Sports Moron of the Week

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BUFFALO, N.Y. - Ottawa Senators forward Jarkko Ruutu was suspended by the NHL on Wednesday for two games without pay for biting Buffalo Sabres enforcer Andrew Peters.

The NHL said Ruutu will lose $37,707 in pay and miss Ottawa’s game at Boston on Thursday and a home game against the New York Rangers on Saturday.

The ruling came a day after Ruutu bit down on Peters’ glove during an altercation in front of the Senators bench in the first period of Buffalo’s 4-2 victory. The force of Ruutu’s bite ripped Peters’ glove off, broke the skin and drew blood on the player’s right thumb.

Peters was penalized for sparking the skirmish when he repeatedly rubbed the palm of his glove into Ruutu’s face. Ruutu was not penalized.

Ruutu denied he bit Peters despite replays showing he chomped down on the player’s glove. The Senators, in Boston, were not immediately available for comment.

In issuing it’s suspension, the NHL noted that Ruutu is now considered a repeat offender under terms of the collective bargaining agreement. He has already been disciplined once by the NHL this season, suspended for two games without pay in November for elbowing Montreal’s Maxim Lapierre.

Ruutu is not eligible to return until Jan. 13, when the Senators host Carolina.

Peters, on Wednesday, was still shocked by what happened. Taking a punch is one thing but being bitten another altogether.

“It’s not really the thumb that’s the issue, it’s the incident that took place,” Peters said following a team meeting but before the suspension was announced. “It’s weird to even think that that goes on in hockey. Even in my role, I would never think of doing something like that.”

Peters shrugged his shoulders when informed of Ruutu’s denial following the game.

“I don’t think if I did something that stupid I’d really be admitting to it either,” Peters said. “It goes too far for any player. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s not part of hockey.”

Biting is rare in hockey, but happens.

Current Bruins star Marc Savard was suspended for one game in 2003 when, playing for Atlanta, he bit Darcy Tucker on the glove in a game against Toronto.

Last January, New Jersey’s Travis Zajac required stitches on his finger after being bitten by Philadelphia defenseman Derian Hatcher.

Hatcher was not disciplined by the league.

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said biting goes back to when he played in the NHL in the 1980s.

“I witnessed a few. I saw one teammate get bit right on the back,” he said.

Ruff said he nor the team was going to overreact to what happened.

“I find it a little humorous to tell you the truth,” Ruff said. “It makes it something good to talk about. Games need a little spice and we get a little spice.”

Ruutu’s bite is but another chapter to a bitter rivalry between two Northeast Division teams.

Two years ago, Ottawa’s Chris Neil sparked a brawl when he blind-sided former Sabres co-captain Chris Drury. In 2006, Buffalo beat Ottawa in a five-game second-round playoff series, and the Senators knocked out the Sabres in five games the following postseason.

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this should be a killer thread!!

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Cowboys outside linebacker Anthony Spencer was arrested on charges of public intoxication and disorderly conduct early Sunday morning outside a bar in Indianapolis.

A court date has not been set.

Spencer, who is from Fort Wayne and played at Purdue, could be fined or suspended under the NFL's personal conduct policy.

According to police, Spencer and a friend, Matthew Millhouse, attempted to pay the bar to remain open. After being told they had to leave, they threw punches at the bouncers, pounded on the exit doors and shouted at bar staff, police said.

Two off-duty police officers attempted to calm Spencer and Millhouse and asked them to leave, but they refused, according to a police report. Millhouse told the officers he and Spencer were trying to retrieve an item they had left inside the club.

According to police, Spencer had alcohol on his breath as well as "slurred speech, red glossy eyes and a belligerent attitude."

Upon being told they would be arrested, Spencer responded, "Who cares? Go ahead," police said.

Police said Spencer used profanity at the off-duty officers as he sat on a curb awaiting a police car to take him to the station.

"We are aware of it and are in the process of gathering information," a Cowboys spokesperson said.

Spencer and his agent, Roosevelt Barnes, did not return calls seeking comment.

Spencer, a first-round pick in 2007, had 59 tackles and 1 ½ sacks in 12 games this season.

The story was first reported by television station WTHR in Indianapolis.

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New York Knicks reserve center Eddy Curry was slapped with a sex-harassment suit Monday by his former driver, who claims the former Bull tried to solicit sex from him, the New York Post reported.
Court papers claim Curry, a married father of three, repeatedly approached chauffeur David Kuchinsky ''in the nude.''

