Auto racing has the shortest off-season in sports. After NASCAR Champion’s Week here in December, the gentlemen shut down their engines for about six weeks, ostensibly so Las Vegas native Kurt Busch can find a new job, and so NASCAR can fiddle with the rules some more. Then I get a text from my pal Charlie, saying he’s on his way to Daytona for the Rolex 24, or that he’s already there.
You might have missed it amid all the Super Bowl weather reports, but Bushwacker the bull — the baddest bucking bull on the planet — announced his retirement in Oklahoma City the other day.
These were my thoughts a couple of years ago upon witnessing USA Sevens Rugby at Sam Boyd Stadium for the first time:
He is from Wisconsin, and if truth be known, his sports uniform of choice probably would be a wrestling singlet, given he once was an All-America grappler at the university in Madison. But come the first week of every December, Las Vegas Events president Pat Christenson dons a cowboy hat to celebrate the National Finals Rodeo coming to town. He has been donning that cowboy hat for so long that he almost looks good in it.
Crystal Riley and Bobby Dezarov moved up their wedding plans on the chance that Kyle Busch might attend their Las Vegas wedding. That’s how the NASCAR driver ended up as a groomsman, standing before the pastor at the Chapel of the Bells.
Before he was a stand-up comic — and before he was the voice of Muddy Mudskipper and Albert the Foul-Mouthed Bass on the “Ren & Stimpy Show” — Harris Peet was employed by the Los Angeles Kings. As a practice/emergency goalie. During the Gretzky years.
I saw Dick Fosbury’s Mazda commercial on TV on Friday night. On Saturday, I met the man in person, outside the big curling competition at Orleans Arena. This is what some people would call serendipity.
Before the last Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, the only curling match I ever had witnessed featured John, Paul, George and Ringo in the Beatles’ movie “Help.” After one of the curling stones was rigged with a bomb — George called it a “fiendish thingy” — and Beatles-movie type hilarity ensued, I don’t recall who won, only that the Beatles sang “Ticket to Ride” or one of those songs from the soundtrack.
Tennessee. Nebraska. Arkansas. Clemson. West Virginia. Arizona State twice. Home and away. If I had to guess, UNLV baseball coach Tim Chambers isn’t all that worried about becoming bowl eligible.
With the Packers having been eliminated and still thawing out in Green Bay, none of the past weekend’s NFL playoff games were played on tundra. Which is unfortunate. Because playoff games are better on tundra.
