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Here are the stats on Curtis Joseph this year; win loss record of 0-4, save percentage .838, goals against average of 4.33. Last night the Leafs opted to use Justin Pogge instead of Cujo and, despite back to back games, Ron Wilson has indicated he will play either Pogge or Vesa Toskala tonight. The veteran goalie is being sent a message…the Detroit Free Press reports that Red Wing goalie Chris Osgood has not practiced for a week. The Red Wings are thin between the pipes with Ty Conklin and Jimmy Howard offering a somewhat curious tandem for the defending Champions…are you like me? As the NFL season winds down, and the permutations of playoff entrances/exits are drawn up in increasingly complicated charts and graphs, I simply lose interest. I’ll play my picks on Sunday and then, pick up a nice clean copy of the newspaper Monday to see who made it and who did not. I don’t want to waste my weekend worrying if team A has enough inter divisional third quarter points to edge team B, despite their poor intra conference road record in October…Green Bay had significantly more first downs and total yardage than the Chicago Bears last night. They dominated just about every category except the one that counts; points…Ex Pittsburgh Steeler Coach Bill Cowher is sitting pretty as a series of teams will be hungry for his services following the 2008 NFL season. New York’s Newsday predicts the New York Jets will join the list of suitors after their late season meltdown while teams such as Cleveland, Dallas and Detroit have also been rumoured to have serious intent…Blue Jay Vernon Wells is quoted in the Toronto Star as expressing a very pessimistic view on the Jays possibilities for 2009. Pursuant to that, some hack was on the Fan last night, after the Bobcat, proclaiming the Jays the fifth best team in baseball. The Rogers organization will offer these windbags this year, sycophants announcing the turd in your hand is a marshmallow, instead of boosting payroll and attempting to assemble a solid squad…Ireland’s Aiden O’Brien finishes 2008 with 23 Grade One wins, second in thoroughbred history only to Bobby Frankel’s 25. The Coolmore operations thrived despite the suspension of Keiren Fallon and the promotion of Johnny Murtagh to lead rider…I polished off the recent biography of  Keiren Fallon on the weekend. It is apparent the man is at his best when on the back of a horse. It’s everything else in life that troubles the alcoholic, coke snorting renegade. He is simply the greatest rider I have ever witnessed, better than Jerry Bailey, Gary Stevens or Walter Swinburn, but I’m not sure I would want him as a houseguest… nice; ESPN handicapper Jeremy Plonk has awarded Canada’s Fatal Bullet with the “most visually impressive performance” of the year for his tour de force in the Kentucky Cup Sprint. Canada’s next legendary horse will be back on the track in March/April 2009. He is currently dealing with what an updated report described as a “jammed knee”…absolutely fantastic news for fight fans with the announcement that Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz will square off on Feb 28^th. The Baby Bull was upset by Nate Campbell last year but he is far too talented an athlete not to mount another run at the lightweight title. He has picked a tough hombre in Marquez, last seen losing a close decision to Manny Pacquiao. This one, clichés be damned, will be war…let’s review the Valuev-Holyfield fight and the ensuing controversy. The fight was a dull plodding affair with no damaging punches recorded by either fighter. The American feed featured the hysterical duo of Al Bernstein and Nick Charles squealing in unison that Holyfield was winning the fight and was going to alter the history books. Influential ESPN writer Dan Rafael was watching that feed (he did NOT attend the fight) and, like a gaggle of gossiping girls at lunch hour, he joined his American colleagues in deriding the scoring of the bout. Let me repeat, this was an excruciatingly tepid proceeding with no meaningful activity. Now, as I watched the fight, the main impression I formulated was, hey, Valuev is the champ, the close uneventful rounds drop in his sizeable pocket. Holyfield did not take the fight to Valuev, instead he circled endlessly, and the American commentators seemed to think the 46 year old legend deserved credit for simply standing upright. The European pundits, on sites like Seconds Out and the Times On Line, reported in a matter-of-fact fashion that Valuev deserved a fairly straightforward decision. They were, in my opinion, correct. A putrid fight, with no compelling reason for a rematch, and, yes, a 115-113 nod to the defending champ…Evander Holyfield has announced he will take a break and then continue to fight. A feature in the New York Times on Holyfield revealed he came perilously close to declaring bankruptcy last year. His child support obligations alone are thought to total over half a million dollars a year…