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The current issue of Sports Illustrated contains a brilliant feature on the propensity of professional athletes to end up broke within five years of ending their careers. Athletes tend to invest in flashy items, like nightclubs, car dealerships and recent inventions. Equities and bonds? Boring. One unnamed athlete sank 70 grand into an invention which places floatation devices under household couches - the idea being one can blissfully sail away in the event of a flood. Magic Johnson offers the most potent advice, demanding players he mentors avoid using family and homeboys in critical financial matters, instead recommending seasoned professionals. Torontonians will get a kick reading about the enduring and consistent stupidity of ex-Argo Rocket Ismail…Bill Simmons of ESPN reported a while back that NBA management is chomping at the bit for the next labour stoppage. The owners have learned conclusively that the vast majority of NBA players live paycheque to paycheque, regardless of whom they are and the amount of money they are making…a critical landmine for athlete’s remains the post retirement divorce. The money has stopped coming in and suddenly their spouse, often a childhood sweetheart, opts to move on. Oh. Move on, except for the part about old clunky knees maintaining the opulence of her established lifestyle. With an entrenched feminist perspective guiding the courts, child support payments are often staggeringly out of the reach of the retired athlete. Nope, I’m not going to get preachy, back to sports…the Buffalo Sabres, a team we can safely describe as “plucky”, have faded without their all world goalie Ryan Miller. He returns on Friday as the Sabres battle the Toronto Maple Leafs and is the only reason for an optimistic appraisal of their playoff chances…no team has shown any interest in free agent QB’s Jeff Garcia and Byron Leftwich. I find that astonishing and can only speculate that off field factors must be involved. Leftwich, in particular, deserves a shot at a starters role, and I would have wagered that the Chicago Bears would come calling…how quickly they forget; the Carolina Panthers have begun negotiations with Jake Delhomme, apparently hoping to lock up the QB for the foreseeable future. Jake the Saggy Snake delivered what S I deemed the worst performance by a quarterback in playoff history mere weeks ago. Let him go, Panthers…the Houston Texans traded back-up QB Sage Rosenfels to the Minnesota Vikings for a fourth round pick, one of the dumbest moves of the off season…Dale Earnhardt Jr has nine top ten finishes in his last eighteen starts at Martinsville, site of this weeks NASCAR Sprint Championship race. With the din around the young man intensifying, it’s time for a big performance on a track conducive to his approach…three weeks until the Masters, our first chance to see if Tiger Woods can truly recapture the “A” game…Lance Armstrong is determined to make the start for the May 9^th Giro d’Italia, his last major prep before a highly anticipated return to the Tour de France, despite smashing his collarbone…it is just a huge damn weekend for horseracing enthusiasts. The Dubai World Cup races should have us all out of bed for the festivals 9.40am kickoff, and Nortrh Americans will be particulary interested in the efforts of Desert Party in the UAE Derby. A win and he punches his ticket to the May 2nd Kentucky Derby (a race where I have him backed at 17-1). The afternoon race menu is highlighted by the Florida Derby, a favourite harbinger of the return of warm weather for denizens of the North East…the Florida Derby is headlined by Todd Pletcher’s Dunkirk, a colt making only his third lifetime start. The hype machine has hailed the precocious son of Unbridled Song as this years “Big Brown” based on an admittedly stunning performance in a Gulfstream allowance race. Quality Road will be his main opponent on Saturday but both colts appear to be vulnerable. We’ll take a stab on one beneath the radar; I’ll post the horse on Saturday…a whopping 55% of German TV’s tuned in to watch Vitali Klitschko wallop Juan Carlos Gomez this past Saturday. Clearly the Klitschkos enjoy a level of celebrity far beyond what they can ever hope to achieve this side of the pond…