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There are certain promotions and marketing staples we enjoy more than others.

Interesting hockey memorabilia-related story out of Canada that we totally missed yesterday:

Photo: Getty Sports Images. And this should go without saying, but this is NOT the stick in question.

After spending the past three years documenting “the provenance of the vintage sporting artifact, which he bought from a Cape Breton barber who had it on display for decades in his North Sydney, N.S., shop,” 44-year-old Mark Presley is ready to sell.

- Oleg [Yevenko] is so tall, and new assistant coach Blaise MacDonald so short that MacDonald will be so far away from him that he might as well text message his instructions.

We need to file a confession:

The gap between sushi and hockey after a longtime coming has finally been bridged. And even though we’re a bit skeptical about the curious inclusion of the ingredient that tops the winning recipe from Cogliano — jalapenos — and wonder if it might be a fun prank to play here around the office, we respect the winner.

Ducks continue to roll ... the sushi - OC Register

Position: Forward
Height: 5-6
Weight: 165
Hometown: Rossmoor, Calif.

Last season: Scored 73 points (39 goals, 34 assists) in 58 games for the U.S. National U18 Team.

Over the summer: Selected in the second round (33rd overall) by the Florida Panthers in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft.

What’s the lowdown? Already dubbed WCHA Preseason Rookie of the Year in both the media and coaches polls, all eyes will be on Rocco Grimaldi as he enters his freshman year at the University of North Dakota.

In a couple of hours, every Canadian will wait with baited breath for Jacques Rogge to say the words that mean so much to every Olympic host country.

They will gather inside BC Place, at home in front of their television sets or near movie screens set up in locations around the city, eager for the IOC president to declare the 2010 Winter Games to be the best Olympics of all time.

The other night I had my first and probably only brush with greatness on the streets of Vancouver. No disrespect to the U.S. Men’s and Women’s hockey teams, which have been great in their own right.

I was getting off the train line, weaving my way through the crowd while dodging raindrops, when I almost walked right into Vince Vaughn. 

I used to work with a guy at a newspaper who would grimace every time the news editor would ask him to write a headline that involved squeezing big blocked letters into very small spaces.

He would shout across the newsroom to the editor who designed the page, "When you die and go to hell, and trust me you will go to hell, I hope you have to write these ridiculous headlines all day long."

I feel the same way about the genius who dreamt up the concept of the Olympic mixed zone, where mosh pit meets the media.

To borrow a phrase from Al Bundy, the Olympics are no time for regrets. That’s what anniversaries are for.

(Apologies, of course, to my beautiful wife.)

“Citius, Altius, Fortius” is the Olympic motto for Faster, Stronger, Higher. In this era of instant gratification and intense media scrutiny, some skeptics would have you believe a better Olympic motto would be “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

And that’s too bad because they’re missing a good game.