Hot Box

Sporting News, The, Dec 14, 1998

If you loved that little blue streak that trailed hockey pucks on Fox broadcasts, this should hit you head on: The New York Times Magazine reports a Massachusetts-based company called Trakus is developing technology that will measure not only the speed of a hockey player, but also the impact at which he hits and gets hit. It works this way: A radio tag in each player's helmet will transmit signals to be read by antennae positioned throughout the arena and fed into a computer. The result: A whole new set of stats--perhaps for the NHL as early as the 1999 playoffs. "Right now we're measuring the force of impact of players banging into one another as an index that goes to 100," Trakus CEO Eric Spitz tells the Times. "We're trying to figure out a way to express it--like `That guy was hit as if by a Volkswagen going at 55 mph!' Pounds per square inch doesn't really do it." A Volkswagen? Any player that has been on the receiving end of a Scott Stevens or Darius Kasparaitis hit might consider a Mack truck more appropriate.

FAR AND AWAY: Tom Cruise is just the guy to impress a bunch of crusty old sports editors. After all, his storied film career includes roles as a high school football player, a race car driver and a sports agent. At least that's what Hollywood insider Michael Ovitz was hoping when he brought Cruise to lunch to meet the editors and pitch his plan: a 77,000-seat football stadium in Carson, Calif., that will help lure an NFL franchise to L.A. According to the New York Daily News, Ovitz was "visibly annoyed" when asked tough questions about financing and neither he--nor Cruise--got the reaction that was hoped for. (Maybe the editors still remember Cocktail.) Ovitz, by the way, has assembled a star-studded list of partners, including Cruise, Kevin Costner, Magic Johnson and Shaquille O'Neal.

NOTHING BUT NET: Speaking of O'Neal, here's how bad it's getting for him and his union brothers. According to J.A. Adande of the Los Angeles Times, O'Neal and players such as Eddie Jones, Kenny Anderson and Tracy Murray often spend weekday mornings at the UCLA Men's Gym. They get about 90 minutes in before they're kicked out for badminton. That's right. Shaq gets bumped for a shuttlecock. Fan-tastic.

HOLDING COURT: In one 24-hour span recently, Maryland courthouses outside Washington, D.C., featured appearances by shamed boxer Riddick Bowe, disgraced basketball player Chris Webber and ex-con Mike Tyson. It was, quips the Chicago Tribune's Scott Rosenbloom, "perhaps the greatest confluence of sporting reprobates since the (Albert) Belle news conference." ... Jay Leno on Carmen Electra's fight with Dennis Rodman to have their marriage annulled. "I'm with Carmen, You don't throw away a nine-day marriage, She gave him the best days of her life."