News Item: Taylor Swift is shown about a dozen times by CBS cameras at last weekend’s AFC championship game.

Think about it. You’re the NFL, one of the most powerful entities in the world. You can buy and sell several developing nations at a whim and set up puppet governments. You can brainwash up to 40 million people into watching the most overrated pro sports team in history (the Dallas Cowboys) gag every weekend, and yet you need a POP STAR to legitimize your existence?

News Item: University of Maine coaches par excellence Ben Barr (men’s hockey) and Amy Vachon (women’s basketball) receive contract extensions.

Just as telling as these two coaches getting extended was who didn’t get extended (takes furtive glance toward the football field at Alfond Stadium).

News Item: Despite saying at the start of the offseason that adding starting pitching is their biggest priority, the Red Sox have added one starter (Lucas Giolito) while losing two (Chris Sale, James Paxton).

Why do I have this awful feeling I’m going to owe Chaim Bloom an apology after tearing him a new one several months ago. … 

News Item: In a rematch more hotly anticipated than the Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl, Oceanside’s boys basketball team dominates Belfast (103-28) almost as badly as in their first matchup (126-38) and UFC CEO Dana White — a graduate of Hermon High who still has a summer residence in Maine — tells Oceanside critics to buzz off.

I confess, I did not predict that a pair of Class B midseason routs would end Cooper Flagg’s 2 1/2-year reign as Maine’s top basketball story. Good thing Oceanside hasn’t been accused of doing anything really sinister, like deflating basketballs.

News Item: Taylor Swift is shown about a hundred times by CBS cameras at last weekend’s AFC championship game.

So if Grateful Dead fans are Deadheads and Taylor Swift fans are Swifties, what does that make fans of Pearl Jam, the Dead/Swift for the middle-aged craft-beer crowd? Pearlies? Jammers? Cubbies?

News Item: The Bruins are tied with the Canucks for the most points in the NHL heading into the All-Star break.

After last year’s playoff collapse, has there ever been a team so good that so few people have had faith in? Maybe they’ll fool us again this year, but this time in a good way.

News Item: Despite being touted as one of the hottest coaching free agent commodities, Bill Belichick is still unemployed. 

Well, I hear Boston College needs a coach. 

News Item: Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer are all elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

The problem isn’t with the first part of that sentence; it’s the second. Why do the baseball writers, and only the baseball writers, get to choose who gains admission to Cooperstown? Why don’t broadcasters, players (current and former), executives, historians and bloggers living in mom’s basement have a say? OK, maybe not the latter. And let’s not forget that much of the writers’ voting process is centered around the idea that they should be moral guardians over an issue (PEDs) that they blatantly ignored back in the 1990s and early 2000s.

News Item: Taylor Swift is shown about a thousand times by CBS cameras at last weekend’s AFC championship game.

Did 1950s L.A. Rams quarterback Bob Waterfield have to deal with this when he was married to Jane Russell? (Ask your great-grandparents, kids.)

News Item: Sports Illustrated staff laid off; future of printed magazine appears bleak.

For all the controversy over AI-generated content and some … er … interesting swimsuit issue cover choices, SI had been on the losing end against that undefeated rival — relevancy — for some time. SI could not change with the times. SI was once a big deal. So was Blockbuster. So was Pan Am. So was Radio Shack. And they’re all gone, too. And some of today’s beloved “too-big-to-fail” brands will suffer the same fate decades from now, guaranteed.

News Item: The Utah Jazz owners show interest in bringing the Arizona Coyotes to Salt Lake City should the beleaguered NHL franchise fail (again) to secure a new arena deal. 

Think about it. You’re Gary Bettman, leader of the most powerful hockey entity in the world, you can buy and sell several Wayne Gretzky rookie cards at a whim, you can brainwash North America into watching the most overrated hockey team in history (the Toronto Maple Leafs) gag every year in the playoffs, and yet you need a HOCKEY TEAM IN THE DESERT to legitimize your existence?

The NHL’s answer to The Undertaker (it refuses to die) plays in a 5,000-seat arena smaller than the homes of either the Maine Mariners or UMaine hockey. Last year, Tempe voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have funded a new building. It’s time to let it go, Gary; the world will keep spinning on its axis. I think.

From teams that ought to be defunct to teams that actually are …

News Item: An auction of old sports banners from the former Jay and Livermore Falls high schools, which combined to form Jay-based Spruce Mountain High in 2011, is canceled after outcry from the communities.

I guess fans of long-gone teams will have to stick with going online in search of old Seattle SuperSonics programs.

News Item: Taylor Swift is shown about a billion times by CBS cameras at last weekend’s AFC championship game.

I should probably quit with these wisecracks, since those same cameras also frequently show presumptive brother-in-law Jason Kelce in Swift’s box and, well, he’s a pretty big dude.

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