Your midday sports snack.

Toast points

• Team Canada lost to the Czech Republic and Russia at a men’s Olympic hockey tune-up tournament over the weekend. The Canadians finished 1-2 at the Channel One Cup in Moscow after dropping a 4-1 decision to the Czechs on Friday and falling 2-0 to the Russians on Saturday. Longtime KHLer Matt Ellison scored Canada’s only goal over the two games, while Barry Brust and Ben Scrivens split goaltending duties. The Czechs and Russia finished atop the six-team round robin with three wins apiece.

• Your semi-regular Vegas hockey update, courtesy of TSN broadcaster Gord Miller:

Indeed, Vegas’ 21-9-2 record (a points percentage clip of .688) continues to keep them in elite company; they trail only Tampa Bay and Nashville league-wide. The Golden Knights are 13-2-1 at home, a mark only Tampa can match. The Lightning are in Vegas for an unexpectedly mammoth matchup Tuesday night.

• A public-service announcement to those in Toronto: The Maple Leafs play at 2 p.m. ET tomorrow. The Hurricanes are in town for a rare weekday afternoon tilt that will commemorate the Toronto franchise’s 100th birthday.

• Former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and Warriors superstar Stephen Curry want in on Sean (Diddy) Combs’ plan to buy the Carolina Panthers from Jerry Richardson, who said last night he’ll sell the team in the face of allegations of sexual misconduct and racism. Diddy’s tweeted declaration that he’d like to become the NFL’s first African-American majority owner drew supportive messages from Kaepernick, who has been a free agent all season, and Curry, who grew up in Charlotte and is in the first year of a five-year contract that averages US$40 million a year.

• Five of the NFL’s 12 playoff spots are now spoken for with two weeks left in the season. The Patriots (11-3) secured their ninth straight AFC East title with a dramatic 27-24 win over Pittsburgh yesterday; the Jaguars (10-4) clinched their first post-season berth in a decade with a 45-7 smackdown of Houston; and the Vikings (11-3) locked down the NFC North by rolling Cincinnati 34-7. The Steelers (11-3) and Eagles (12-2) were already through to the playoffs as of last week.

• John Skipper resigned suddenly as the president of ESPN this morning, telling employees in an email that he has struggled for years with an unspecified substance addiction and chose to step down “to take care of my problem.” Skipper, 62, has headed ESPN since January 2012; he reportedly signed a contract extension last month that would have kept him on through 2021. ESPN said Skipper’s predecessor as president, George Bodenheimer, will return to lead the network on an interim basis.

Nutritional analysis

During Sunday’s Packers-Panthers telecast, FOX’s Joe Buck mentioned that Carolina quarterback Cam Newton was only the third quarterback in NFL history to pass for 150 touchdowns and run for 4,000 yards. It seemed like it might be interesting to see what a plot of that would look like.

The three relevant players are noted: Newton — who threw four touchdown passes and ran 14 times for 58 yards in the 31-24 victory over Green Bay — Randall Cunningham and Steve Young. While the achievement seems noteworthy, in that so few players have reached that combination, the visualization of the data shows it might be much more interesting when someone with running ability also moves into an elite passing echelon.

Below is the same chart with the last eight Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks marked.

Among Cunningham, Newton and Young, only Young has a Super Bowl ring and only one of his three rings came when he was the starter. Newton has made a Super Bowl appearance, losing to Peyton Manning and the Broncos at the end of the 2015 season. Cunningham never got to the title game.

Running quarterbacks remain crowd-pleasers, but they don’t appear to be the ones who get the job done in January and February. Newton has a chance to break that mould if he can win more than one title. Russell Wilson needs fewer than 800 rushing yards to join the 150-4,000 club, and he also has a Super Bowl ring and two appearances.

It’s not exactly fair to compare Newton unfavourably to the last eight Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks, since five of them probably will be Hall of Famers and Eli might sneak into Canton as well. There are only 28 quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame; it’s an elite club.

Photos of the day

At the Indy 500, the winner gets a glass of milk. The Tour de France victor sips champagne during the final stage. And elsewhere in France, they reward downhill skiing dominance with cheese.

At nationalpost.com

• Fields of greyish mud. Glacial ice breaking off in chunks. Mountain ranges closed to the public for lack of snow. The troubling effects of climate change are being felt at Winter Olympic training sites across the world, the Associated Press reports, as alpine and freestyle skiers scramble to prepare for Pyeongchang at a dwindling number of suitable venues. From Whistler and the Rockies to Austria and the Alps, the problem is only going to get worse.

• Dubious playing conditions aren’t only an issue for the Olympics. One hundred years before the Canadiens and Senators faced off outdoors in Ottawa, early versions of those teams met for the first time on “very sticky” ice. Canadian Press reporter Jim Bronskill has the story of the first day in NHL history: Dec. 19, 1917, when last-minute contract disputes forced the Senators to play shorthanded and the Toronto Arenas and Montreal Wanderers combined to score 19 goals.

TV tonight

All times Eastern

3 p.m. Soccer: Premier League, Everton vs. Swansea TSN1,4
7 p.m. NHL: Columbus at Boston Sportsnet, TVAS
7 p.m. NBA: Boston at Indiana SN One
8 p.m. NBA: Portland at Minnesota TSN2
8:15 p.m. NFL: Atlanta at Tampa Bay TSN1,3-5, RDS
9 p.m. NHL: San Jose at Edmonton SN West
10:30 p.m. NBA: Golden State at LA Lakers SN One

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