Amar'e Stoudemire will be doing something a little bit different this summer. (Getty Images)Whether the New York Knicks hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy at the end of the 2012-2013 NBA season or they’re ousted in the first round of the playoffs, come summer time Amar’e Stoudemire will be busy in the gym.

Not because he's dedicating himself to a new training regimen or working on his interior defence though; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Come mid-July, Stoudemire will be patrolling the sidelines in Israel as an assistant coach of Team Canada at the 2013 Maccabiah Games, better known as the Jewish Olympics.

It’s not the first time we’ve heard Stoudemire’s name and Israel mentioned in the same sentence.

In the summer of 2010, shortly after signing a five-year $100 million deal with the New York Knicks, several news outlets reported that Stoudemire took a trip to the country to explore what he believed were his ‘Jewish roots. Some critics believed he was only doing so as some kind of 'publicity stunt' to help the Knicks sell tickets seeing that there's a large Jewish community

Sarah Vaillancourt (left) gets support from Tessa Bonhomme following Canada's loss at the women's world hockey championship (Chris Roussakis for Yahoo! Canada Sports)

There is more to this than a payback angle, more to it than a Kessel scoring the game-winner in the Ottawa Senators' rink to dash the hopes of the Maple Leaf.

That sweet spot in time — the friendly bounce for Team USA by hobbled Hayley Wickenheiser at centre ice that sent Amanda Kessel off to the races to beat Shannon Szabados for the gold medal-winning goal early in the final frame — sums up the state of affairs for both Team USA and Team Canada at the IIHF women’s world hockey championship. One year out from the 2014 Sochi Olympics where Canada will be far, far away from the home-crowd advantage it had for the past week at Scotiabank Place, the Americans won the worlds on Canadian ice for the first time. Talk about a springboard into Sochi for the younger Yanks and a crossroads for Team Canada. Youth beat experience, just like some forecast from the dawn of the tournament.

“It’s great for us, because we played against a crowd that was quite hostile in a good way,” Team USA captain Julie Chu, the only 30-something wearing stars and stripes, said. “Just being able to feel that pressure, because every time Canada touched the puck, even if they were in their D zone coming out, you could hear it and you would think, ‘are they going to score a goal at this moment?’ Having our players have that opportunity to feel that pressure and take a deep breath and make the smart play, it’s really valuable for us.”

Toronto FC, for now, isn't collapsing late in games.

You can’t blame Toronto FC fans for cringing when it's crunch time late in a game.

TFC's followers painfully remember last season will remember that disastrous run of games last season in which they conceded late goals with astonishing regularity. But new head coach Ryan Nelsen seems determined to stop the trend from repeating itself this year.

The former Blackburn and Tottenham player joined TFC as head coach while still under contract with his last club, Queens Park Rangers, in January. As a centre-back, it was thought that Nelsen would help TFC shore up their back line, and hopefully make a meaningful push towards the MLS playoffs.

Granted, Toronto have faced a demanding opening to the MLS schedule, playing defending champions LA Galaxy as well as high-flying Montreal and, most recently, FC Dallas, leaders in the West. They have only won one of those four games, but Nelsen is not panicking.

Speaking after the Galaxy game, Nelsen pointed out that early results will not shape the

Mike Weir meets his adoring fans at Toronto's Eaton Centre the day after winning The Masters. (CP)

It's a funny thing, maybe even a suitably Canadian thing, that the most vivid memory I have of Mike Weir's 2003 win at The Masters is that of a hockey game.

His par saving putt on the 72nd hole is remembered with clarity, yes. His short tap-in on the first playoff hole to best Len Mattiace is easy to recall as well, as is the moment immediately after, when Weir raised his arms in the air in triumph and celebrated in short-lived solitude.

Back home, a nation of sports fans would puff out its collective chest. A Canadian had just accomplished something no other ever had and for that, millions of sports fans north of the 49th parallel felt an immense amount of pride. If you couldn't get the full sense of it on that day, you would on the next.

