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"A Family Tradition for 132 Years" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 21 t arge... Port Perry's Todd Healey takes a look at today's world of sports Gold-diggers, over-paid pitchers and whiney NBA players (again!!) It's that time again, time to vent our frustrations on those in the sporting world who annoy, outrage, and generally insult our intelligence. Let's start with the woman who is currently suing Mike Tyson (for millions of dollars of course) for his libelous comments, allegedly calling her a "malicious gold-digger." Now, anyone who has ever heard Mike Tyson speak would know that he is hardly poster boy material for the National Public Speakers Guild and would probably find spelling the word "cat" difficult even if given the c and the t. A more likely scenario would have Tyson eating honey garlic shrimp tails and while liking his fingers, muttering "mmm... these things are mmm... malicious." If "m a juror, I'd believe that. And, as for the woman suing Tyson, isn't the fact that she is asking for damages proof that she IS a malicious gold-digger? This calls to mind the famous Oscar Wilde exchange in which Wilde, attending a posh dinner party, asked a well-to-do woman if she would consider sleeping with him for $1 million dollars. When she replied "yes," he then asked her if she would do it for a dollar. "What do you think I am?" replied the indignant woman. "We've already established that," retorted Wilde, "now we're simply haggling." Earth to NBA players. Is it possible for you to damage your credibility with fans any further? First, they force the owners to lock them out by demanding a ridicuously high salary cap. Then, after stagnant nego- tiations, launch a promotional campaign for an exhibi- tion game loaded with stars to raise money on a 50-50 split for worthy charities and "needy" NBA players. When the general public literally laughed in their faces, they decided to still press on with the exhibition game, but in an attempt to save face, channel all of the proceeds to a recognized charity. Pressed to explain the player's rationale on the exis- tence of "needy" players in a league where the minimum salary is $272,250, Patrick Ewing, president of the players union and star center for the Knicks, offered this gem to reporters. "Well, it's true we make a lot, but we also spend a lot." Kinda tugs at your heartstrings doesn't it? Will baseball owners never learn? On the weekend, the L.A. Dodgers signed free agent pitcher Kevin Brown to a seven-year $105 million dollar contract, or in layman's terins $15 million a season, or broken down further, $4,500 a pitch. Ludicrous by any stan- dards, even more so when you consider that Brown is a 34-year-old power pitcher who is always one pitch away from a torn rotator cuff and doing beer commercials for a living. And this after a doom and gloom summit meeting among owners who felt that fiscal responsibility would be their only salvation. It's like that old politician who, when informed by his aides that he had the intelligent vote, hollered "That's not good enough. I need a majority." As long as owners are willing to pay the players and their glorified pimp agents, whining about new stadiums to increase revenue should fall on deaf ears. That should just about do it for now. SHOOTING GALLERY: The KCI Variety Novices had a great showing last weekend at the Port Perry Lions' Club Ringette tournament as they went undefeated in three round-robin matches JEFF MITCHELL / PORT PERRY STAR before dropping a visiting Ajax squad 9-4 in the final game. All four local clubs made it to the final in their age divisions with the Shepstone Petites and Port Perry Pharmacy Tweens also winning. MoJacks make their point Club picks up three of four possible points during weekend play By John B. McClelland Port Perry Star The Port Perry ModJacks enjoyed a profitable weekend as they grabbed three of four possible points. On Friday night, they took a single point with a 6-5 loss in overtime to the first-place Uxbridge Bruins. And they followed that with a strong home-ice effort Sunday in beating up on the cellar-dwelling Bobcaygeon Bullets 6-0. The three points keep the MoJacks just one behind Little Britain for fourth place in the Central League standings. And, just as important, the green and white snapped a win- less skid that stretched back six games in which they had managed just one draw. The performance against Uxbridge and Bobcaygeon was noted by head coach Tom Thornbury who said "we earned those three points. We didn't just sneak them out. I hope we are turning the corner here. The guys need to put some pressure on themselves to (continue to) get these wins." Thornbury explained his unusual call in the Uxbridge game Friday night in which he pulled netminder Ben Jillard midway through the five minute sudden-death period with the score tied 5-5. As it turned out, Uxbridge scored a minute or so later into an empty net on a 90-foot shot from inside the Bruins' blue line. "There were two reasons," he said. "We needed the two points, and if Uxbridge scores the extra point, it is not going to make any difference as we are not going to catch them in the standings." And, he said by yanking the goalie at that point, it gave the players a chance to work on the odd-man situ- ation where it didn't matter too much if Uxbridge scored. The ModJacks already had their point for the tie in regulation, on the road against the top team. As for the entire game in which the Bruins grabbed an early 3-0 lead and the ModJacks battled back in the third to take leads of their own 5-3 and 5-5, Thornbury said the first half was disappointing, but there was plenty of improvement in the final 30 minutes. Trailing 3-0 midway through the second, the MoJacks started their come-back at 12:01 when Adam Jones clicked on a long shot that was partly screened by a Bruin defenseman. Three minutes later, Brent Pinch Turn to Page 23 Mark Lott was solid in goal. Shaw Kennedy, a callup for the injured Tyler Houthuys, fit in nicely on defence. With Bobcaygeon ahead 2-0 near the end of the second Matt Smart went end to end and put the puck up high just as their goalie went down. Nice goal Matt. Port came out in the third itching to tie it up. Bobcaygeon drops Bantams 4-1 All four Port teams advance to final round It was a memorable weekend for the Port Perry Ringette Association as all four teams being represented at the ninth annual advancing to the final round. Starting off the parade to the gold-medal match was the KCI Variety Novices, who went unde- feated in three games prior to beat- ing Ajax 9-4 in the final game. Following the Novices, the Shepstone Haulage Petites won two games and lost another in round-robin play before squeezing past Sunderland in the final for a 3-2 win. The Port Perry Pharmacy Tweens continued Port's winning ways with three wins and a tie in regulation play before beating up Sunderland's Tween squad 9-5 in the final match. Taking the tougher route to the final, the Junior squad lost their opening game, tied their next one, and won their third match before Home, sweet home for Ringette squads going to the final where they lost 6-2 to a strong Markham club. Paul Christie, president of the Ringette Association and co-ordi- nator of the three-day Port Perry Lions' Club tournament, told The Star he was quite happy with the weekend's results. "It worked out rather good for us," he said. "The competition was pretty even all around and we had some really good close games out there. They were all fun to watch."