Tuesday June 1st - Morning Briefing

Pronger causes trouble, Jays continue to roll

-We've all played pickup sports with that kid who would pick up the ball and go home if a game didn't go his way. It turns out Chris Pronger is one of those guys.



If you don't have the luxury of the Sportscentre morning loop with Onrait and O'Toole, you may have not noticed that Pronger picked up the puck after the game (you can see it in his left glove at the 0:27 mark) and then flicked a towel at Ben Eager.

Of course, Philadelphia had lost their second straight one-goal game 2-1 this time, and Craig Simpson on CBC speculated that Pronger wanted to keep the puck away from the Blackhawks as a part of team history. Pronger will go down in history as a great defenseman, and also somewhat of a prick. The man might be better served getting his team ready for Game 3 in Philly rather than attempting to play jedi mind-tricks with Ben Eager. "You are not a goal scorer."

"I am not a goal scorer."

"This is not the puck you're looking for."

"This is not the puck we're looking for."

Pronger later said he didn't know what language Eager was speaking. Eager apparently came all the way across the ice to tell him "you can keep the puck."

Either way, this is sure to broil down to a bigger controversy than Greedo shooting first. It may be wise to avoid Nick Kypreos' opinion on this one.

-His numbers weren't spectacular and his form wasn't particularly impressive, but Brendan Morrow put together a solid outing and gave the Jays a huge win in their first of three against the Rays to improve to 4-4 on the year. The Jays knocked Tampa started Matt Garza (5-4) pretty well, but only had three runs to show for their 11 hits. Adam Lind hit an opposite-field shot in the first inning, Vernon Wells had two more hits and Aaron Hill went 3-for-4 to increase his batting average to a paltry .179.

-In more Jays news, the team will honour Roy Halladay with a jumbotron tribute sometime this week. In the comments of that story, commenter JoeKnowsIt points out that the Leafs did the same thing with Mats Sundin when he returned to Toronto as a Canuck. I guess the state of Toronto sports is that bad, where you've run out of players on your own teams to honour. I can't wait to see what kind of montage the Raptors have prepared for Hedo Turkgolu.

-Justin Morneau went 3-for-4 as the Twins beat the Mariners 5-4. Jason Bay went 0-fer with two strikeouts and the Mets got gulled by San Diego 16-8.

-CFL camps start this week, with the BC Lions practicing just down the road from The 'Eh' Factor's head offices in Kamloops. This means that chances are high that Casey Printers will overthrow a receiver during a drill and the ball will carry into my yard.

-Toronto FC's Dwayne De Rosario was voted Major League Soccer's Player of the Week with a two-goal performance against San Jose. This is the kind of momentum that's nice to see from Canadian players as we prepare for the World Cup.

===

I'm really anticipating the start of football season. I think I might spend that time avoiding getting called out in the letters page of community newspapers by anonymous gym teachers. That's a pretty tight burden. Jays are on later, and if you're feeling particularly groovy, you can stay up late and watch the Twins on the Pacific channel, 100 per cent Buck Martinez free.