Your midday sports snack.

Toast points

• Canadian world junior goalie Carter Hart was stout yesterday in a 4-2 win over Finland, but he’ll watch from the bench tonight as Colton Point starts against Slovakia. The Slovaks were idle on the first day of the tournament in Buffalo, while Canada and the United States — 9-0 winners over Denmark — took an early lead atop Group A. Expect Hart to return to the crease when Canada and the U.S. face off outdoors at New Era Field on Friday afternoon.

• The other Canadian hockey team currently in action won its opening game at the Spengler Cup in Switzerland yesterday. Canada beat Czech club Mountfield HK 5-3 on a late shorthanded goal from David McIntyre and an empty-netter from P.A. Parenteau. Other ex-NHLers making their case for inclusion on Canada’s Olympic team this week include Andrew Ebbett, Chris Kelly, Maxim Lapierre, Jay McClement, Mason Raymond and Christian Thomas, as well as goalie Kevin Poulin. Canada plays the host team, HC Davos, tomorrow at 2:15 p.m. ET.

• James Harrison became a Patriot yesterday afternoon. The 39-year-old linebacker signed with AFC-leading New England three days after his release from Pittsburgh, the team that had employed him for 177 of his 192 career games. Harrison only played in five of the Steelers’ first 15 games this season, and Bill Belichick’s plans for his new acquisition are as clear as mud.

If nothing else, 40-year-old Tom Brady finally has a running mate in the locker room. After him and Harrison, the Patriots’ oldest player is linebacker David Harris, 33.

• The 2018 Winter Olympic organizing committee released updated ticket sales figures over the weekend, with overall sales reaching 61 per cent as of Dec. 21. South Koreans have only won Winter Olympic medals in three sports: figure skating and speed skating, both long- and short-track. Short-track has sold more than 74 per cent of its seats, but long-track (53 per cent) and figure skating (54 per cent) are lagging. Alpine skiing has sold the largest percentage, 81 per cent, while biathlon is only at 41 per cent.

• Disgraced Russian sports official Vitaly Mutko resigned today as the chief organizer of soccer’s 2018 World Cup. Mutko, Vladimir Putin’s deputy prime minister, was banned from the Olympics for life earlier this month for his alleged role in orchestrating a covert, state-sponsored doping program at Sochi 2014, when he was Russia’s sports minister. Mutko’s decision comes two days after he said he’d temporarily step down as president of the Russian Football Union to focus on litigating his Olympic ban through the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Nutritional analysis

Early in the tenure of Raptors coach Dwane Casey, he used to tell reporters that his goal for team defence was to hold opponents below 43 per cent shooting. As it turned out, that was a worthy goal in his first season, 2011-12, when the Raptors held opponents to 43.5 per cent shooting.

The closest they’ve come since then is 44.4 per cent in 2015-16, although Casey’s target may have changed as his teams became offensive powerhouses and as the league evolved into trying to shoot as much as it could from the paint and from beyond the three-point line.

Last night’s dismal 98-93 loss in Dallas was beyond weird for the number of times the teams traded scoring runs, alternating wildly between being hot and cold. The Mavericks, in fact, shot only 42.6 per cent. The Raptors could only manage to shoot 33.7 per cent.

Below are a couple of charts showing how the Raptors’ offensive and defensive shooting percentages have evolved over Casey’s seven seasons.

Toronto’s 47.4 per cent shooting this season ranks seventh in the league; last season’s 46.4 mark was 11th. On defence, oddly, they rank 25th in both seasons with identical 44.9 marks.

The box plots above show the range of the Raptors per-game shooting percentages, with the box representing the range between the 25th and 75th percentile and the line in the middle of the box showing the median.

Although the Raptors haven’t moved the needle on their overall defensive percentage in the last two seasons, the spread between the offensive and defensive medians is at its highest level in Casey’s seven seasons. Last season, the spread was 2.0 percentage points (46.65 offence vs. 44.65 defence) and this season the spread is 1.6 percentage points (46.70 vs. 45.10), even as the team has tried to evolve into taking more three-point shots.

Photo of the day

As 2017 draws to an end, here are 12 momentous snapshots from the past year — one for each month.

At nationalpost.com

• Don Cherry was worried he was getting soft. When his wife, Luba, told him last year that he “used to be good,” the implication was clear. So the loudest hockey commentator on television wrote those words on three separate pieces of paper and posted them around his suburban Toronto home. Curtis Rush has the story of how Cherry decided to return to his old ways, a reawakening that has led the Coach’s Corner star to this conclusion: “I’m more of a bully. I’m more aggressive. I’m better.”

• When Johnny Bower was 15, writes Lance Hornby, he told Army officials he was a few years older to join the war effort in Europe. When he was 33, he said he was a few years younger — so that the team that had just claimed him from the AHL, the Maple Leafs, wouldn’t be summarily inclined to send him back. Bower, who died Tuesday at 93, went on to win two Vezina Trophies and four Stanley Cups in a Toronto uniform, becoming a name the franchise and its fans never stopped appreciating.

TV tonight

All times Eastern

1:30 p.m. NCAA Football: Independence Bowl, Southern Mississippi vs. Florida State TSN2
2 p.m. Hockey: Spengler Cup, HC Davos vs. Mountfield HK TSN5
2:45 p.m. Soccer: Premier League, Newcastle vs. Manchester City TSN4
3 p.m. Hockey: World junior, Belarus vs. Switzerland TSN1,3,5
7 p.m. Hockey: World junior, Canada vs. Slovakia TSN1,3,4
7 p.m. NHL
— Montreal at Carolina TSN2, RDS
— Ottawa at Boston TSN5, TVAS
8 p.m. NHL: Edmonton at Winnipeg Sportsnet
8 p.m. NBA: Toronto at Oklahoma City SN One
8:30 p.m. NCAA Football: Foster Farms Bowl, Arizona vs. Purdue FOX
10:30 p.m. NBA: Utah at Golden State SN One

Early Thursday
9 a.m. Hockey: Spengler Cup, Switzerland vs. HPK TSN5
Noon Hockey: World junior, Denmark vs. Finland TSN1,4
Noon Soccer: Premier League, Newcastle vs. Manchester City TSN3

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