterbacks coach and the television station reported on its website that “he plans to attend 90-95% of the team’s practices this year and says he will be on the sideline for every game.”

Late delivery

The FedEx Cup and its $10-million prize got the attention of J.B. White at WorldGolf.com, but he was less than impressed to find out that the purse would be put in an annuity and paid when the winner is between the age of 45 and 60.

“Does the PGA Tour really think most of these players need a retirement fund?” White wrote. “Many of the players competing in these new playoffs are already millionaires.”

New math

Salary.com recently analyzed the salaries of sports stars and compared them with “average Joes.” Among the findings:

It would take the annual salaries of 1,914 head golf professionals to match Tiger Woods’ estimated annual income of just under $112 million.

It would take 709 schoolteachers to match the $35 million Shaquille O’Neil makes.

David Beckham’s $50 million a year is about the same as the earnings of 852 nurses.

Oscar De La Hoya makes about $55 million a year -- about the same as 1,140 personal trainers.

That’s the ticket

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported the Brewers are selling baseball playoff tickets for the first time since 1992.

But considering the Brewers have lost 11 of their last 16 and would not be in the playoffs if the season were to end today, you have to wonder, are they selling Cubs, Mets or Diamondbacks tickets?

Trivia answer

The Raiders won, 43-32, after scoring two touchdowns in a span of nine seconds.

And finally

The Chicago Sun-Times hit the youth football circuit to solicit advice for Bears quarterback Rex Grossman, who has had a habit of fumbling snaps.

“It’s very easy to take snaps,” said fifth-grader Jimmy Smolik, 10, a quarterback. “Just open your hands and wait for the ball, and then you close your hands.”

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peter.yoon@latimes.com