Michael Vick knows how to handle the hotel experience. AP
	POLL How long will Larry Brown last as Knicks coach? One season Two seasons Three seasons More than three seasons  View Results
	MAILBAG Have a question or opinion for Pete? He might answer/address it in his mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

1. Yes, it seems that the NHL is serious about making the sport more exciting. Canadian commentator Don Cherry will not be on tape delay when his Coach's Corner segment returns to CBC's Hockey Night in Canada telecasts this fall. The often-outrageous Cherry has operated on a seven-second delay since making some controversial on-air comments in January 2004. Picture a surlier Rush Limbaugh, only more entertaining.

2. O.J. Simpson has been ordered by a Florida district judge to pay DirecTV $25,000 in damages for stealing the company's services. The court didn't buy Simpson's contention that the signal had been planted.

3. The Falcons arrived at their new training camp on Sunday to find luxury condominiums that are comparable to four-star hotels, complete with individual bedrooms, a new pool and a well-appointed lounge. To complete the hotel experience, players checked in under their favorite alias.

4. The NCAA has mandated that this season's college football media guides be a maximum of 208 pages, after some school's guides had ballooned into 600-page epics. Most programs conformed to the new limit by simply cutting the bios of players who had been arrested.

5. It would be hard to picture any of the Pistons fans who grappled with the Pacers last season ending up on an NBA roster. Yet a roughly analogous case is currently playing out across the pond, where Welsh soccer club Carmarthen Town has signed a convicted hooligan. Craig Hughes, 26, is currently serving a 33-month prison sentence and is also banned from attending matches for eight years stemming from a brawl outside a pub before a Cardiff City-West Ham United match in 2003. Hughes, who is apparently a talented striker -- of the soccer ball in addition to jaws -- will need to challenge the ban in order to play. Remarkably, he once had a previous ban, stemming from a fight with Millwall fans five years ago, overturned. We can expect an R&B album from Hughes any day now.

6. It's always tough to win on the road, but most visiting teams don't typically have to worry about a smart-mouthed PA announcer. That's not the case when rugby teams play Gladstone in New Zealand.  As Paddy Rimene, a player for the predominately Catholic Marist club, lined up a penalty kick late in a semifinal game tied at 10 over the weekend, a voice over the loudspeaker declared that the Pope had died in a car accident. Once Rimene's kick bounced off the post, the announcer amended his "report" to say that it had just been a fender-bender and that the Pope was fine. Gladstone won 13-10 in extra time but will now be heading en masse to hell.

7. Sprite will discontinue using the Miles Thirst character in its ads, some of which included LeBron James. LeBron is lobbying for Miles to be replaced by Michael Redd.

8. A few weeks back, the 10 Spot mentioned the plight of a baseball fan who had missed out on winning a $10,000 prize when umpires mistakenly disallowed a home run by Miguel Cabrera. MLB.com made good on its word to award the fan something valuable, sending 26-year-old Ryan Huttenberger to the All-Star Game and setting up an introduction to Cabrera. Meanwhile, another fan, Brian Ward, has captured the $10,000 after successfully picking one player to homer in nine consecutive games. (A fan can choose a different player each day.) Derrek Lee hit the money ball for Ward, the third time he had done so during the nine-game stretch. Ward also successfully picked Alfonso Soriano, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez (twice).

9. Several readers pointed out that the 10 Spot missed a few of Mario Lopez's (Saved by the Bell) sports connections in Tuesday's edition. Chris of Parsippany, N.J., noted that Lopez is the captain of the L.A. Armed Response in Extreme Dodgeball, which airs on the Game Show Network. (That's the same channel, incidentally, that is replaying all seasons of the Amazing Race this summer.) Jon of The Woodlands, Texas, wrote in to say that Lopez is also the brother-in-law of Texans linebacker Kailee Wong, who is married to Lopez's sister. Alas, there's no update on Dustin Diamond.

10. The NFL's Cardinals will move their training camp from Northern Arizona University after a recent on-campus outbreak of a contagious virus. The virus can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramps, eerily mimicking the experience of being a Cardinals fan.

Reminder: Please send your entries for the reader-submission item in Thursday's 10 Spot.