The New York Rangers have become the latest NHL team to make a coaching change. This is getting to be an epidemic – the NHL revolving door is almost as big as the NBA’s . Some coaching changes make at least a temporary difference – Ottawa went on a nice positive streak before going back into the tank. This one is going to make no difference at all. John Torterella is perhaps a slightly better coach than Tom Renney, but not by much. The bigger problem is that the world’s greatest coach couldn’t have success with the overpriced, underperforming mess that is the Rangers. They are beyond hope, and that won’t change until GM Glen Sather is run out of town. That won’t happen in a hurry, so the Rangers are not a team worth betting on. It must be something in the air at Madison Square Gardens or something – no competence is allowed.

Speaking of the NBA’s revolving coaching door, I read a comment from 76ers coach Tony DiLeo talking about how well Mareese Speight is playing. I had never consciously heard the name Tony DiLeo before. Coaching changes are so frequent and meaningless in basketball that I have seemingly made the subconscious decision to ignore them entirely.

Interesting news out of Minnesota – it seems as if Sage Rosenfels is about to be traded to the Vikings to be their new starting quarterback. I am of two minds on this one. One one hand, he has shown flashes of brilliance in short bursts with the Texans and he is an upgrade now overTarvaris Jackson. On the other hand, though, I am unconvinced that Rosenfels is a long term quality starter. It has been a long while since the Vikings have had a QB, and that cost them a big opportunity last year. I would be much happier if they decided to pursue a quarterback who is, well, better.

Marvin Harrison says that he isn’t deserving of a pay decrease, so he has asked for his release from the Colts. I know that he’s pretty old, but I am surprised that dementia is setting in already. If I were him and I still wanted to play I would tell the Colts to pay me exactly what they wanted to and not a penny more. He’s great and all, but he is well past this kind of defiant grandstanding.

Did you see the reports that Donovan McNabb and Eagles’ management had a long meeting last week? Part of the agenda was that McNabb wanted to make it clear that he wouldn’t be signing an extension until he was convinced that the team was committed to make the changes that would make the team better. Fair enough, I guess. McNabb had another pet issue, though – he wanted to address getting benched at halftime in week 12 again. Freaking let it go! I have never seen a guy be a bigger baby about something so meaningless and insignificant. He played like absolute garbage and he got benched. There is an easy way to make sure that it never happens again – quit throwing every second pass to the other team. I am not an Eagles’ fan at all, but if I was I am pretty sure that I would be very eager to see McNabb in pretty much any other uniform.

We learned two things tonight – Willie Warren is a pretty good player, especially for a freshman, and he and the rest of the Sooners have no way at all of making up for the absence of Blake Griffin. Griffin was out of action with a concussion, and Kansas went into Oklahoma and came out with a win. Kansas is a nice team and all, but that game wouldn’t have been close if Griffin was playing. Griffin is the Sooners. That must be simultaneously thrilling and terrifying for Sooners’ fans.