Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

Whenever I take my notebook out of my back pocket, it’s almost always to jot down who just scored. But sometime something – seemingly insignificant at the time – happens and I just have to take out the notebook to jot that down, too.

Most of the time, these things won’t even make it into a story, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been recorded somewhere.

There are my snapshots just for this past week –

[Grant Speer of the Newtown High School hockey team lays out a Watertown player with a hellacious hit last Wednesday at the Danbury Ice Arena (one of the few highlights in a 3-0 loss to the Indians).

[Devon Manfredonia of the Newtown High School boys’ basketball team, a point guard, goes up high – way high, it seems – to rip down two rebounds in a win over Pomperaug on Monday afternoon.

[With 6.4 seconds left, Katie O’Connor of the Newtown High School girls’ basketball team comes up with a colossal rejection on a baseline shot by Pomperaug. It was her third block of the game and maybe it stands out more than the other two only because, even with the game already won (49-44), the Lady Nighthawks were not about to take it easy.

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Prediction – this is probably going to be one of the most boring Super Bowls ever. The New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers both have sub-par offenses, but exceptional defenses and if that isn’t a recipe for a 6-0 game then I don’t know what is.

The Patriots will win it, by the way.

Bank on it.

“They’re so tough that when they finish sacking the quarterback, they go after his family in the stands.” – Tim Wrightman on the Chicago Bears (1985)

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If you shake his hand, you better count your fingers.

Isiah Thomas has seemingly turned around the New York Knicks. He has brought in a great player in Stephon Marbury, a great bench player in Anfernee Hardaway, a fine role player in Moochie Norris, and a Hall of Fame coach in Lenny Wilkins and the Knicks – once dull and lifeless, but now on a march to the playoffs – are fun to watch again.

But at what cost?

Especially with his handling of the Don Chaney firing and the Brendan Malone firing, it appears as if Thomas is just another ruthless executive willing to stab someone in the back if it furthers his own end. I’m glad the Knicks are moving in the right direction, but I can’t help feeling a little queasy about the whole thing.

“When you’re hired, you’re fired. The date just hasn’t been put in.” – C.M. Newtown

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Once again – whatever happened to global warming? Last week, the kids had a snow day on Monday, a snow day on Thursday and a cold day on Friday (it was so cold, many school systems closed their buildings to conserve electricity).

And then it snowed again on Sunday, for god’s sake. It didn’t come down hard, but for heaven’s sake it didn’t stop. My neighbor – a New Englander just like me – said it best on Sunday. I was shoveling the area in front of my garbage bin and he was finishing up his driveway and he said, “Man – I’m tired of this already.”

You got it, brother.

“It’s so cold out there, I saw a dog chasing a cat … and they were both walking.” – Mickey Rivers

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I’m typing this while watching Them!, the greatest of the giant bug movies from the 1950s. James Whitmore and James Arness star in it.

Now, I know Oklahoma was playing Texas Tech on ESPN and TNT had an NBA doubleheader with the Rockets at the Grizzlies and Jazz at the Warriors, but there is a time for basketball and a time for a movie about giant ants terrorizing the New Mexico desert.