Ice hockey players tend to hit first and then ask questions later.
But some in the local community are raising their eyebrows at the misleading promotion of this "USA v Canada" match in Dunedin in August.
A slick Christchurch promoter, the Douglas Webber Group, is pulling out all the stops to sell this tour as the biggest thing to happen to New Zealand sport.
But promoters, especially sports promoters, should be trusted about as far as they can be thrown.
A little investigation reveals the tour involves the Canadian Moose - an invitational team, sort of ice hockey's version of the Harlem Globetrotters - who have been to our shores several times.
The Moose offer spots in their squad to anyone willing to pay, and to call them "Canada" is like referring to the Classic All Blacks as "the All Blacks".
It is not a international series, because the games are not sanctioned by official organisations. The New Zealand Ice Hockey Federation has even publicly doubted if the quality of the series will "live up to the hype and ticket prices".
A local iceman summed it up thus:"Any publicity for my sport is good publicity. I am just concerned at the amount of people I have talked to that have brought tickets, based on the fact it is Canada v USA. I think people deserve to be able to make informed decisions, especially if they are paying $60-plus."
• Raiding the islands
You often hear of bully-boys in the sporting world, but bully-girls are a rarer breed.
Yet that is the ideal description for Netball New Zealand and its arrogant bid to bend the rules of the international game to its favour.
NNZ is going to world sport's highest authority, the Court of Arbitration in Switzerland, in an attempt to get an exemption for Catherine Latu to wear black at the world championships.
Latu, a remarkably accurate shooter, was born here but played for Samoa at the last WORLD tournament. New rules were put in place to stop players country-hopping, like they did a decade ago, when the Silver Ferns pinched three players (Irene van Dyk, Vilimaina Davu and Sheryl Scanlan) who had captained other countries just months previously.
The Silver Ferns hardly need another shooter - that van Dyk woman is rather useful.
And in a sport which has two Goliaths and dozens of piddling Davids, it does nothing for the game's international credibility to have one of the powerhouses greedily chasing ineligible players.
• What, no replay?
Reader Arthur Waide was most unimpressed when he sat down to watch a replay of the exciting Highlanders-Bulls game at the weekend.
He couldn't find one.
So he counted up all the replays of all the Super 15 games on the three major Sky Sport channels (excluding the Rugby Channel, because no-one has that) over the next six days and he was shocked:
Chiefs-Rebels (seven times), Brumbies-Reds (four), Lions-Blues (three), Force-Sharks (two), Stormers-Cheetahs (two), Crusaders-Waratahs (one).
All were replayed before the first Highlanders-Bulls replay, at 3pm yesterday.
He wonders, with some justification, if Sky has something against the southern franchises.
• One hates to brag
Virtual Rugby has attracted more than 80,000 armchair pundits trying to tip results and margins of Super 15 games each week.
Some Highlanders fan called "oldgolds2002" (get it?) is having a rare run of success and, before this round, was at the lofty heights of 57th.
Interestingly, the leading six tipsters are all Highlanders fans - including the top two, "sewersideup" and "high-flyer". They obviously believed.
• Ranking the greats
The latest New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame newsletter features some interesting - and, from what I can tell, overlooked - statistics from the Impact Index Cricket website.
The Indian company developed a weighting system to try to identify the greatest cricketers of all time. So far, it seems only to have done one-day international rankings.
New Zealand's Richard Hadlee was ranked the third greatest player - behind Viv Richards and Imran Khan - but just the seventh greatest bowler.
Interestingly, Shane Bond was ranked the second greatest bowler, behind Joel Garner, despite having had a relatively brief career. Ewan Chatfield was at No 20.
Richards was the greatest batsman, followed by Dean Jones, Gordon Greenidge, Sachin Tendulkar, Matthew Hayden and New Zealand's Martin Crowe.
• Clear off, Borat
A minor league football player was sent off for wrestling a pitch invader earlier this week, Reuters reports.
Dorchester Town player-manager Ashley Vickers was shown a red card for intervening on Monday after the unwanted second-half invasion by a man, sporting only a bright green "mankini" and white socks, during the clash with Havant & Waterlooville.
"I'm dumbfounded and speechless. A guy ran on to the pitch without any of the stewards getting near him and I thought I was doing them a favour," Vickers told the Dorset Echo.
"My only thought was to get hold of him so we could get on with the game. I managed to grab him and bring him to the ground and the funny thing was the stewards actually thanked me for it.
"But the referee decided to send me off and it beggars belief. Their players told the ref not to send me off and their chairman even offered to take a player off to even things up."
• Golfing funds
Kudos to the Otago golf clubs who banded together at Chisholm Park to raise funds for the people of Christchurch last week.
Two hundred and thirty golfers from nine clubs played an ambrose format in a double shotgun start.
A golf set and bag donated by Callaway Golf raised more than $2500 in an auction, and the club was able to give $11,700 to the Red Cross Earthquake Appeal.
