Here are 20 questions:

1. What has mysteriously sidelined Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks? He missed the entire 2020-21 season without explanation from the Hawks or the medical community.

2. Is this the year that a Canadian male matches the exploits of Bianca Andreescu and wins one of pro tennis’s Grand Slam titles? We’re looking at you Denis Shapovalov, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Milos Raonic.

3. Are the hard-hitting Blue Jays, led by slugger Vladimir Guerrero, Jr, just one or two starting pitchers away from being a World Series contender?

4. Is Aaron Rodgers’ future as a quarterback in Green Bay or as the host of Jeopardy?

5. Isn’t it great that when Aug. 5 arrives, the Canadian Football League will REALLY be playing games?

6. In light of Novak Djokovik’s dominance at the French Open, has he supplanted Roger Federer as pro tennis’s GOAT?

7. Can the Seattle Kraken possibly have anywhere close to the first-year success of Vegas Golden Knights?

8. Would a James Harden weightloss plan begin with shaving off four pounds of beard?

9. Can we end the goaltending argument right now and state emphatically that Carey Price is the best in the world?

10. If you haven’t tried playing pickleball, what’s stopping you?

11. The baseball world is already starting to ask: Who is the Most Valuable Player in the American League — Shohei Ohtani of the Angels or Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., of the Jays?

12. How terrific will it be if it’s true that WHL rinks will have no limits on crowd capacity this fall?

13. Th question isn’t ‘will Tiger Woods play professional golf again’, it’s ‘will he ever walk without a limp again?’

14. Did you hear about Prince Albert’s Kent Adams getting two holes-in-one in a five-hole stretch in a mid-June round of golf at a course near Edmonton?

15. Did you know that the odds of that happening are estimated to be in the range of 67 million to one?

16. Is the possibility of a Ohtani-Guerrero-Tatis, Jr.-Soto-Acuna-Stanton-Judge-Alonso Home Run Derby must-see TV or what?

17. How is it possible that San Francisco Giants are leading the National League West ahead of the pre-season acclaimed best team all time, the Los Angeles Dodgers?

18. Who gets the bulk of the blame for the incendiary (and childish) Brooks Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau brouhaha percolating on the PGA Tour?

19. Will NHL general managers take a second look at some 5-foot-7 junior superstars in the wake of Cole Caufield’s playoff splash with the Montreal Canadiens?

20. How many games, or years, will it take before NFL fans find out whether Trevor Lawrence is the second coming of Joe Montana or merely a long-haired Mark Sanchez clone?

*****

• RJ Currie of sportsdeke.com: “Reuters reported Robert Marchand, 104, was the oldest person to cycle around France’s national velodrome. He completed 15 laps in just under 30 minutes and six bathroom breaks.”

• Comedy writer Alex Kaseberg: “The Green Bay Packers started mini camp, but Aaron Rodgers did not show. As lovely as Wisconsin is, trying to decide between a training camp with huge guys trying to tackle you and a beach in Hawaii with Shailene Woodley is not a tough call.”

• Columnist Phil Mushnick of the N.Y. Post: “If only Aaron Boone were as tough on his players as he is on umps. Three times in less than a week the Yankees didn’t know how many outs there were. Counting to three is difficult.”

• Steve Simmons of Sun Media: “We live in a world devoid of logic: More than a million people ordered pay-per-view for Floyd Mayweather’s supposed fight with Internet personality Logan Paul. What exactly, by the way, makes you an Internet personality?”

• Former PGA Tour player Willy Wilcox, on Twitter: “People ask me why I don’t try to qualify for the U.S. Open. I say, ‘The problem is you have to play the U.S. Open if you get through and then what do you do then?”

• Pro golfer Richard Bland, active in the world of animal protection: “Two things I can’t stand is threeputting and animal cruelty.”

• Alex Kaseberg again, on the Koepka-DeChambeau feud: “Golf feuds aren’t like most sports feuds. Golf feuds start when someone doesn’t combine neither with nor.”

• From fark.com: “London police to Scottish soccer fans: ‘Please don’t travel to London as there’s nowhere for you to be COVID-safe and you’ll probably get arrested.’ Scottish soccer fans: ‘Y’hwah? for Glasgee bran divvun polisus.’”

• fark.com again: “Mexico is finally punished for homophobic chants by having to play their next two soccer games without fans. Pelting opposing players with debris still OK.”

• Steve Simmons again, quoting a friend of his: “If you have to decide who your starting goalie is, then you don’t have a starting goalie.”

Care to comment? Email brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca

-Bruce Penton