World junior championships

This is not a Leafs column, so let’s put the sorrow and hope and impossibility of faith aside for a moment. Let’s take a breath, let’s launder that blood and mustard-splotched Boimstruck sweater. Let’s set aside the schedule and the standings and forget that Luke Schenn was ever born, for in a few weeks, NHL teams won’t matter. Pro hockey won’t matter. What will matter is what happens in Calgary and Edmonton, and even there, the Oilers and Flames won’t matter. Soon, it will be Christmas and New Year’s: junior hockey time. Players you don’t yet know yet will fill your screens and busy your papers and crowd your radio dial. Canada will be playing. Canada is always playing. And they better win. They better.

A week in the life of Sandra Bullock

DOES STEPHEN HARPER LOVE HOCKEY MORE THAN MICHAEL IGNATIEFF?

This is so not important. But it so sort of is, isn’t it? Because Michael Ignatieff wants to be prime minister he so has to do things like this, doesn’t he?