"He's in my book club"*

Over in Russia, a goal and an assist for Sean Bergenheim as Finland starts the World Championships with a win. (Everything's a PDF over there now?) Frans Nielsen didn't figure as Denmark starts the Worlds with, um, a 9-1 loss to Russia. (Neither Denis Grebeshkov nor Alexander Kharitonov figured for Russia.)

Dick Tarnstrom is on Sweden's roster. Beast of New Haven Herbert Vasiljevs is on Latvia's roster, and our old Nighthawks hero Mario Chitar(r)oni is on Italy's.

Elsewhere, one "scary cut" for Rochester defenseman Martin Tuma. The blood led Kevin and Don Lever to compare it to the unforgettable Clint Malarchuk incident. Hearing about the severed tendons reminded me more of what happened to Eric Healey in 1999-2000; hope Tuma comes back as strong as Healey did. (One of my favorite other-team stories, from the 2003 playoffs with Manchester.)

And I've been holding out on this, which probably means I shouldn't post it, but I will anyway. A couple of days ago, comments on the post of the day over at Uni Watch somehow rolled around to the 1997 Mets and their ill-conceived white hats. That led Paul Lukas to post this picture of "the now-forgotten Takashi Kashiwada" (comment No. 118). Now-forgotten? How could you forget America's Favorite Japanese Left-Hander? (OK, he was probably America's ONLY Japanese Left-Hander at the time...)

So yeah, naturally, I have this picture of America's Favorite Japanese Ice Cream Man on my computer desktop now...

*-AABF20 ("You liked Rashomon." "That's not how I remember it.")