Incites | Sun Belt teams too hot to handle

Anaheim, a city where ice appears only in cocktail glasses, has won the Stanley Cup. The home of Disneyland succeeded Raleigh, N.C., the home of big tobacco, as the winner of the championship of North American ice hockey.

The winner the season before that was a lockout. The year before that, the Cup was skated around a rink in Tampa, Fla., where ice is used mainly to chill the carcasses of trophy fish.

Exactly when the Sun Belt became a hockey hotbed escapes most viewers, but Dallas' win in 1999 obviously spawned a trend.

San Antonio is about to win its third NBA title in five seasons, and Miami won last year's. Florida has won the previous two NCAA basketball titles, and North Carolina won the one before that.

Florida won last season's BCS football championship. Texas, Southern Cal and Louisiana State won the three before that. Except for Ohio State's title in 2002, all nine of the BCS titles have been won by teams no farther north than Tennessee.

Thank heaven for pro football, and Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and New England.

Trivia time. Arnold Palmer won his only U.S. Open in 1960, at Cherry Hills in Denver. Who finished second?

Summer pigskin. The Dallas Morning News ran its off-season NFL rankings the other day. The News put four AFC teams - New England, San Diego, Indianapolis and Baltimore - in the top four spots.

The first NFC team was New Orleans, ranked fifth.

Then came another AFC team, Denver, before your Eagles took seventh place.

Chicago, the defending NFC champion, was eighth.

NFL rankings in the first week of June. We live in remarkable times.

Trade bait. Bobby Abreu hit his third homer of the season Wednesday. He was batting .256 after Friday's play. His team was 28-31.

Raise your hand if you still think the Phillies let him go for nothing.

Just a thought. I like London's much-maligned 2012 Olympic logo. A fractured jigsaw puzzle that supposely represents the four numerals, the version in brown and orange resembles a pack of M&Ms smashed with a hammer.

Connubial bliss. Long John Daly shocked reporters Friday morning at the St. Jude Open in Memphis when he showed up with red marks on his cheeks and issued a statement that his wife, Sherri, had tried to stab him with a steak knife.

Daly, who has been married four times, titled his autobiography My Life In & Out of the Rough. In addition to chapters on his gambling and drinking, there's a chapter devoted to his three former wives titled, "All My Exes Wear Rolexes."

There's only one possible spouse left for old John: Paris Hilton.

Finally. Soccer America reports the latest stunt by a fan who probably is not a CPA in his spare time.

A burglar without the foresight to bring a flashlight broke into the stadium clubhouse of the German amateur club Germania Freund at 3 o'clock one recent morning. In total darkness, he flipped the first light switch he could find, which turned on the stadium floodlights.

Local residents, realizing a game at that hour was unlikely, called police.

Trivia answer. The reigning U.S. Amateur champion, Jack Nicklaus.