Irish guys stand in for Damon

Not “Invictus,” as in the 1875 poem written by the Englishman William Ernest Henley. “Invictus,” as in my nickname for Matt Damon, the actor who portrayed South African World Cup rugby captain Francois Pienaar in the recent movie “Invictus.”

Supposedly, Damon and pal Ben Affleck would be making an appearance at Sam Boyd Stadium. It wouldn’t be the first time Damon had poked his head into an international Las Vegas sporting event. A couple of years ago, he ran the half-marathon in the footrace that has morphed into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon and also has played poker at the World Series at Binion’s.

I found English fish and chips, New Zealand mincemeat pie, Kenyan chai and coffee, American Samoans working over the ScrumMaster blocking sled, a bunch of mates wearing Crocodile Dundee hats (but thankfully not sporting giant knives) who wished me a g’day and six guys wearing Ireland T-shirts and green wigs going nuts near the tent where they were hoisting a Jameson’s Irish Whiskey banner into place.

This seemed odd — not that six Irishmen were cheering for an Irish whiskey banner going up, but that six Irishmen were on hand for the tournament, given that, as far as I could tell, Ireland wasn’t among the 16 nations represented.

But I did not find Invictus.

Finally, I wandered over to the GTOX Hangover Blocker booth, figuring that might be the first place Damon and Affleck would frequent before hitting the local nightclub circuit.

“Haven’t seen him yet,” said Darren Zapp, the GTOX marketing guy. “But I’ve seen a lot of Matt Damon look-alikes.”

Just then a wild-eyed Scotsman sidled up and said I might check the Jameson Whiskey tent.

THREE UP

• WHIPPLE SQUEEZES REBELS’ CHARMIN: UNLV fans sitting on couches upset they didn’t get to watch the first half of Wednesday’s battle for first place against New Mexico because the CBS College Sports Network stayed with a four-overtime women’s game between Texas Christian and Utah should blame Kalee Whipple of Hiko. (And, of course, the Mountain West Conference presidents for agreeing to this goofy TV deal in the first place.) The former Pahranagat Valley star scored 45 points and hit a miraculous 3-point shot at the end of the third overtime during one of the best performances in a women’s basketball game since Juwanna Mann joined the WUBA’s Charlotte Banshees. Whipple’s performance recalled the old “Outer Limits” TV show: “She will control the horizontal. She will control the vertical. She will control if and when Rebels fans get to watch one of the biggest games of the year in the Mountain West ….”

• MR. ED SPEAKS: A U.S. District Court judge has denied the NCAA’s request to dismiss a class-action lawsuit initiated by former UCLA star and longtime Southern Nevadan Ed O’Bannon and others for profiting off their images in a video game. But my guess is that before the NCAA gives the players a piece of the pie, the UCLA lineup in those games will consist of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Mario, Master Chief from Halo 3 and a black-and-white blip from the original “Pong.”

• TABLE FOR FOUR? If there is a silver lining in the Rebels’ 68-58 defeat Saturday at San Diego State, it’s that the Aztecs might have become the fourth Mountain West team to play themselves into NCAA Tournament consideration. If you’re a DirecTV subscriber and did not see the game because of the Mountain West’s goofy TV deal, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

THREE DOWN

• PRE-EMPTED AWEIGH: Note to Mountain West presidents: If you agree to farm out your basketball schedule to the Navy Football Network, there’s always a chance the entire first half of one of the games of the year will be pre-empted by a replay of Navy-Delaware or a retrospective on 1960 Heisman Trophy winner Joe Bellino. Or a four-overtime women’s basketball game attended by a few dozen spectators in which one of the sides wore pink uniforms that made its jersey numbers impossible to distinguish.

• VANOVER TURNOVER: A technical difficulty prevented one of the giant Olympic torches from being lit during the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Games in Vancouver. It might have been the biggest gaffe at BC Place since Tamarick Vanover of the Las Vegas Posse called for a fair catch during the Posse’s Canadian Football League debut in 1994 and trotted off the field quite proud of himself — even though fair catches are not allowed in Canadian-style football, and even though the BC Lions fell on the live ball in the end zone for what quite possibly was the easiest touchdown in franchise history.

• IN HONOR OF FAST WOMEN: Las Vegas Motor Speedway has announced a contest in which it will pay itself $10,010 if it can refrain from further use of Danica Patrick’s image to promote its Sprint Cup race in which she won’t compete.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.