(Photo Credit: NHL)

Or you can watch paint dry

We are in the miserable lull in the calendar before college football and the NFL return, and we’re kind of in a golf/NASCAR rut as well. We’ll try to light up your life (and the 65-inch beast hanging on the living room wall) as best we can.

Let’s go with the boring stuff first, as it induces sleep and we can all use some rest.

The NHL draft begins on Friday night at 8 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network. Name a prospect, win a prize. Stay awake until the end, win another prize!

If you are really eager to watch football, you can catch the Canadian Football League’s British Columbia Lions at Edmonton Eskimos on Friday night at 9 p.m. on ESPN2. The Lions are 0-1, the Esks 1-0.

You could also throw yourself whole-heartedly into The Travelers Championship, which began Thursday and features many of the PGA Tour’s top stars – Brooks Koepka, the runner-up at the U.S. Open among them. Bubba Watson and Justin Thomas are also in the field. CBS picks up the action on Saturday at 3 p.m. and again at 3 p.m. until conclusion on Sunday.

NASCAR returns from its midseason hiatus with the Toyota/Save Mart 300 from Sonoma. FS1 shows the race on Sunday at 3 p.m. Joey Logano ranks first in the points standings with 614 (two wins, eight Top 5 finishes), a wee bit ahead of Kyle Busch at 605 (four wins, nine Top 5 finishes).

Closeout this extended “heiner in the recliner” period on Sunday night with baseball, as we get back to our paint-drying motif. The Los Angeles Angels (hey, a chance to see Mike Trout and his .299 average) play the St. Louis Cardinals at 7:05 p.m. on ESPN.

There. We have seen you through another weekend. Go and sin no more.

 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman