Now that my good friend Chuck Albrecht doesn't live around here anymore, I don't get a chance to be updated on the local hockey scene.
I mean, if Charlie was here, we'd have a cup of coffee, and I'd get all the answers.
I hear the Des Moines team that for some unknown reason is called the Iowa Chops will no longer get its players from the Anaheim Ducks.
Something about the Chops not paying their bills, I guess.
I didn't go to any of the Chops' games, and won't go in the future, even if they're still playing what some people like to think is good minor league hockey.
At this stage of my life, I'm not fighting traffic to find a place to park downtown at night, and I'm not paying any money for overpriced tickets and overpriced concessions.
The only people I feel badly for are the Chops' fans.
The players, the management, the people making money off the fans can shove it.
I feel the same way about the No-Name baseball team that plays at No-Name Ballfield.
The last time I went to a game with my son, daughter-in-law and their two kids a couple of years ago, it cost $4 to park the car. I hear the price has since gone up to $5.
Ridiculous.
I haven't gone back mainly because I don't like the owner and his underlings stealing money from the fans.
Unless one of my grandchilden wants to go to a game, I'm staying as far away from that ballpark as I can get.
There are too many more enjoyable and more important things to do in the spring and summer than getting robbed at the ballfield.
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Speaking of the hockey team, channel 13 sports director Keith Murphy writes on Twitter: "So far we've received just five e-mails about the Ducks dropping the Chops. That's far less than we receive when Erin changes hairstyles."
I assume Murphy is referring to news anchor Erin Kiernan.
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Speaking of TV newspeople, Kevin Cooney's name came up at one of the lunches I recently had with some friends who seemed to know what they were talking about.
Evidently, Cooney [pictured at the right] had ripped newspapers in something he wrote for something called City View.
Guys like Cooney don't usually get outspoken -- at least in public -- about other types of media.
After all, Cooney works for KCCI, which has been the top-rated TV station for local news since Russ Van Dyke came into town 200 years ago or so in a covered wagon and began drinking A-E milk during the 10 p.m. newscast.
Van Dyke has gone to the big TV studio in the sky, but someone once told me that channel 8 could prop a cardboard likeness of him on the set, and most people in metropolitan Des Moines would be watching.
And Cooney comes from a family that includes people who used to work at the Des Moines Register.
When people from the Cooney family and the Bryson family lined up to get their paychecks in the newsroom, it was like the soup line during the Depression.
I looked up what Cooney wrote, and it was pretty good stuff. Among the things he wrote was that "newspapers have been killing themselves for decades."
Somebody mentioned that Carolyn Washburn, the Register's editor, wasn't very happy about what Cooney wrote.
Actually, I think the guy said Washburn was "pissed off" about what Cooney wrote.
[I kind of hate using language like that because there are so many young readers, as well as pastors, who see my stuff on places like Facebook and Twitter in addition to my website, but I figure I'd better quote my friends accurately].
The guy wondered if Washburn being pissed off about what Cooney wrote led to the Register recently entering into a "news content" agreement with WHO-TV/channel 13.
I'm not sure about that. But I'll find out and let you know, and I'll try to keep the language clean
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Speaking of Carolyn Washburn, I mentioned a while back that she wrote this on Twitter about people in the Register's sports department:
"Every reporter on the Register sports team has now reported and produced their own video story."
I've thought about that a while.
I'm thinking people on what she calls the paper's "sports team" probably would prefer that information about them checking out and using movie cameras while covering stories be kept a secret.
It's kind of an embarrassment.
I recall a story I heard many years ago.
A guy at the paper marched into the managing editor's office one day and wondered if he could be assigned a camera, so he could use it on his assignments. I mean, a 35 mm still camera because I doubt movie cameras had even been invented then.
The managing editor said, "We'd prefer to keep our photographers busy with the cameras."
You'd think the Register would want the photographers taking the movies now. But, for all I know, maybe there aren't enough photographers still working at the place.
I also know the one or two who are still employed are waiting for the pay cut that certainly is on the way from the Gannett Co.
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Scott Dochterman of the Cedar Rapids [and Iowa City] Gazette quotes Iowa basketball coach Todd Lickliter as saying, “In my opinion, we’re starting to turn the corner.”
I'm glad Lickliter feels that way, but I posed this comment on Twitter: "I'd like to know the name of the medication Lickliter is on."
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That ridiculous story about Brett Favre wanting to play for the Minnesota Vikings won't go away.
I think Favre is nuttier than a fruitcake.
Now the word is that Favre has mailed X-rays of his always-injured shoulder to the Vikings.
Jim Sullivan [pictured at the left] of the Waterloo Courier wrote on Twitter: "Borrowed page from Favre. Sent X-ray of my brain to Vikes. Amazingly, it showed nothing. Confirms I'm a sportswriter."
Good stuff, Sully. Jim Walden would be proud of you.
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The Cubs' Derrek Lee doesn't need to be put on the disabled list.
That's too bad.
Regardless of what the tests show, I think there's something wrong with Lee, to whom I have given the nickname "6-4-3" -- standing for shortstop-to-second-baseman-to-first-baseman-for-a-double-play.
I was hoping Micah Hoffpauir would keep playing first base.
