By Kim J. Harmon

M

y wife still can’t (or won’t) understand why I’m a channel-flicker with the remote control, but I’ll always be a channel-flicker if I can come across moments like the last minute of the UConn-Notre Dame Big East women’s basketball championship. Even though I was watching the Knicks on one channel and Married With Children on the other, I flicked and I flicked and I had a chance to see Sue Bird look like the goat one second and then the hero the next. The final 40 seconds or so is what sports is all about, my friend, and I’ll flick ‘til I can’t flick no more . . . now, I have never been one of those of those guys who feels a basketball team should just go into a four-corner stall once it gets up by 30 or 40 points on another team. But keeping a full-court press on even though your team is FORTY-ONE POINTS ahead is a little too much, don’t you think (and here, we are specifically talking about coach Bill Scarlotta of Norwich Free Academy, who said “We were still worried they could get hot and make a run at us in the third quarter.”)? No one will begrudge NFA beating Newtown that badly (hey, NFA is not the No. 1 team in the state for nothing), but rubbing it in that badly is just not nice . . . on the walls of Berlin High School, I counted TWENTY-FIVE state championship banners – seven for wrestling, eight for golf, four each for baseball and softball, and one each for cheerleading and girls’ soccer. Mighty impressive . . . I’ll tell you, I’m GLAD I turned out for the Glastonbury-New Britain game that was a prelude to the Norwich Free Academy-Newtown game. It was an exciting game, with New Britain holding on to a 12-point lead, only to see Glastonbury rally back as close as three points with 48 seconds to go in the game. This game, though, was marked by some rather poor officiating (hey, foul calls are ALWAYS subjective in the eyes of the fans and the media, but there were two double-dribble calls and three blatant traveling calls that were missed) . . . you know, you’d think that with Berlin High School hosting two CIAC Class LL state championship games on the same night that someone would have been able to come up with a more impressive snack bar . . . It’s kind of funny really, that against the four teams left in the CIAC Class LL girls’ basketball tournament, Newtown has posted a 3-1 record. The Nighthawks beat No. 2 Norwalk in the early stages of the season and beat No. 14 Masuk twice. Just feels kinda weird . . . all those people who have been whining about global warming, I have a few choice words for YOU . . . I’m glad that Governor Rowland all but closed down the state on Monday (he must have been inaccurate information from the ol’ Doppler 3000, eh?), because it made the trip into work pretty smooth . . . but the snow storm sure will play a little havoc with the CIAC Class LL boys’ basketball state tournament this week. Newtown was supposed to host Windsor on Monday, but as of this writing it looks as if the tournament may not get underway until the spring thaw . . . basketball coaches in New Haven are making claims of racial bias – if you can believe it – in officials just because, on a couple of occasions, their teams have been whistled more times than the teams from white, suburban towns. Is that ABSURD, or what? Like it was said above, foul calls are always subjective in the eyes of the fans, media, and coaches. A ref makes a call, half the people in the gym will yell, “NICE CALL!” while the other half will scream, “WHAT, ARE YOU BLIND?” The coach of Hyde High School should take a closer look at the tapes. He’ll probably find that his kids were whistled for more fouls because they COMMITTED more fouls . . . you know, that being said, I do remember what one high school baseball umpire once told me about making a call on one of those so-called BANG-BANG plays at first base or home. He said, “Hey, you have to remember who is paying you.” Was he serious? I don’t know . . . my kids (bless their little hearts) are already asking me about the NCAA basketball tournament and whether or not I’m going to bring home a couple of pool sheets for them. Sure, why not, I’d just LOVE to see my kids get close to the money than me . . . now, Sunday was a PERFECT day for something called The Polar Bear Run – what with the big nor’easter bearing down on the state and all – and, of course, our old friend Sergio Ribeiro of Danbury won the thing.  Ribeiro has won the Rooster Run put on by the Newtown Parks and Recreation Department and has also won the The Newtown Bee 10K, which was discontinued a couple years ago. Guess he is just one of those guys made for running . . . here is a lesson for you kiddies – NEVER get an appendectomy done in the Dominican Republic. See, Adrian Beltre of the Los Angeles Dodgers (the guy the Dodgers signed when he was just 15, which is against the rules of major league baseball, which is neither here nor there) had an appendectomy done and two months later he still has an open wound leaking fluid. According to reports, he has lost 25 pounds and may not be ready for opening day . . . has it really been seven years since the New York Rangers last won a Stanley Cup? Man, those were the days. See, the New York Knicks were in the NBA Finals the same year and for about 12 straight days I OWNED the television – one night it was the Knicks versus the Houston Rockets and the next it was the Rangers versus the Vancouver Canucks. What a great time it was to be a sports fan . . . I think people are getting a trifle carried away with this Mark McGwire contract thing, making him out to be a saint or something for signing a two-year, $30 million contract extension with the St. Louis Cardinals. Hey, I love McGwire. He is great for the game of baseball. He is a true gentleman and a fan of the game and loyal to the other fans of the game. But, let’s face it, two years and $30 million may be a little high for a guy who is getting older and is exceedingly brittle. Sure, he signed for less than what he could have gotten on the open market, but if he wanted to make a statement then he probably should have signed for $20 million – or less. I wonder what he said to union boss Donald Fehr. I mean, Fehr MUST HAVE called and said, “What the HECK do you think you’re doing?” . . . one final comment about the XFL (I hope): I’m a little surprised it took as much as four weeks for the XFL to create some supposed high-profile rivalry with all the testosterone-laced name-calling and what not. Rusty Tillman, the coach of the New York/New Jersey Hitmen and Jesse Ventura (who, let’s face, doesn’t know squat about football) are now getting into one of those chest-thumping yell-a-thons that are so popular on the World Wrestling Foundation. When the league has degenerated to that, and so quickly, then the end must be near . . . an advertising exec did make the comment about the XFL, that (to paraphrase) if the ratings for an NBC prime-time sitcom had bottomed out as quickly as the ratings did for the XFL, the network would have pulled the plug so quickly Dick Ebersol would have strained his rotator cuff . . .