Williams to see 'Cats, 'Cats, 'Cats Sun, June 4, 2006 By STEVE SIMMONS, SUN MEDIA

R cky Williams must think this Canadian Football League is almost as out there as he is.

On Friday night, he made his CFL debut rushing the ball rather unimpressively against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Next Friday, he plays his second preseason game, this time against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

And then one week and one day later, the Argos open the regular season at home -- against guess who? -- the same Ticats.

In three weeks time, he won't know how he will do against the league, just how he can run against the Ticats.

And even in a year in which the league schedule had to be revamped at the last minute for a franchise put on ice, there is no logical reason to play the same football team three weeks in a row. At a time when attention may be at an all-time high, this kind of scheduling leaves the CFL wide open to ridicule.

This and that

Williams and John Avery seem to keep bumping into each other, metaphorically at least. Avery was a first-round pick of the Miami Dolphins. Williams left the Dolphins to come to Toronto. In college, Avery's backup running back was Deuce McAllister. In Williams' last season in New Orleans, his backup was McAllister. Now both are Argos . . . Another Williams factoid: His backup running back in college was a guy named Priest Holmes . . . The Stanley Cup final has an old-style World Series feel to it: Edmonton and Carolina did not play a single game against each other in the regular season . . . Under the department of real small: Why are the Ottawa Senators holding up Peter Chiarelli from going to work for the Boston Bruins until July 15? If they didn't want him to take the general manager's job, they shouldn't have granted Boston permission to talk to him . . . Ian Pulver, one of the Bob Goodenow loyalists who looked the other way when some of us were screaming for the decertification of agent David Frost, has interviewed to be John Ferguson's assistant with the Leafs. Even Fergie doesn't deserve this man.

Here and there

Go figure Ferguson: One week he's bragging about the bevy of young talent the Leafs have. Then he goes out and fires Barry Trapp, the head scout who brought him Justin Pogge among others . . . One agent's view of prominent free-agent defencemen : Nicklas Lidstrom will re-sign in Detroit; Wade Redden will re-sign in Ottawa; Zdeno Chara will likely end up with the New York Rangers and Ed Jovanovski is going into the open market, likely to the highest bidder . . . Someone will have interest in signing free agent centre Jason Allison but don't bet on it being the Leafs . . . If I'm John Muckler, my first order of business in the off-season is to straighten out the Senators' goaltending mess. The second order of business is to find out what the Florida Panthers want for the final year on Gary Roberts' contract. If Roberts had been a Senator this season, the team would still be playing . . . Can understand Eugene Levy on Canada's Walk of Fame. Can't understand what Brendan Fraser did to deserve a place.

Scene and heard

When the dust clears, and it will about a year from now, Larry Tanenbaum will be the majority owner of the Leafs and the Raptors and the Ontario Teachers' Pension people will be pretty much out of this sporting game . . . If I'm on the Hockey Hall of Fame committee this year, which I'm not, my choices this year would include Patrick Roy, Rogie Vachon and Doug Gilmour . . . Weird: Neither Rafael Palmeiro nor Sammy Sosa have announced their retirements, but neither are playing anywhere . . . Just wondering: Where was Angelo Mosca's indignation and where was Tom Higgins' outrage and where was Wally Buono's disgust when offensive lineman Bernard Williams, who failed 15 NFL drug tests, signed with the Argos three years ago . . . It's probably no coincidence that Wayne Gretzky's five-year contract to coach Phoenix coincides with him being freed to coach Team Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics . . . Kevin Lowe deserves the Conn Smythe Trophy. Three players he acquired this season -- Chris Pronger, Dwayne Roloson and Mike Peca -- are all candidates now.

And another thing

Hate the on-pace stats, but Troy Glaus is on-pace to do something no Blue Jay has ever done -- hit 50 home runs in a season . . . Still no announcement on Bryan McCabe's contact: Is there a holdup of some kind here? . . . I did a double take at Argo practice this week: Thought I saw former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield. It happened to be linebacker Lee Woodall . . . Without a whole lot of advertising, Casey Janssen is far more impressive a Blue Jay than Marty Janzen ever was . . . Team Canada named 49 forwards to its original list of candidates for the Turin Olympic team. Not named by Gretzky and Lowe: Rod Brind'Amour of the Carolina Hurricanes.

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