Which brings me to that hockey game.

When the last decade closed, I was asked to compile a list of the most stirring live events I'd attended in the previous ten years. At the top of the list, Mike Weir's Masters championship. No, I wasn't at

World champion Niklas Edin (L) and silver medallist Brad Jacobs have bright futures. The present ain't half bad either. (CP)

As the last few rocks of another curling season nestle in around the four-foot, it's time to look back at the most interesting stories of this past season.

The jaw-dropping announcement of big changes to both The Scotties and The Brier came out of the blue in the off season and those changes add up to the biggest story of last year for curling fans.

Between that announcement last June and whatever surprises may lie ahead this off season, there's been a little curling going on, with some notable happenings.

Here now are my ten most compelling stories of the season. Of course, I may have left out one or two that you deem worthy of being decreed list-building material. That's what the "comments" section is for. Feel free.

10. Skins Game Finishes Run At Rama

So where to, now? After a very successful six years at the entertainment centre of the central Ontario casino, TSN announced it was taking the show elsewhere. While this year's event was winding down in January, there was speculation

Milos Raonic defeated Italian Andreas Seppi in four sets Sunday. (Getty Images)Milos Raonic was the hero once again. In front of a home crowd in Vancouver, the 22-year-old defeated Italian Andreas Seppi (6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5) to give the Canadians their first ever semi final berth at the Davis Cup.

By defeating the world no. 17 Seppi, Raonic capped off Canada’s 3-1 victory over Italy in their Davis Cup quarterfinal tie and set up a semifinal matchup with Serbia, led by world no.1 Novak Djokovic, in September.

“It’s amazing,” Raonic told Sportsnet’s Arash Madani, moments after defeating Seppi. This atmosphere, the people you share this with [and] the fact that we’re able to do this two times in Canada.”

And Raonic did it with more than just his serve. The no. 16 ranked player has often been criticized as being one-dimensional, but he proved over the course of the weekend that he’s much improved in other areas of his game including his net play and he was able to break Seppi twice in each of the first two sets and finished the match off in the fifth set with a break

John Farrell returns with the Boston Red Sox to face the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday. (Getty Images)They say living well is the best revenge. We’ll find out Friday night if that’s enough for fans of the Toronto Blue Jays when former manager John Farrell returns to the Rogers Centre.

If “living well” means having a new-look roster and being expected to makes the playoffs for the first time in 20 years, Toronto fans should be happy. But that’s almost certainly not the case. The Blue Jays’ former manager-turned-villain will surely be greeted with a chorus of boos when he takes the field with the Boston Red Sox.

Farrell went 154-170 in his two seasons as the skipper in Toronto before bolting for his “dream job” in Boston last October. Farrell was traded to the Red Sox for infielder Mike Aviles, who was later shipped to the Cleveland Indians.

Randy Ferbey releases a rock at the 2005 Brier, wearing his now missing jacket. (CP)

It has eight purple hearts on it and has great sentimental value.

Randy Ferbey got those hearts on his jacket - that's now been stolen - the hard way. Eight trips to The Brier got him those hearts. Hearts that curlers wear, literally, as badges of honour.

Understandably, Ferbey would like that jacket back.

"There really is no value to the person that took the jacket, but it is one-of-a-kind, there's nothing like it in all of sports, quite frankly," Ferbey told Edmonton radio station iNEWS 880.

The RCMP is willing to part with up to $2,000.00 to help retrieve it.

According to a story in the Edmonton Sun, Ferbey's prized jacket was taken from a car in Sherwood Park, Alberta, back on March 11th or 12th.

From a Strathcona County RCMP media release:

Sometime during the evening hours of Monday, March 11, 2013 and the morning hours of Tuesday, March 12, 2013 a valuable clothing item was stolen from a vehicle which had been parked in the Clarkdale Meadows neighborhood of Sherwood Park. The