The World of Sports Darren Paterson, Sports Editor Extra! Extra! The Canadian kids finally came through! After years of silver heartbreak, culminat- ing in last year’s third-period choke, the Canadian junior hockey team has struck gold. The stacked team cruised through the tournament, setting numerous records along the way, thanks in part to the NHL lockout leaving many players who might've had obligations to their NHL teams eligi- ble to compete. Players like Patrice Bergeron who won the tournament scor- ing title, was named MVP, and made the tournament all-star team. Other players on the all-star team were Jeff Carter and Dion Phaneuf (Canada), Alexander Ovechkin (Russia), Ryan Suter (US), and goaltender Marek Schwarz (Czech Republic). In other world British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur is four days ahead of schedule in her bid for a new solo round-the-world — record. MacArthur left from Ushant, France, and reached Cape Horn in a record 44 days, 23 hours, and 36 minutes. The current record news, holder is Frenchman Francis Joyon, who covered the world in 72 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes, and 22 seconds, early in 2004. When she reached Cape Horn, MacArthur had travelled over 19,000 nautical miles of the 25,000-nautical-mile voyage. She needs Honourable Mention Super-rookie Ben Roethlisberger became the first NFL quarterback to win the Associated Press’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award since 1957, and Peyton Its a Wacky World It seems that the sports world is never lacking in wackiness. Recently, Randy Moss was fined $10,000 by the NFL for his fake mooning of the crowd after a touchdown catch. Moss’s remark? “Ain’t nothing but ten grand. What’s ten grand to me?” What’s even sillier was the ridiculous overreaction by the play-by- play announcer: “That is a disgusting act by Randy Moss.” Moss’s team, the Minnesota Vikings, requested that the announcer not be allowed to commen- tate their next game. Their request was denied. Ten grand doesn’t appear to be much to boxing promoter Don King either. Manning (surprise, surprise) won his sec- ond AP MVP award, thanks to his record 49 touchdowns and 121.1 passer rating. Manning also set a new NFL playoff record for most passing yards in a half with 360 (by the end of the game he had 457, which was 32 short of setting a record for yards in a game). Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were also honoured this year, when they were inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. Boggs received the third-most votes ever (474), to trail only Nolan Ryan (491) and George Brett (488), and his voting per- centage of 91.86 was the 19th highest in Hall history. King has filed a $2.5-BILLION lawsuit against ESPN for sullying his reputation. The lawsuit claimed that a SportsCentury segment, aired last May, accused King of being “a snake-oil salesman, a shameless huckster, and worse.” But my question is this: what kind of shameless huckster would file a $2.5-billion lawsuit? None of the ones I know. Go get ’em King! And how’s this for a laugh? Baseball has set its goal to crack down on steroids in the MLB. Yeah, right. Like they’re ever going to get drugs out of that sport. Speaking of baseball, the estimated cost to demolish Montreal’s Olympic Stadium is more than $500 million, and it would supposedly take two years to com- plete the project. Now there’s a worthy In the CFL, Joe Paopao was dealt the honour of being named GM of the Ottawa Renegades. He will also remain head coach of the team (unlike the situa- tion in Calgary, where the Stampeders’ new owners fired their president, GM, and coach). And finally, here’s a shout out to Nicolas Gill, who retired from competi- tive judo at the age of 32. Gill is Canada’s most successful judoka and has won Olympic silver and bronze, as well as three world-championship medals, three Pan Am medals, and 10 national titles. project for Quebec’s provincial govern- ment. The Best of Sport Darren Paterson, Sports Editor s those of you who read my sec- A tion may have noticed, I usually take a little time to reflect on what I think is a problem in sports in “The Down Side of Sports.” However, in addition to this week’s down side, I have also been inspired to write about the brighter side of sports. There’s nothing like an international disaster to bring out the best in the world of sports, so Id like to recognize some of the people that January = 19/8005 Sporting organizations and athletes around the world have donated generous- ly to tsunami-relief efforts to date. Athletes big and small, rich and poor, famous and not, have made contributions and, while Alex Rodriguez isn’t giving a few million out of his $152-million salary, the effort is to be commended. Most of the relief effort has come in the form of money, and most of that money has come from auctions. Auctions such as the one held by the San Francisco Giants, which raised $109,650 US. This is only slightly more that the $81,500 that was raised through the selling of a Manchester United jersey and English National jersey. And smaller contribu- tions—such as the $5,000 raised in the auctioning of the tennis rackets used by Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, or the several hundred raised by CFL kicker Paul McCallum when he auctioned off _ his shoes and helmet from his infamous. playoff loss to the Lions—have also been much appreciated. But athletes have done more than just collect other people’s money by selling their stuff Many athletes have donated money out of their own pockets in sums much larger than you or I could ever gen- erate. Several NBA players were donating $1,000 US for every point they scored in a game. Standout NFL rookie, Ben Roethlisberger, donated his first playoff paycheque of $18,000. Tennis player Carlos Moya donated all of the $52,000 that he received for winning the Chennai Open, an event from which the ATP, the governing body of men’s tennis, also donated the $25,000 sanctioning fee. But here’s. my favourite: the four-man German luge team, participants in a sport that is not at all well funded, donated all of the $2,150 US prize money they received for winning the Luge World Cup. But relief money has come in much larger sums than that as the Olympic-bid team for Madrid 2012 has donated $162,715 CDN, the International - Olympic committee gave $1 million US, and FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation combined to donate $3 million dollars in relief funding. And the greatest contribution that sport has made has been through the ath- letes who have taken time out of their posh lifestyles and done much more than simply send money. The world’s leading cricket players have volunteered to play a charity game between team Asia and team World, in which the Asian players will be led by Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan, who has already spent much of his time helping to deliver food and console the survivors of the tsunami. And the fact that all of these athletes and athletic organizations—along with many others that I have not mentioned— have used their gifts to benefit the world outside of their sports represents, to me, the best of what sports have to offer,