The Maple Leafs open the season with a lineup that features Dynamo graduate Alexei Ponikarovsky and Nik Antropov, who was with AK Bars Kazan last season, on the top line.
Talk about your Russian roulette.
On the upside
The Leafs play the Ottawa Senators, who beat them twice in pre-season. Advantage Toronto.
The Sens are the perfect team for our national and political capital: They're big on promise -- but rarely deliver.
Oh, horsefeathers
Frank Miniter, executive editor of American Hunter, compiled some of the strangest wildlife laws on the books. He notes that it is illegal to hunt camels in Arizona, to give a moose a beer in Alaska, to hunt whales in Ohio on a Sunday, and to walk across the Minnesota-Wisconsin border with a duck on your head.
Meantime, Toronto has an old bylaw dictating that it is illegal to drag a dead horse down Yonge St. Which explains why, at Stanley Cup party time, the Leafs never get paraded down the main drag.
Who knew!
Houston, we have liftoff
Just last week America's space program announced it was changing directions and that it would boldly go where few men before have dared to go.
Who knew they were talking about the space between Rafer Alston's ears!
The Raptors yesterday ended the tempestuous Alston era by trading him to the Houston Rockets for journeyman guard Mike James. The deal is a good move for the following reasons:
1) Regarded as one of the good guys in pro sports, James was a relief worker to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. As opposed to Alston, who just acts like he's a hurricane.
2) It's a sign the Raptors believe Alvin Williams can play a bit on a knee, the insides of which look like something out of a can of Chef Boyardee.
3) It's general manager of mayhem Rob Babcock's way of looking back on signing Rafer to that six-year deal, rubbing his bonehead, and saying: "What in tarnation was I thinkin'?"
4) With all that damage to the oil industry from Hurricane Rita, Texas could use a gasbag.
5) Mitchell didn't have room for a guy averaging 14.2 points, 3.5 boards, 6.4 assists and 1.5 trips to the doghouse per game.
6) James wouldn't recognize the doghouse if Medusa was lying on the front stoop.
7) It'll be nice to have a guard who, when asked to "take better care of the basketball," doesn't have a hissy fit and threaten to take his basketball and go home.
8) James was undrafted by the NBA out of Duquesne and has played for six teams, including Milwaukee. So, Toronto's a perfect fit -- he's used to playing in places where the ESPN light doesn't shine.
9) The Raptors training staff couldn't figure out how to surgically remove Rafer's foot from his mouth.
10) James was born in Amityville, N.Y. So he's comfortable with being part of a horror story.
Paper tigers
The Houston Chronicle's Richard Justice, on how the newspaper's June 1 sports section that had a tombstone announcing the premature demise of the Astros -- then 19-32 -- was passed around the dressing room and became the turning point in the team's season:
"I'm glad they are using it as a rallying point. The Rockets rode our 'Choke City' headline all the way to a title. Maybe this will work out the same way for the Astros
"I'm hoping it ends up on national television soaked in champagne during a World Series celebration later this month.
"Next up: the Texans."
Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, on picking winners in the NFL this season: "All of a sudden, we're meteorologists, guessing where storms might go but really having no more idea than your uncle who senses rain when his sciatica acts up."
Bits 'n' bites
Detroit Lions receiver Charles Rogers faces a four-game suspension for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy. It's expected he will appeal -- blaming either Miguel Tejada with a vitamin B tablet in the gym or Colonel Mustard with a lead pipe in the library ... The NFC North Division once was known as The Black and Blue Division for the punishment its teams inflicted on the opposition. These days the only punishment they're inflicting is on their fans ... Only one explanation for the Green Bay Packers this year. Someone back home in Mississippi is sticking needles into their Brett Favre doll ... On the premise that good pitching stops good hitting, this year's World Series is Houston versus the Chicago White Sox.
