Fresh on the heels of Jose Canseco's tell-all book on steroids in baseball, the U.S. Congress, with plenty of time to kill since the wars on poverty, crime, drugs and Iraq are going so well, decided to tackle performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. It's hard to tell which was funnier, Commissioner Bud Selig playing the Mr. Magoo card (Huh? Steroids? You're kidding?), Mark McGwire offering all the insight of a Mob boss on the stand, Sammy Sosa pretending he can't speak English or an indignant Rafael Palmeiro waving his finger in the most heartfelt denial since Bill Clinton said he did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Last-ditch efforts to salvage a 20-game schedule are scrapped and the NHL cancels its season. The NHLPA, losing $2 billion in salary it will never, ever recover, is stunned to find out the owners weren't bluffing, making it the most costly gamble since the punk at the end of Dirty Harry figured Eastwood fired six shots instead of five. NBA commissioner David Stern called Bob Goodenow's work "One of the most worst miscalculations in the history of sports.''... A day before the cancellation, Louis Sutter, patriarch of the ultimate hockey family, is laid to rest in Viking.

Palmeiro, his Clinton-like denial being replayed over and over again, tests positive for steroids. Go figure. At first, experts think he'll continue with the Clinton game plan and say it doesn't count because the steroids were taken orally. Instead, he takes the high road, and blames it on a teammate ... Kenny Rogers does his part for baseball's image, attacking two cameramen who had the audacity to film him during practice. MLB suspends him for four whole starts. As he's being booked for the assault, he turns on the cameras again, telling a lensman: "You must be proud of yourself.'' Um, he isn't the one getting fingerprinted, Kenny.

Fourth place in the Indy 500 isn't usually a big deal, unless you're a girl. In which case the media, not normally prone to piling on, sensationalizing and beating a dead horse, will kill a forest worth of trees in your honour. Danica Patrick says she wants to be taken seriously as a driver, and proves it by slipping into a string bikini and sprawling over a muscle car for the cover of a men's magazine. The other drivers might resent the attention, but nobody knows who any of them are, so nobody asks.

Michelle Wie, humbled in previous attempts to prove she can play with the boys, tries again at the hopelessly watered down John Deere Classic (all the best pros are overseas for the Open). Wie collapses down the stretch and misses the cut. A month later she turns pro and Sports Illustrated, noticing that she took an illegal drop, waits until after she signs her card before ratting her out, making it a DQ instead of a two-stroke penalty, and, thus, a better story. It is the proudest moment in sports journalism since Tonya Harding worked ringside at Celebrity Boxing.

It's not easy looking bad in a year when you hoist the Grey Cup, but Eskimos management found a way. A team that pocketed about $6 million for selling the Trappers out from under Edmonton started the season by letting Sean Fleming pay $15,000 out of his own pocket to keep Ed Hervey in town. Classy. They did win a title, but only after a "trade'' that wouldn't have passed the BS test in a weekend pickup league. Unable to find a running back on their own, or protect their quarterback, the Esks got a 1,000-yard rusher and a starting Canadian O-lineman for free (since Hamilton wasn't making the playoffs, they let Edmonton keep Jason Maas and Edmonton's side of the package as insurance for the Cup run). It's like the Leafs trading Mats Sundin and Bryan McCabe to Calgary for Jarome Iginla, then letting Calgary keep Iginla until after the playoffs. CFL commissioner Tom Wright, reading from Green and Gold cue cards, approves the deal. The Esks, with Maas, bolstered pass protection and a new running back, win a Grey Cup. The league loses a little dignity.

Despite better numbers, more championships and more clutch performances than 90% of the players already in the Hockey Hall of Fame, Glenn Anderson is denied entry as once again the voters hide personal vendettas behind secret ballots ... In a more respectable vote, Steve Nash strikes a blow for short, white guys with bad hair, winning NBA MVP. Some media play the race card in condemning the vote, but Nash silences everyone by leading Phoenix to the NBA final ... In still another vote, London is awarded the 2012 Olympics, which will enable it to share its recipes for bland, boiled everything with the rest of the world.

The Minnesota Vikings, their season crumbling around them, let off a little steam by chartering a boat full of women and having what witnesses described as a drunken sex party. It's hard to imagine anything going wrong with that plan, but it did. The incident drew scorn in many circles, and jealousy in many others ... Proving that nice guys don't always finish last, the New England Patriots won their third Super Bowl in four years. Terrell Owens came back early from an ankle injury and turned in a great game for the Eagles, then made good on his belated New Year's resolution to never, ever put the team ahead of himself again.

It was supposed to be a friendly little Allan Cup tourney in Lloydminster, until Theo Fleury, Sasha Lakovic and the stacked, rich, Horse Lake Thunder came to town.

On the ice they were bullies and off it they were babies, led by Fleury's incessant rants on everything from the NHL's substance-abuse program to how racism in this country made his Olympic gold medal seem worthless. Then he ripped an anti-Thunder crowd when Horse Lake got bounced in the semifinal.

It wasn't long after they cancelled the season that the NHLPA and the owners realized something: Nobody cared. Fans in the U.S. didn't even notice and fans in Canada weren't begging them to come back. It scared the hell out of both sides, who suddenly realized they needed the fans more than the fans needed them. It was all the incentive they needed to strike a deal and overhaul a game that had become deathly boring.

And they did. After a 310-day work stoppage, hockey was back. With fresh new rules, a fair and healthy financial landscape and 18 months' worth of transactions in two weeks. Forsberg went to Philly, Lindros to Toronto, Pronger and Peca to Edmonton, Gretzky took over the Coyotes, Bertuzzi was reinstated, Messier, Francis, MacInnis, Hull and Stevens retired. And Bob Goodenow quit. The only war now is union infighting. Nobody cares who wins between Ted Saskin and a Leafs-led mutiny, only that the fight is long and bloody.

Once again Edmonton proved itself to be the best sports host in Canada, breaking attendance records for the Brier, which Randy Ferbey's rink turned into a classic with their last-shot win, and at the inaugural Grand Prix of Edmonton, where more than 200,000 gear-heads turned the weekend into an instant hit ... On the downside, the AA ball team called itself the Cracker-Cats, making Mighty Ducks only the second stupidest name in sports ... And remember that stuff about the AHL Road Runners being here for the long haul? They suspended operations the minute the NHL came back, leaving the Oilers without a minor-league team.

After losing to a stiff named Kevin McBride, Mike Tyson announced that he's retiring from boxing. Reality TV, here he comes ... Asafa Powell set a world record in the 100 metres (9.77), but after all the steroid allegations in sports, especially among sprinters, nobody is all that impressed. However, that it's 18 years after Seoul and the 100-metre world record has only now been lowered to 9.77 tells you what an incredible run Ben Johnson's 9.79 really was ... In a possibly related story, but no one can prove it, Lance Armstrong won his 7th straight Tour de France ... The U.S. and Canada finish 1-2 at the dual meet known as the women's world hockey championships. In every worlds and Olympics since women's hockey made the international stage, Canada and the U.S. were 1-2. Rumour has it the Japanese are coming on strong, now that they've found a sixth player.

A Liberal politician said Shane Doan shouldn't be allowed to compete in the Olympics. He's from a party begging forgiveness for the biggest examples of waste and corruption in Canadian history, and he says Doan can't play for Canada because he insulted a French guy?

This is cache, read story here