World Cup fever!

Like, what is that all about?

Otherwise sane people book a month of holiday time and refi the house so they can go to Brazil for a month to be accosted by pickpockets and prostitutes.

Oh, and watch some soccer games... or "football" as the fans like to style it.

The aficionados refer to it as "the beautiful game".

I refer to it as a beautiful opportunity for a nap. Most matches you can safely snooze out for an hour when the score is 0-0, and odds are when you wake up an hour later the score will be 0-0. You obviously missed nothing.

Compared to watching a soccer game, a Sunday afternoon watching the NASCAR boys negotiate 2000 left turns at Bristol is a veritable aneurysm of sporting excitement. At least at Bristol there is always the possibility that something might happen.

As I write this I have an eye on the Rangers-Kings game. The Rangers just tied it up. There is more excitement in any ten minutes of an NHL playoff game than there is going to be in the next two weeks in Brazil.

And how about that NBA final! Talk about sporting excitement! The NBA makes the NHL look like soccer! Who could ever image the Heat down 3-1? And seeing 200 points scored in a game is routine... that would take twenty years of dedicated viewership to see in professional "football".

Rangers just went up a goal... sorry, I gotta sign off and give that game my full attention...

If I was watching soccer, I'd be lying down for a nap.

Ranger's GM Sather flouts NYC smoking laws with impunity

I used to put Glamorous Glen Sather right up there with Brian Burke as one of the worst General Managers in the hockey business. Now that his Rangers are in the second round I guess I could just shut up. At least as far as comparing him to the hapless Burke is concerned.

After all, you're not seeing Burke's Leafs in the second round, are you?.. or the first, come to think of it.

But lucky for me I've found a new quibble with Sather, the GM who has milked his association with Wayne Gretzky for more than anyone ever imagined possible.

After all, it was The Great One who brought those Stanleys to Edmonton.

It wasn't Glen.

But Glen is sitting fat and happy in New York City. When I see him on the TV, he's usually sitting in his suite at the Madison Square Garden.

Fat, happy, infinitely pleased with himself as always, and puffing on a jumbo stogie.

Wait a minute! He's smoking a cigar in Madison Square Garden?

Isn't that against the law?

Doesn't New York City boast some of the most progressive anti-smoking legislation in the land?

Last I heard you can't light up a Marlboro within ten blocks of a playground for fear that the juvenile delinquents setting the playground equipment on fire might get the idea that it's OK to smoke.

Bloomberg is dead set against that sort of contamination of juvenile minds.

But tune in the latest Rangers game and there's the Supreme Leader puffing on his Cuban cigar (and there's a whole 'nother blog-post; is Sather a secret commie symp?) with utterly no repercussions whatsoever!

Wake up, Mayor Bloomberg! This man is sending millions of impressionable young hockey fans down the road of nicotine addiction, and you're not doing a damned thing about it?

Send those by-law enforcement officers into the MSG tonight.

I'll be watching.