Bravos, brushbacks and other electrical bananas from the cluttered laptop of your admittedly atavistic sports media critic:
- NBC's jackknifing audience numbers for the Vancouver Olympics prove one thing -- the National Hockey League must ice the concept, post haste, before re-upping for yet another Reamed Dream at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
After ''modernizing'' and further ''Americanizing'' the NHL, commissioner Gary Bettman can't be faulted for presuming he could push the globalization of the league via the Winter Olympics -- even if it meant bringing the regular season to a hollow halt during a month when it should be flourishing.
But it's just not happening.
If anything drove that point home, it was that the figure skating-skiing-bobsledding triple on NBC Sunday night outdrew MSNBC and the USA's 5-3 victory over Canada by a viewership ratio of almost 3-to-1. That comparative TV interest, according to international media, was even more lopsided in other countries.
One possible solution for Bettman and his governors: Resurrect a streamlined version of the old Canada-USSR ''Summit Series'' as a September prelude to the 2014-15 NHL season.
After an NHL-less Winter Games, match the new Stanley Cup champions that fall in an international best-of-three vs. the Sochi gold medalists.
Unprecedented world championship rights, global theater and what a start to the new NHL season -- plus, no more major trifling with the classic rhythms of an NHL campaign.
- ESPN's suspension of Tony Kornheiser from ''Pardon the Interruption'' for his stupid and sexist remarks about network colleague Hannah Storm raises the old question: How did this Scaramouche ever get this far in the business to begin with?
If you like 'em talent-free, devoid of original thought and as telegenic as Barney Fife's nephew, Kornheiser is your man. To think he made his bones at the Washington Post only makes it that much more understandable how the extremely unctuous newspaper clings to LBJ-era JFK assassination theories and had Watergate spoon-fed by an embittered old FBI guy.
Kornheiser is expected back on ''Pardon the Dolt'' in two weeks. That's bad news for co-host Michael Wilbon, a beacon of understated class and style. Maybe ''Leering K'' will quit for good and land a more appropriate gig -- like waste-flow reporter at the Potomac PennySaver.
TWEET-HENGE: WSCR-AM (670) listeners heard the implosiveness continue to tick one recent midday when a whiffy McHost referred to Northern Illinois football as ''meaningless.'' That characterization was sure to set ledgers gnashing in DeKalb, where NIU administrators have guaranteed significant coin to air Huskies games on 670-AM since 2005.
- Former ESPN basketball analyst Rick Majerus says he wants his upscaling St. Louis Billikens out of the Atlantic-10 and back into the Missouri Valley Conference. Could DePaul then be in line for a balancing overture from the Valley? ... An excellent pre-Madness primer is Thornridge: The Perfect Season by Illinois-bred sportscaster Scott Lynn ($22.95, authorhouse.com).
- Colorado authorities have completed a cold-case review into the 1988 disappearance of suburban sportswriter Keith Reinhard with no significant advances. Long-distance odds on the enduring mystery: mayhem, 3-5; mountain, 6-5; Mexico, 20-1. ... Comcast SportsNet will devote chunks of programming in and around the Bulls-Portland game Friday night to mark the first anniversary of the passings of Johnny Kerr and Norm Van Lier.
- Bob Vorwald, WGN-Channel 9 director of production, is mixing business with literary basepaths: He has books titled What It Means To Be a Cub and What It Means To Be a White Sox set for March release before April TV specials of the same names. ... Sticky-fingered Chet Coppock is scheduled to perform ''Bitch'' from his ''Barnaby's on State'' catalog with Legs Akimbo at Goose Island in Wrigleyville Saturday night. Anabel Roda of WLS-AM (890) fronts ''Legs.''
- Jimmy Kimmel, on the urgent overkill from Vancouver: ''I have learned a lot from the Olympics -- mostly that I really miss football season.'' ... And Rocky Wirtz, to Crain's Shia Kapos, on the essence of his beverage and hockey businesses: ''It's always about ice. Either you're skating on it or puting it in your glass.''
Jim O'Donnell's sports media column appears Thursdays in the Sun-Times.
Comment at suntimes.com.
Photo: Bruce Bennett, Getty Images / Gary Bettman dreams of NHL globalization, but other Olympics have draw more viewers.
