oddly enough

oddly enough

Pa. prep hockey league to restore pregame anthem

PITTSBURGH

The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League again will allow the national anthem to be played before all high-school hockey games in central and western Pennsylvania.

KDKA-TV reports PIHL commissioner Ed Sam got about 4,000 emails — including many from other states — when the plan to ban the anthem was reported by the station.

Sam says the move never was meant to be disrespectful.

He says high-school teams often play back-to-back games on rented ice, and some anthem performers stretched out the song and created scheduling delays that prompted some games to be curfewed — that is, ended before time ran out.

That’s why the league decided to do away with the song before all games.

To remedy that, the league is distributing a one-minute-15-second instrumental version of the anthem to be played before all games.

Swimmer’s belly-button ring gets caught on drain

GREELEY, Colo.

Firefighters in Colorado say a woman’s belly-button ring became entangled with a drain cover in a shallow splash pool but that she was freed without injury.

Authorities say the woman became stuck Wednesday as she floated on her stomach with her child in a shallow pool at the Greeley Family Funplex.

Firefighters tried to turn the ring to free her but then started to drain the pool while working to manipulate the ring.

They said Thursday that she was freed eventually and she wasn’t hurt in the process.

Ecuador officials reject donkey as candidate

QUITO, Ecuador

The demand of dozens of citizens has been denied in the Ecuadorean city of Guayaquil: There will be no jackass running for the legislature.

At least 40 people paraded their candidate through the city’s streets to the electoral council offices.

Mr. Burro even wore a tie.

But officials refused even to let them in the door Thursday, even though backers had dummied up a mock voter- registration card showing the candidate’s photo superimposed on a man wearing a business suit.

Donkey backer Daniel Molina told local television stations the goal was to call voters’ attention to the seriousness of the February election, not to insult any party.

Associated Press