Wrigley’s ice rink takes shape

Fans planning to attend the Winter Classic outdoor hockey game at Wrigley Field on Jan. 1 will want to carefully check the seating chart for the best view.

"The upper deck will probably be the best seats," Chicago Cubs chairman Crane Kenney told The Associated Press. "The bleachers, as well, but it's the world turned upside down. Being down right next to the field, you'll have a little difficulty with the boards."

The Winter Classic will pair the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings. The ice-making equipment arrived at the field this week and an all-time Blackhawks great hitched a brief ride inside the refrigeration trailer.

"I wish I could have played in one of these," Bobby Hull said, thinking wistfully about the Jan. 1 game. "A 19- to 20-degree day with snowflakes falling would be perfect."

* SOCCER CASUALTY -- Argentine soccer player Gaston Aguirre joined an unwanted list when a ball he kicked landed in a group of pigeons situated in the corner of the field.

A burst of feathers ensued, and the pigeons flew away -- except one.

"I kicked the ball and ... poor pigeon," Aguirre, a defender for the club team San Lorenzo, told the AP. "Now I will be remembered as the pigeon killer."

Aguirre hit the bird during a 2-1 victory against Tigre in a three-team round-robin for the Argentine league championship. Several players surrounded the wounded bird as it tried to fly away, but the bird collapsed. Eventually, referee Saul Laverni scooped up the dead pigeon and placed it off the field.

Aguirre joins Dave Winfield and Randy Johnson as athletes who have killed birds during competition. In 1983, Winfield, then a New York Yankees outfielder, killed a seagull with a warm-up throw during a game in Toronto. In 2001, Johnson was pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks in a spring training game when one of his pitches struck a dove.

Winfield was charged with animal cruelty, but the charge was eventually dropped.

* WHITE HOUSE FLIP-FLOPPIN' -- President Bush was talking with the Washington Post about the 2005 White House visit of Northwestern's national champion women's lacrosse team, which was marked by players arriving in flip-flops.

"I thought it was cool!" he said. "Look, I'm the father of young girls -- now professional women. But I thought it was great; it didn't bother me in the least. When you're president, you get used to all kinds of characters."

Better still, none of the players took off her flip-flops to fling them at the president.

* LOST IN THE DARKNESS -- Fallout from this latest lost Cleveland Browns season includes wide receiver Braylon Edwards complaining how fans in Ohio never cut the former University of Michigan star any breaks.

"I'm not Paul Warfield, Webster Slaughter or Jim Brown," Edwards said told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "I've given my all to this city for four years, and I realize it will never be enough. I went to the Pro Bowl last year and resurrected this team from the darkness, and nobody cared."

Edwards' comments raise a quick question: The Browns were resurrected from the darkness?

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