Airline’s Decision Wasn’t His Cup of Tea

Missing-baggage fiascos are nothing new to airlines, but Air Canada was messing with a national treasure Sunday when it removed the Stanley Cup from a flight because of weight restrictions.

Walter Neubrand, the keeper of the Cup, specifically told Air Canada what he was transporting and was distraught when his precious cargo did not arrive with the rest of his baggage on a 750-mile flight from Vancouver to Fort St. John, Canada.

An Air Canada representative said the 35-pound Cup had been held in a secure location in Vancouver, but a fan who had planned on viewing the Cup on Sunday night called the decision blasphemous.

“It’s not like it’s a brown paper bag; it’s the holy grail,” Brent Lock said. “It’s probably the most important nonreligious artifact in Canada.”

Trivia time: Bryan Clay of the United States is third midway through the decathlon in the Athens Olympics. Who was the last American to win the title of “world’s greatest athlete?”

Pounded a few: American Steven Lopez, a 2000 gold medalist in taekwondo, recalled one instance when he had to use his skills in a street fight against a drunken challenger.

Lopez, who competes Saturday in the 176-pound (80-kilogram) class, said he was able to end the confrontation quickly.

“When they’re drunk, they don’t have much balance to begin with,” he said. “It’s not much of a fight.”

And I’d do it again: Rodney Landingham, a University of Nevada defensive back arrested on charges of bank robbery, told Reno television station KRNV that a gambling habit had left him in debt and that he hoped that a judge would go easy on him.

His comment later during the jailhouse interview, however, probably won’t help his cause.

“It would’ve been worth it if I hadn’t gotten caught,” he said.

Conflict of interests: U.S. javelin thrower Breaux Greer is writing a journal about his experiences in Athens.

The Chicago Tribune reported that one of his entries detailed a memorable first night in the Olympic village.

“My roommate from Algeria checked in at 1:30 a.m. and began praying while watching porn. True story. I told him he had to pick one or the other,” Greer wrote.

Looking back: On this day in 1989, Cincinnati Manager Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti for gambling.

Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader, signed a five-page agreement in which he accepted a lifetime penalty but did not admit gambling on baseball.

Trivia answer: Dan O’Brien in 1996. O’Brien had famously failed to qualify for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, but scored 8,824 points in Atlanta -- 33 shy of the Olympic record.

And finally: KCAL sportscaster Alan Massengale found it interesting that Adnan Hamad, coach of Iraq’s Olympic soccer team, disagreed with American policies in Iraq.

“If Uday was still running the show, ‘sudden death’ would have a different meaning if they didn’t go home with a medal,” Massengale said during Sunday night’s broadcast.