Sports this 'n' that

 A few takeaways from TNT's 1st regular season broadcast of NHL hockey on Wednesday:

*---Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky made his debut as a studio analyst, punctuated by a skit with NBA studio analyst and Capital One shill Charles Barkley, a known hockey fan. Gretzky was almost unrecognizable with his hair dyed jet black.

*---Studio host Liam McHugh, studio analyst Anson Carter, game analyst Keith Jones, and announcer Kenny Albert were signed away from NBC. Albert also calls football for Fox.

*---The first half of the doubleheader, Rangers at Washington, seemed to take longer than normal, likely due to extra commercial breaks.

*---Fans of AEW Dynamite will have to wait until Saturday this week & next for their fix, though Rampage should tie them over tonight.

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Brooklyn Nets star and part-time actor Kyrie Irving made a personal decision not to vaccinate against COVID-19, and because of the vaccine mandate in effect in New York, Irving can't play. Nets ownership took it a step further, and Irving is off the court, home & away, until he gets a shot.

Irving's stance has drawn attention from some unlikely, and unwanted, supporters. Particularly, this bubble-head in Washington:

Empty-G (Marjorie Taylor Greene) was roasted on Twitter for, well, being a twit, trying to compare Irving's staunch stance on vaccines to Earvin "Magic" Johnson's decision to retire from the NBA 30 years ago after being diagnosed with HIV. It's not the first time Empty-G has tried comparing COVID to AIDS/HIV, and likely won't be the last, but leave it to this ditz to siphon attention away from Irving to continue her 15 minutes of infamy.

Something tells me she flunked science, particularly biology, in school.

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And, then, there's Newsmax anchor Greg Kelly, whining that "white men are under attack", hours after Jon Gruden stepped down as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.

No, Greg, white men are not under attack. As reported earlier this week, a New York Times investigation into the Washington "Generics"' front office and allegations of sexual harrassment in 2018-19 uncovered some old tweets from Gruden, whose brother, Jay, was the Generics' coach at the time. The tweets revealed that Gruden, like so many others from his generation, dealt in racist, homophobic, and sexist blather because back in those days, it was socially acceptable. Today, it isn't.

Kelly simply seized an opportunity to make a talking point about the Gruden firing to stir up the GOPers, but he forgets that there are some conservative chisel-heads who've dug up dirt on other celebrities for the same thing.

Newsmax's ratings---and Kelly's in particular----must be on life support for a stunt like that to take place.

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The baseball championship series are set. However, controversy will follow the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers as they prepare to play in Atlanta on Saturday night.

Seems the final play of the NLDS saw San Francisco's Wilmer Flores called out on a check-swing 3rd strike by 1st base ump Gabe Morales, working his first playoff series. Morales, predictably, had his Wikipedia page hacked with the older than time trope of being accused of being "legally blind".

Even fans of Flores' original team, the Mets, roasted Morales online.

Get over yourselves, people!

Picks for the LCS:

ALCS: Boston over Houston in 7.

NLCS: Atlanta upsets Los Angeles in 6.

Of course, I could be wrong.