LIVE AT THE HOSERDOME (A WEEKLY NHL POST)

by Neate Sager, Out Of Left Field

This is a first effort, but if all goes well, come playoff time you'll understand a little more about Canadian culture and be peppering your conversation with hockey terms.

You will say that you didn't get "the bounces" when a relationship fails, that your underlings at work didn't play with "enough jam" when their slackassery makes you look bad, and you'll describe your social life as a "gong show."

Anyway, a top 5 of semi-halfway engrossing hockey items:

1. Sidney Crosby plays his first NHL games in Western Canada this week when his Pittsburgh Penguins visit Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, which is going to be covered by the Canadian media like a papal visit to a Catholic country. So what if it's Crosby's third year in the league and that anyone with basic cable has seen him play on TV dozens of times by now?

The saturation coverage is not a bad thing. The Canadian unemployment rate is at its lowest level in decades, thanks in part to each sports network and all-sports radio station employing about 45 ex-NHLers apiece as hockey analysts.

Crosby seems all right (yes, he's a world-class crybaby on the ice, but so was Gretzky), but he's about as easy to like as A-Rod. For one, he needs a better nickname than Sid the Kid. How can such a once-in-a-generation talent be stuck with a such an uninspired handle, other than obvious answers that functionally illiterate TV hacks get to frame the debate these days? Back in the day, he would been called something like the Cole Harbour Corvair.

2. Am I the only one who needs a half-second to clue in that the WWW patch on the Chicago Blackhawks are wearing on their sweaters is to honour their late cheapskate owner William W. (Dollar Bill) Wirtz? Knowing how the Hawks are older than old school -- they had to wait for Wirtz to croak before they could start broadcasting home games -- it wouldn't have come as a surprise if the WWW was to advertise that they had finally got an official website.

3. The Columbus Blue Jackets, who've never made the playoffs, are sitting sixth in the Western Conference. So it's not too early to start figuring out how they rank on the Hoser's Guide to Hockey Hatred.

The Jackets might only rate a two out of 10, at best. What's not to like? They'll never be more than Columbus' second-most popular pro team, after Ohio State football, so that's endearing.

The Team USA-style sweater is kickass, since it pays homage to America's rich hockey history. Then there's Rick Nash, their star right wing, who always gives the impression he would have been perfect for the hockey of the 1980s, when he could have trained on McDonald's and Molson and still scored 65 goals a year, since no one knew anything about nutrition or team defence back then and every team had three or four defencemen who couldn't skate by today's standards.

(Obviously, that part about the defencemen doesn't apply if you're a Leafs fan.)

4. The Toronto Maple Leafs have somehow won two games in a row, which means they're going to win the Stanley Cup. Seriously, this is the mindset among Leaf Nation and yet I still follow the Leafs.

5. In these uncertain times, it's always reassuring to know that off-ice, the Ottawa Senators are strictly Amateur Hour. Get this: A group consisting of the players' significant others donated proceeds from a charity raffle to an anti-abortion group that is not actually a registered charity. So much for leaving politics out of sports.

A Senators staffer admitted he'd visited the group's website, but never bothered to check any of the links, including "ones linking corporations that make birth control drugs to the Jewish Holocaust and one drug itself to Nazi death camps." Leaving aside an obviously touchy issue, it might have been a good idea to make sure that when you say you're doing something for charity, make sure it's actually a charity.