They’re the Ottawa Senators, not the Ottawa Janitors.
They never could sweep.
And they couldn’t last night, either, as the Buffalo Sabres cleaned up in Ottawa with a 3-2 triumph. The Sabres trail the series 3-1 now and extended the best-of-seven Eastern Conference final to at least another game.
Truth is, the Sens looked like their old selves in this one. They were down 3-0 early. They gave away the puck too much. And their goaltender, Ray Emery, turned in his first subpar game of the post-season.
There hasn’t been this much anticipation in Ottawa since Confederation. But the denizens will have to wait to celebrate until at least Saturday, when the teams resurface in Buffalo.
• Here’s something you and I should remember not to buy: A book Ricky Williams is planning to write about his life story. This disgraced/suspended football player — who insisted last season while he was stealing, er, collecting, money from the Toronto Argonauts that yoga had replaced marijuana in his life — is in New York this week to close a book-collaboration deal with author Mike D’Orso.
Seriously, why would anyone believe anything Williams has to say ever again?
• Too many baseball people are ignorant jerks when it comes to women.
I’ve reported here before that, for years, baseball players aren’t reluctant to ridicule and mock female reporters who dare to enter their clubhouses.
Then, last season, there was an appalling incident in which New York Mets broadcaster Keith Hernandez suggested that a female therapist in the San Diego Padres’ dugout ought to “get into the kitchen, where she belongs,” or something stupid like that.
To top that, Orioles broadcaster Rick Dempsey was idiotic enough recently to ask the wife of Baltimore player Jay Gibbons on the air whether she would “rough up” her husband if he didn’t improve his hitting. When she said she wouldn’t go there, Dempsey followed up with a suggestion that he himself would “domestically violate” Gibbons if the hitter kept slumping.
Oh, I almost forgot. Gibbons’ wife was on the air because she was promoting a fundraiser for domestic violence.
Morons.
• Fanatical fans of the Raptors, thin-skinned types who generally loathe chaps such as Vince Carter, Antonio Davis, Tracy McGrady and others who decided they had no use for the Toronto team, also like to criticize Isiah Thomas, the club’s former bossman. The truth, however, is that he is revered by many in the NBA and, while Eddy Curry threatened to quit the Knicks if Thomas wasn’t retained by New York management.
