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For more than 80 years, the Harlem Globetrotters have represented everything fun and carefree about basketball. From speedy ball-handling to their jaw-dropping trick shots, the Globetrotters’ approach to the sport manages to appeal to dedicated basketball fans, as well as those who could care less about the game.  And, they’ll be in town at 3 p.m. on Sunday at Sommet Center

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William Thomson’s family had played this sport for centuries, so he understood that he needed to choose between two strategies for the annual Christmas Day ba’ game.  The scrawny 17-year-old could fight for the ball in the center of the riotous scrum, where more than 300 men would function as a human juicer, turning his face red, then purple. He would be scratched, punched, kneed and bitten. His ribs might break. He could pass out unconscious.  Or, Thomson could follow convention for players his size and stay near the edge of the scrum, pushing the pile. This would work well unless the ball popped out and the mob changed direction. Cars, gravestones, houses, strollers, hotel lobbies — all had been kicked, shoved or trampled in pursuit of the ball during previous games.

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THERE’S a crisis looming. In a decade or perhaps two, the fine art of the after-dinner speaker will be lost.  And throw the breakfast speaker, the lunch speaker, the cocktail party speaker and the occasional MC gig on to the endangered list as well.  The problem isn’t all that visible right now. You can still savour your creme brulee, eggs benedict or cucumber sandwiches and still get a good old laugh as a former cricketer or other retired sportsperson shares tales from the vault.  The dressing room one-liners, the time Billy Bloggs chatted up the Christmas tree in a team hotel, what a former Aussie legend really thinks about his old coach.  At a pre-Test breakfast this week at the SCG, former Australian paceman Rodney Hogg rolled through his tightly scripted act so professionally and with such comedic timing Hoggy could well consider a career doing stand-up.