Sad Statue

It's been a strange week. Not so much personally, but I've been watching this whole Rick Tocchet betting ring thing unfold and it seems to get uglier with each day. Tocchet, a former NHL player and current assistant coach for the Phoenix Coyotes, is accused of financing a large-scale gambling operation that allegedly has ties to the mob. That's bad enough, but published reports say Wayne Gretzky (who coaches the Coyotes) is involved tangentially because his wife has placed sizable bets with the operation. Gretzky denied any knowledge of the ring earlier this week, but a newspaper report says authorities have wiretaps that recorded Gretzky talking to Tocchet about how to keep Janet out of the whole mess. The speculation, of course, has gone haywire; even here in Boston, where the NHL is really an afterthought in a lot of ways, the talk radio nitwits have been going on and on about whether Janet was placing bets for Gretzky, whether Gretzky will be removed from the Hall of Fame, etc. Gretzky, who is arguably the greatest hockey player to have ever played the game and is practically a god in Canada, likely isn't going anywhere. There appears to be no evidence of him placing bets, and the authorities are really going after the folks who operated the ring, not the bettors. But it's still sad to see Gretzky's squeaky-clean image get sullied like this. Not exactly what the NHL was hoping for just as the league is getting ready to take a two-week break for the Olympics, where Gretzky will be running the Canadian hockey team.

In another strange story that emerged yesterday, Montreal goalie Jose Theodore--who's in the midst of a truly awful season--found out yesterday that he tested positive for a banned substance. Steroids? Nope. It was Propecia, the hair replacement drug, which the Canadiens' team doctor said Theodore has been using for eight or nine years. Theodore, who is no Matt Hasselbeck, has always had long hair. Guess that stuff works. Something tells me opposing fans will be working up some new chants to harass Jose with in the near future.

Whoop de do:

• Very cool thing happened this week for Deb's Boston Marathon fund-raising. Steve Runner of the Phedippidations running podcast heard about Deb's effort and recorded a PSA encouraging people to donate; he played it on his most recent podcast and posted it on his site. Many thanks to Steve. Check out his podcast if you have even a passing interest in running.
• A co-worker hipped me last week to the Pandora music recommendation service, which as it turns I was very familiar with in its previous reincarnation, Savage Beast. Back in the early '00s when I was at Webnoize, we covered several companies that developed these kinds of services. I was surprised to hear these guys were still around, but Pandora is a cool service. You create "radio stations" by picking an artist or song you like; Pandora then picks what it considers to be similar music for you, usually by new artists. Worth checking out, and it's free, which is even better.

Okay, time to go to work.