Cook And the weather keeps switching back and forth. Par for the course, this time of year ... after all, we live in Texas.

And games are on the schedule, then the time is changed, then they’re called due to weather. It gets to where you text a coach to say “game is rained out, right” and get a response, “no, we’re playing right now.”

It’s enough to make a sports guy’s hair turn gray.

Wait, too late, that’s already happened.

•••

Can our national media just shut up about Tiger Woods? I know they need ratings in order to set advertising rates, but really ... come on.

Enough is enough.

It’s getting to where the sports media industry is more focused on “news,” gossip, and the personal lives of the professional athletes (just like they’re “Entertaiment Tonight” or something) than they are about the games, pennant races and championships.

Which, along with athletic competition, is what I though sports coverage was supposed to be all about.

••• I had the USA-Canada gold medal hockey game turned on the other night, but I have to admit it was on as much for background noise as anything else.

I mean, I’m not all that much on hockey and you have to really hunt to find that weird outdoors channel that has the TV contract with the NHL to even find a live hockey game on television anymore.

But, by the same token, after Canada went up 2-0 in the second period, I started paying attention and rooting for the USA squad to make a game of it.

And they did ... so it turned out to be a pretty good game.

Continuing with the honesty, however, it’ll probably be four years before I watch another hockey game.

Loyd Cook has been in the newspaper business for 17 years, earning news and sportswriting awards from the Texas Press Association and the Associated Press Managing Editors organization.