Curry also made Kuchinsky perform ''humiliating tasks outside the scope of his employment, such as cleaning up and removing dirty towels [Curry had ejaculated into] so that his wife would not see them,'' the suit says.

Kuchinsky, who is straight and Jewish, also alleges racial discrimination, saying that Curry hurled slurs at him.

Kuchinsky worked for Curry from October 2005 through October 2008, said he was initially hired as an around-the-clock chauffeur for Curry and his family at their Burr Ridge home, the Post reported.

The Knicks scratched Curry from the lineup before the Knicks' 101-95 win over the host New Orleans Hornets on Monday.

Team officials said Curry, who missed the Knicks' previous game on Saturday night in Houston with a sore right knee, now has a sore left knee.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Several months after he was charged with raping a South Carolina woman, former NFL running back David Meggett was in jail Wednesday on allegations of another sexual assault.

Meggett, 42, was arrested and charged with raping a 21-year-old woman in her North Charleston home, authorities said.

The woman told police she woke up at 1 a.m. Tuesday and found a man she knew as "Mike" sitting on her bed, according to an incident report. The man demanded that she repay $200 she owed him and raped her when she said she didn't have the money, police said.

Afterward, the man told her he was sorry and that she didn't have to repay him. The woman drove herself to the hospital, where Meggett later met her and was arrested, according to police records.

Meggett, who is listed as living in North Charleston, had been out on bond in connection with another sexual assault charge.

In September, he was charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct after a 17-year-old North Charleston woman told authorities she was raped by a man she knew as "Michael," according to police records.

Both South Carolina arrests occurred while Meggett was serving out two years' probation for a 2006 sexual battery charge in North Carolina. Authorities there allowed the Charleston native to serve his sentence in South Carolina and have been notified about both of Meggett's recent arrests, said Pete O'Boyle, spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services.

North Carolina probation officials did not immediately return a phone message Wednesday.

The running back played for the New York Giants, the New York Jets and New England during his 10-year NFL career.

He was denied bond Tuesday night on charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and first-degree burglary, said Spencer Pryor, spokesman for the North Charleston police. He was being held Wednesday in the Charleston County jail, and it was unclear if he had an attorney.

Meggett has been acquitted on sex-related charges in the past. In 1990, while he was with the Giants, Meggett was found not guilty of soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in Baltimore. Eight years later, he was charged with assaulting a woman in a Toronto hotel room after she refused to continue having sex with him, but that charge was dropped.

The Patriots released Meggett in 1998 after the Toronto charge.


Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press

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sounds like the NFL guys are using craigslist whores

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Nobody would ever see it there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLHNK_kSvk4&eurl

Dallas Cowboys tight end Martellus Bennett released a song on YouTube that uses derogatory terms to describe African-Americans and gays.

Bennett, who is African-American, wears a white, autographed Cowboys helmet during the video, which lasts almost three minutes.

"I shouldn't cuss that much," Bennett said. "I've been listening to [rapper] Too Short too much."

Dessie Brown Jr., Bennett's friend, released the video to select media members and asked that they watch and also listen to a rap song on Bennett's MySpace page. In an e-mail, Brown wrote, "excuse the language on both."

"It is something that the organization is looking into and it is something that will be addressed," Cowboys spokesman Rich Dalrymple said.

Bennett's agent, Kennard McGuire, declined comment.

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Dallas Cowboy Terrell Owens is letting the public get a look at his personal life.

VH1 announced Monday that the outspoken wide receiver will star in his own reality show on the channel, beginning this summer.

The channel says that in the series, which takes place in the offseason, T.O.'s best friends and publicists — Monique Jackson and Kita Williams — will help him re-examine his personal life.

VH1 says that Jackson and Williams will work as “matchmakers and therapists.”

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IRVING, Texas - The Cowboys will spend most of the next several months trying to bring in the best 79 players they can for training camp. The rest of the work, finding the 80th and final prospect, will be left to Michael Irvin.

The team has confirmed its involvement in the ex-receiver's reality show, which will award one of 12 amateur contestants with a roster spot when the Cowboys begin camp at San Antonio's Alamodome near the end of July. For anyone who ever wondered if they could play in the NFL, this is about as close as the Cowboys will ever get to holding an open tryout.

The currently-untitled series will air on Spike TV in the spring. Created by Irvin and his company, Playmaker Productions, the show will feature the Hall-of-Famer as host and mentor to six would-be receivers and six would-be defensive backs. While taking guys off the street and turning them into NFL players sounds like a tough proposition, Irvin doesn't seem to think it's impossible. The show is currently in the casting stage, and will likely feature athletes with at least some football experience.

