When I first heard the well regarded Spokane Chiefs GM Tim Speltz was going to work for the Toronto Maple Leafs, I thought for half a second that maybe he was being considered for that same job with Canada's premier sports franchise. Could that possibly be true?

What, I imagined, would rabid onlookers in Ontario make of that? Yes, the Leafs have not won the Stanley Cup since the NHL was a six-team league. But picking someone from Spokane, even if he is Toronto coach (and former Chiefs coach) Mike Babcock's guy? Wow.

Never mind his lack of NHL experience.

Then, of course, we saw that Speltz was going to be a regional director of scouting for the Leafs. That made sense.

But all this got me thinking about the Spokane/Canada thing. It made me wonder.

Does Spokane actually enjoy better name recognition up in the True North than down here in the U.S.?

My hunch is that it might. Largely because of hockey, which remains an afterthought (if that) for most Americans.

If you think there is universal recognition of Spokane as GU's home, I'd suggest you are mistaken. Not everybody gets HBO.

People pretty much everywhere in the U.S., at least those exposed to basketball talk, have heard of the Zags. Spokane? Well, let's just say the name-recognition is a tad lower.

Bing Crosby? Wasn't he the singer who played a lot of golf at Pebble Beach?

Expo '74?

What?

But I'll bet you would be hard pressed to find Canadians who don't know where Spokane is on the map. Again, because of hockey. And border proximity.

Feel free to disagree.

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