Your midday sports snack.

Toast points

• Toronto FC needs a victory at home tonight to advance to a second straight MLS Cup final. The Reds, who’ll be enlivened by the return of star attackers Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore from suspensions, are deadlocked 0-0 with Columbus Crew SC heading into the decisive leg of the Eastern Conference final. A draw in which any goals are scored would send Columbus through on away goals. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m. ET.

• The Blue Jays announced their promotion schedule this afternoon with four bobblehead days, a cape day and an alarm clock day. Justin Smoak, Marcus Stroman and J.A. Happ are the bobblehead subjects from the current roster. Two of them will be held on weeknights: Wednesday, June 6 for Stroman’s so-called Wobble Bobble and Monday, July 2 for Happ. (Yes, July 2 is also the observed stat holiday, so really another weekend.) Smoak’s will be given out on the first Saturday of the season, March 31.

Kevin Pillar’s Superman persona will be honoured with a replica cape giveaway on Sunday, May 13 and Buck Martinez will have his signature home run call noted with a Get Up! Alarm Clock giveaway on Sunday, Sept. 9.

The 1992 and 1993 World Series teams will be feted on Saturday, Aug. 10, which will recognize the 25th anniversary of the first championship. A triple-bobblehead will be the giveaway, featuring Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor and John Olerud.

• Tiger Woods will be paired with a potential heir tomorrow in the first round of the Hero World Challenge. Woods and Justin Thomas, the 24-year-old American who won the PGA Championship and the overall FedEx Cup title this past season, are scheduled to tee off at 12:05 p.m. ET at the unofficial money event Woods hosts in the Bahamas. It’s the first tournament the former longtime No. 1 has entered since February, when he withdrew from the Dubai Desert Classic with back spasms.

• The Flames are donating an NHL-sized outdoor skating rink to the British Columbia town whose arena has been shuttered since an ammonia leak killed three people there last month. Volunteers in Fernie, which is about 300 km south of Calgary and just inside the B.C. border, hope to have the pad for the rink built and operational by Christmas. Jason Podloski, a 46-year-old refrigeration worker from Alberta, died while attending to the leak at the arena on Oct. 17, as did Fernie residents Wayne Hornquist, 59, and Lloyd Smith, 52.

• The NFL published its first playoff scenario memo of the season this week. Philadelphia (10-1) can clinch the NFC East division with a win or tie against Seattle on Sunday night coupled with a Dallas loss or tie. The Cowboys play Washington on Thursday night.

• Russian sport officials who deny or try to pass blame for their country’s state-sponsored doping operation may be digging themselves an even deeper hole, the Canadian investigator who probed that operation for the World Anti-Doping Agency said today. “Lack of contrition, a lack of candour about what is going on definitely influences you when you are thinking about an appropriate sanction,” Richard McLaren told the Associated Press.

McLaren, whose December 2016 WADA report detailed Russia’s rampant concealment of positive drug tests through much of this decade, was speaking a week ahead of the IOC’s expected Dec. 5 ruling on Russia’s status for Pyeongchang 2018. Punishment could range from a complete ban on Russian athletes to a monetary fine, which McLaren dismissed as insufficiently severe.

• FIFA, which will hold the group draw for the 2018 World Cup on Friday, is having trouble filling out the roster of sponsors for the event, the New York Times reported this week. It could leave FIFA, which has been buffeted by a string of corruption scandals in recent years, looking at a financial loss. The only sponsors signed on so far are from Russia (the 2018 host), Qatar (the 2022 host) and China (angling to be a future host). FIFA hasn’t signed a tournament sponsorship with a U.S. or European company since 2011.

Nutritional information

Radek Faksa of the Dallas Stars scored a natural hat trick on Tuesday night in a span of 6:46, the second-fastest in franchise history. (The fastest was by Bill Goldsworthy in 1973, who did it in 5:32.) Two of Faksa’s goals came within eight seconds, although that was just short of another Goldsworthy record. He scored twice in seven seconds in 1971.

Faksa’s hat trick was the 27th player game with three or more goals this season. With scoring rates up this season, are players recording hat tricks at a faster rate?

Below is a chart showing the number of player games with three or more goals in each season since the 2004-05 lockout and the rate at which players are recording hat tricks (season games divided by hat tricks).

This season, players are recording a three-goal game every 13.96 games (27 in 377 games). It’s the fastest rate in the 13 seasons in the chart by more than a game and a half (15.57 games in 2005-06). The slowest rate was the 2014-15 season, when a hat trick was recorded every 25.1 games.

Of note, players this season are already within five hat tricks of the 2012-13 lockout season, which had 32 hat tricks in 720 games, a rate of one every 22.5 games. If players continue at the current rate, we would expect to see 88 hat tricks by the end of the season, which would be nine more than the high-water mark of 2005-06.

Photo of the day

There are officially 1,000 days to go before the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, a benchmark the Japanese capital observed today by lighting the 634-metre Sky Tree — the tallest tower in the world — in red, blue and green.

(If you can’t wait until Aug. 25, 2020, the 2018 Pyeongchang Paralympics start in exactly 100 days, with the Olympic countdown at 71 days.)

At nationalpost.com

• Michael Traikos’ newest story touches on the temptation to write off high draft picks as busts when they don’t excel in the NHL immediately. It happened to Mark Scheifele a few years ago, and it has happened to Dylan Strome, the No. 3 overall pick in 2015 who has dwelled in junior and the minors ever since. “Everyone’s path is different,” says Strome, whose recent call-up to Arizona may finally afford him the chance to shine.

• Here’s a question from our archives that holds a lot of weight today: Can Tiger still play? Scott Stinson appraised the tarnished legend’s latest return to golf back on Oct. 31, after Woods announced he’d enter the field this weekend at the Hero World Challenge. Stinson’s conclusion: Maybe, just maybe, he could hint at the form that once made him so feared, even if the days of Peak Tiger are gone forever.

TV tonight

All times Eastern

2:45 p.m. Soccer: Premier League
— Arsenal vs. Huddersfield Sportsnet
— Bournemouth vs. Burnley TSN3
— Chelsea vs. Swansea TSN4
3 p.m. Soccer: Premier League
— Manchester City vs. Southampton TSN1
— Everton vs. West Ham TSN5
— Stoke vs. Liverpool SN World
7:30 p.m. Soccer: MLS Eastern Conference final, second leg, Toronto vs. Columbus TSN1,4,5
7:30 p.m. NHL: Ottawa at Montreal Sportsnet, RDS
7:30 p.m. NBA: Charlotte at Toronto SN One
7:30 p.m. NCAA Basketball: Michigan at North Carolina TSN2
9:30 p.m. NHL: Winnipeg at Colorado TSN3
9:30 p.m. Golf: Australian PGA Championship, first round Golf Channel
10:30 p.m. NBA: Golden State at LA Lakers SN One

Hot Buttered Post is served Monday through Thursday.