Unbeknownst to us, Chris Zelkovich apparently has a sense of humour. And so he beat us to the punch in pointing out the unequivocal highlight of Saturday's broadcast: Mark Lee informing viewers that the Als' "DBs have got a pretty interesting key on Bishop as they continue to jump his balls throughout the game."

For the record, that sounds more like the sort of thing that would throw our old friend Spergon Wynn off his game, at least in the right company. (You thought we were going to go for the easy Rod Black joke, didn't you? Suckers.) But having been convinced for some time that Mark Lee is a robot, we're more intrigued by the potential that his wiring is loose and we're headed for a full-fledged meltdown by season's end.

Grey Cup...the last game for now, possibly forever, on the CBC. And Mark Lee starts getting so blue that you'll think Bob Saget has stormed the broadcast booth.

If nothing else, it would at least be more entertaining than Lenny Kravitz. 

We're genuinely happy that Danny Mac appears to be headed for a successful post-football career in the broadcast booth - and not just because it means we'll be seeing less of one or both of Glen Suitor and Leif Peterson. He seems like an awfully nice guy, and it's always been reassuring to see a professional athlete with even less regard for his body than we have.

One small quibble, though. Danny can talk all he wants about how much he'll miss the locker room. But having watched him tire himself out just walking to the huddle the past few seasons, we have a very hard time believing "the transition from active to non-active" will be quite as difficult as he thinks.

With it being well into 2007, we thought we'd steal a page from every media outlet/blogger/writer/drunken New Year's Eve partier and take a look back at some of our favourite people of 2006. Some impressed. Some dazzled. Most just amused, and only occasionally intentionally. Enjoy. (And we promise to finish this up before training camps open).

Number 5: Rod Black

Moist.  Glistening.  Clean shaven.

Rod looking a bit more comfortablePrior to this year, none of these adjectives could have been used to describe CFL play-by-play man Rod Black, but one off hand comment to a friend of radio host Barry Taylor at a Ticats-Stamps game, and now they're all in play. Quite frankly it didn't matter what he did for the rest of the season.  For us, 2006 will always mark the year that we became haunted by the image of Rod Black's balls.

When we have way too much time on our hands, it's fun to check on which Google searches are getting you here. But we don't think anyone will ever top the one from this past weekend: "Rod Black sports mustache." 

We're pretty sure we know why that was. And like millions (or at last dozens) of other Canadians, we're intrigued by exactly the same subject.

See, as fans of '80s baseball and the many, many exemplary porn 'staches that came with it, one redeeming quality of TSN's game crews used to be their truly excellent facial hair. So it was hard enough to come to terms with Glen Suitor shaving his -  even if it was apparently because he realized he looked like Ron Burgundy. (Seriously, we're not making this up - it's right here, along with a fairly pathetic explanation of how he had to ask TSN's permission, and wouldn't be allowed to grow it back.)

But that really didn't prepare us for the first shot of Rod Black amidst Friday night's carnage in Hamilton, which was almost as disturbing as the last time he pulled out a shocker on us. Honestly, we don't want to live in a world in which Rod Black - who even has a decent porn star name, albeit not for a porn star who looks like him - does not sport his trademark 'stache.

We have a strong suspicion, notwithstanding the Burgundy angle, that (not the real) Greg Marshall warned both Suitor and Black that he was going to kick their asses - or at least give them the finger a lot - unless they shaved their vastly inferior mustaches. But we'll get to the bottom of this sooner or later... no matter how embarrassing the Google searches that get us there.