Warning: Cigarettes can cause ball hockey problems

Headlines and sidelines - Played ball hockey at the YMCA last Friday night with guys ranging in age from 20-60, I'd estimate. Ball hockey is one of the few things you can do as an adult that you did as a kid without looking childish - at least that's how I see it, and that's what counts. Despite a renewed dedication to getting back in shape ("Take 43!!" yelled the director), I was good for a couple rushes up the floor and some relentless 'D' in front of my own net, before I was hollering for a sub and leaning on my stick, gasping for air.

Sorry if anyone caught an errant elbow during scrambles... that can happen when you crowd the crease and get slap-happy with the stick. The crease has always been a tough place to make a living.

Dastardly things, those cigarettes, and an addiction I plan on taking care of in short order, as soon as I drum up the courage. Withdrawal might make me a bit cranky and abrupt with people, but you'll just have to put up with it until it subsides oh, sometime around never.

By the way, should you object to anything written here, you can always post on-line comments using cute little anonymous names some of you thought up all by yourselves. It's all very classy. Or you could merely flip the page and read something else, like a normal person would do.

Hey! It's like I've quit smoking already!

Signed,

UpwitpeepsinNG

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Random Non-Sports Thought of the Week: So let me get this straight: town police chief gets fired, launches an appeal, and then wants the government that kicked him to the curb to pay his legal expenses. That's beyond gall, so far past gall there isn't a word invented yet to accurately describe how galling it is.

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A TV commercial featuring Jarome Iginla and Darryl Sittler has been on the airwaves the past few weeks; it has Iginla playing ball hockey in his driveway and Sittler raising both arms and yelling "Sittler scores!!" while playing one of those old-fashioned table top hockey games. I am quite certain that I did exactly that many, many times as a kid.

Sittler was to me like a god, and is a prime example of a player who deserved a Stanley Cup and never got one.

To add, it may sound like the ranting of a crazy old dude stuck in the 1970s, but those table top games - the ones with the little rods with which you control the cut-out players - walk all over any hockey video game (the 70s were not a bad decade - in fact I wish I was back there now, to a time when I didn't have to worry about a whole lot).

The commercial - I can't even remember what they're advertising - was recently criticized by Globe & Mail sports TV columnist William Houston, who said it made Iginla and Sittler look silly. William Houston also seems to have a problem with Don Cherry, which I find troubling. I say William Houston should get a sense of humour and not sweat the small stuff. Although true enough - I could always flip the page like a normal person would do.

Kevin Adshade is a writer at The News.