Jermaine O'Neal

La première étoile: Dara Torres. The 41-year-old U.S. swimmer qualified to compete in her fifth Olympic Games this week by winning the 100-metre freestyle at the U.S. swimming trials in Omaha, Neb. And she ain’t going just to wave at the crowd. During her 24-year career she has won nine Olympic medals, including four golds.

Two minutes for … killing the King. The Green Bay Packers better start using another approach when it comes to dealing with Brett Favre. I know they’re sick of his constant speeches about retirement and the tears that follow, but they could use a little more class. With GM Ted Thompson telling Brett via a text message that he’ll talk to him after his vacation, you know something fishy is going on. It seems that they would be better served to tell the truth instead of just wasting everybody’s time and insulting the hell out of one of the best QBs of all-time.

Who’s got tickets? Toronto Argonauts at Edmonton Eskimos, 10:00 p.m., TSN. The Argos were listless last week against Hamilton but have finally started to deal with their quarterback situation by placing Michael Bishop on waivers. The Eskies won a thriller last week against Calgary but have some serious holes on defence. Prediction: Argos 31 – Eskimos 24.

Fun police: Is Ray Emery’s career as an NHLer over? I’ve been sitting here for 10 minutes trying think of a Canadian-born hockey player who’s gone to play in Russia and returned to have a somewhat decent career in the NHL. I can’t think of a single one, not including players who played in the Russian Super League during the lockout. Does anybody have a name? And is Eddie Belfour still playing in Sweden?

Extra bases: From the few clips that I’ve seen of Jermaine O’Neal, including a rather funny segment with the The Scores Cabral Richards, he seems to have his head on straight and has a real affable disposition to him. Hopefully he becomes the big man the Raps have always needed to go deep in the playoffs.

 

The Raps finally announced their deal to bring in Jermaine O’Neal. Some people don’t like this move: the kid has a wonky knee and brings plenty of baggage from Indianapolis. But hey, who wouldn’t want out of that hornet’s nest? So good luck to guard T.J. Ford and centre Rasho Nesterovic, who go to Indy in exchange. They’ll need it.

La première étoile: Brian Colangelo. By sending T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and the Raps first round draft pick to Indiana for Jermaine O’Neal, Toronto has finally acquired a legitimate centre who can absolutely dominate a game. O’Neal is entering the prime of his career and, if he can stay healthy, this trade will most definitely take the Raps to the next level. Let’s hope this ends up better than when Hakeem Olajuwon joined the Raps at the age of 37 and pretty much became nothing more than a cheerleader

Two minutes for … Not knowing when to give up. Jeremy Roenick should head up to the press box instead of signing a contract extension with San Jose. He’ll be 39 next January and is only sticking around to have one last shot at winning a Stanley Cup. Problem is, he kind of sucks now. In each of the past three seasons he hasn’t recorded more than 33 points in an entire campaign and is a woeful -31.

Who’s got tickets? Today’s semi-final game between Spain and Russia. Both teams love to go on the attack and have already made huge impressions at this year’s tournament. They also have a history of completely imploding and falling short of the prize. Who is going to prevail? My gut tells me the Russians are just too fast to be stopped.

Fun police: Just please get this Mats Sundin thing over with. I have a crying booth set up in my basement to deal with his departure, complete with a box of Kleenex, a 60 oz. jug of Jack Daniels and an old Rick Vaive jersey to catch my tears. Oh, one other thing. When Mats finally does go, who the hell is going to be the Leafs first-line centre? Matt Stajan? Yikes.

Extra bases: There’s a very easy way of solving this mysterious war of words that has arisen between the Cincinnati Reds’ Adam Dunn and Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi. All J.P. has to do is check the number of the person who called him and phone it to figure out who placed the call. The fact that he has hesitated to do so is a little weird.