NHL fights: no teeth required

One man’s goon is another one’s philosopher.

Ottawa Senators right wing Brian McGrattan, who had a respectable 141 penalty minutes last season in 60 games, talked to FHM magazine about the merits of taking a breather in the penalty box.

“A five-minute fighting penalty makes for a good rest,” he said.

“Sometimes you fight for two minutes straight. When I get to the penalty box, I can barely hold my shoulders up. It takes a good three minutes to regroup.”

Still, there is The Code among fighters on skates.

“You’re not going to bite a guy or anything like that,” McGrattan said.

“But pretty much anything else goes.” Just wondering: Should FHM now stand for Fighting Hockey Men?

Strange timing

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour released new data Friday, noting the increased and record number of player withdrawals. In the news release was a quote from tennis star Maria Sharapova stressing the need for a shorter season so players could be in “peak condition,” when they did play events.

So what happened to the unlucky Sharapova in Russia on Friday? Sharapova pulled out before her scheduled quarterfinal match in Moscow because of an injured foot.

“It was ironic, you could say,” said WTA Chief Executive Larry Scott.

“Unfortunately, I’d prefer to not have that kind of irony.”

Trivia time

How many seasons did Todd Fuller play in the NBA?

Yogi Berra alert

Losing by four goals at home tends to make a soccer manager get rather muddled.

John Toshack of Wales sounded an awful lot like a certain baseball manager when his team lost 5-1 to Slovakia last week in a Euro 2008 qualifier, the worst home defeat for Wales since a 7-1 loss to England in 1908.

“They looked a lot better than they are, and we looked a lot worse,” Toshack said.

At least Toshack still has his job. In the what-have-you-done-lately category, Dusan Galis stepped down on Thursday as Slovakia coach by “mutual agreement” with the federation after a 4-1 loss at home against Germany.

Spalding toy store

The new NBA game ball is hardly drawing rave reviews.

“Terrible,” Shaquille O’Neal was quoted as saying by the Sporting News. He added that whoever made the switch “needs his college degree revoked.”

But one coach told the magazine, “Ah, I think they’ll adjust. You know the players. You ought to hear the complaints when we run out of shrimp cocktail on the team flights.”

Trivia answer

Five seasons ... for four teams.

The Golden State Warriors made Fuller, who averaged 3.7 points in the NBA, the 11th overall pick of the 1996 draft, ahead of Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Jermaine O’Neal, Peja Stojakovic and Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

And finally

North Carolina basketball Coach Roy Williams, at media day, on the topic of leadership:

“Raef LaFrentz was a natural leader for us [at Kansas], but hardly ever said anything except when he wanted to get out of running in practice. But he walks on the court in an overtime game, and says, ‘Wait a minute. Just give me the damn ball.’

“So I said, ‘That sounds pretty good,’ and he scored 10 of the first points in overtime.”

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