"We want someone who will have a real opportunity to make the team," Irvin told The Associated Press. "You could've played college ball and had to give up for some reason . . . You know how many stories are out there of players who for some reason or another had to walk away from the game.

"We want to find those guys."

The show will likely include appearances by Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones. Irvin said he also expects cameos by former teammates like Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Deion Sanders.

Of course, reality television is nothing new for the Cowboys. Last summer's training camp in Oxnard, Calif. was the team's second appearance on "Hard Knocks," HBO's behind-the-scenes look at an NFL camp and preseason. As the wheels came off the Cowboys down the stretch in 2008, it was easy to point to the team's involvement in the show as an early distraction.

In fact, of the four teams to be featured by HBO since the series began, only the 2001 Baltimore Ravens made the playoffs, losing in the Divisional round after winning the Super Bowl the previous season. After appearing on "Hard Knocks," the 2002 and 2008 Cowboys and 2007 Kansas City Chiefs had just an 18-30 record combined. The failings of those teams aside, Irvin says his show offers the Cowboys little downside.

"I don't see how you can make this a negative for the Dallas Cowboys," he said. "We all talk of doing good things for the community, for people, giving people opportunities. Jerry has stepped up and said, 'OK, let's do it.'"

There are few things Jones values for his franchise more than media buzz. Though Irvin's show might not generate as much attention for the team as having NFL Films cameras on the practice fields and in meetings for six weeks, it should bring interest to an area on the roster few people think twice about. Sometimes referred to as "camp bodies," many bottom of the roster players never have a great shot at making a team, serving essentially as sparring partners for other young players with more talent or rookie draft picks.

The opportunity to practice with the Cowboys alone will be a pretty nice reward for the winner of Irvin's show, and there's also the chance, however slight, to catch the eyes of the coaches.

"I don't know if you can walk upon any group of guys that wouldn't say they dreamed of playing in the NFL when they were playing in their front yard," Irvin said.

"So we're going to take a group of guys from their front yard, dwindle them to one and give that guy the opportunity of a lifetime."

Irvin has appeared on a similar Spike TV show before. "Pros vs. Joes" featured Irvin running routes against guys off the street. The new series should focus on players with more natural ability since there are certain physical requirements a potential NFL player needs. If Irvin's goal is to find a guy capable of competing for a roster spot as either a receiver of defensive back, legitimate speed is a must-have.

In the old days teams routinely held open tryouts, but those times have passed. The NFL has since become a multi-billion dollar enterprise with organizations leaving virtually no stone unturned in their talent search, scouting players-to-be years in advance. With the wealth of knowledge teams have about college players and those in a number of minor leagues, it has become unnecessary to pull long-shot former athletes off their couches, as the Eagles famously did with special-teamer Vince Papale in 1976, the basis for Disney's 2006 movie "Invincible."

But occasionally the league has encouraged promotional roster spots, as teams playing preseason games overseas have been allowed an extra player or two from the host nation.

Irvin's show will be produced by reality TV company 3 Ball Productions, which has created a number of hits, including NBC's "The Biggest Loser." Spike TV is available in almost 98 million homes across the country.

"This is a groundbreaking opportunity for football players and football fans," said Irvin, who retired from the Cowboys in 1999 because of a spinal condition and now hosts a radio show in Dallas. "The unique element is that these men will actually be competing for a training camp roster spot in an NFL camp. There is so much great undiscovered football talent out there, guys that may have missed their shot for one reason or another. This is about hope and a shot at greatness."

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Dallas police have suspended their investigation into former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin's report that a passing motorist pointed a gun at him this month.

Police said the classification is being made because investigators have not been able to contact Irvin to follow up on his report of the Jan. 12 incident.

"We've made multiple attempts, but unfortunately we have not made contact with him yet," said Lt. Sally Lannom of the Dallas police assaults unit. "In order for the investigation to continue, we do need to have contact with Mr. Irvin."

Irvin did not return a call for comment.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame member, who was not injured, told police he stopped at a red light in the 18200 block of Marsh Lane, near the Bush Turnpike, about 9:30 p.m. He said the driver of the vehicle next to him rolled down his window, a Dallas police report said.

Irvin rolled down his window because he thought someone wanted to talk to him, then saw the passenger in the other vehicle raise a gun, the report said.

Irvin said in an interview earlier this month that he feared the men had planned to rob him and changed their minds.

"The passenger pulled out a semiautomatic, and I knew what time it was," Irvin said. "But he said, 'Oh, that's Michael Irvin, with the Dallas Cowboys.' "