Sporting Madness

[ Photo : B.C. Lions owner David Braley (left) with the Grey Cup, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell , former CFL commissioner Tom Wright and 2005 Grey Cup Committee Chair Dennis Skulsky in 2004. From gov.bc.ca ]. Quite the story in this morning's Globe and Mail from David Naylor and Matthew Sekeres . According to the Globe , B.C. Lions owner David Braley "secretly put up half of the $2-million franchise fee when David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski purchased the Toronto Argonauts out of bankruptcy in the fall of 2003, and continued to lend money to the CFL club". The story says the deal was made without informing then-CFL commissioner Tom Wright (who I spoke with not that long ago about the Coyotes-to-Hamilton situation) and has continued to the present day without the knowledge of current CFL commissioner Mark Cohon . No sources are named and all sides appear to be denying the story, but in very carefully worded terms. For example, consider these comments from Sokol...

Wow. It wasn't all that long ago that a certain over-optimistic homer (or former-home-r?) wrote about the Vancouver Canucks making a run at the Northwest Division title. Not only did that fail to materialize, but the opposite happened: they promptly went into a slump and are now on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. To squeeze into the playoffs, the Canucks now likely have to run the table and hope Nashville drops points against either St. Louis or Chicago. The Vancouver Province does a nice job of breaking down the potential scenarios here (except if Chicago and Edmonton both pass the Canucks, they'd finish 11th, not 10th). Tonight's game against Edmonton could decide things one way or another, and the interesting part is the staggered time zones. The Nashville-St. Louis and Calgary-Minnesota games both start at 8 ET, while the Canucks don't take the ice for another two and a half hours. As the Globe 's Matthew Sekeres points out , there will probabl...