There’s a Chill in Canada Because of the Draft

The feud of the new year: Canadian Don Cherry won’t allow his syndicated hockey column to run in the Montreal Gazette because he dislikes the paper’s columnists, Pat Hickey and Jack Todd.

So Hickey wrote, “The guy who preaches toughness is basically a gutless bully.”

Todd was even more graphic, calling Cherry “that breast-beating, narrow- minded, loud-mouthed, bigoted, Europhobic, Francophobic . . . embarrassment to Canada.”

Hickey and Todd are Americans who recently disclosed they went to Canada to avoid service in the Vietnam War. That gave Cherry his opening:

“I would never be associated with a paper that would think of hiring two slime balls . . . two Americans who are telling us about hockey and who deserted their country in time of need.”

OK, guys, but what do you really think of each other?

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Trivia time: What is the NBA record for fewest free throws shot by a team in a regular-season game?

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Only a little? New York Met relief pitcher Turk Wendell has signed a one-year contract for $1,200,000.99. He will make an additional $4,999 for each game he appears in after 66, his 1998 total.

“I’m a little superstitious,” said Wendell, who wears No. 99. “I want to have as many 99s in my contract as possible.”

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Just like church: Bob Verdi, writing in Golf World on the relative quiet courtesy of golf fans:

” . . . Here was Junior Griffey standing over a putt [at Pebble Beach]. The baseball star listened for familiar sounds, but heard only a library.

“ ‘Ain’t used to this,’ he said to the respectful gallery. ‘Anybody. Please make some noise.’ ”

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Extreme measures: Nick Van Exel, the former Laker now with the Denver Nuggets, on dealing with Shaquille O’ Neal:

“You give him one of those Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan things. It’s the only way to stop him.”

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Zero transaction: Steve Rosenbloom in the Chicago Tribune, on Ted Phillips, the Bears’ vice president of operations, replacing Michael McCaskey as president of the team:

“Phillips has little credibility with the players, while McCaskey has no credibility with the public, so the Bears swapped a bean counter for a pinhead--the boardroom version of the trade that hurts both teams.”

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Trivia answer: Two, by Cleveland against Golden State on Nov. 26, 1994. The Lakers shot only three against San Diego on March 28, 1980.

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And finally: In an interview with Anthony L. Gargano of the New York Post, Leonard Tose, former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, told how he gambled away a fortune:

“Some mob guy once told me, ‘The object is for your life and your bankroll to expire at the same time,’ and I don’t think that’s a bad idea.”

Gargano writes that Tose, 83, won more than $1 million one night but, in the end, lost everything.

“It was more than the $20 million, they said it was,” Tose said. “I don’t know how much it was. Could be $100 million, I don’t know.”