PLAYOFF BEARD: BENCH PLAYERS DO SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON A BIKE

by Neate Sager, Out Of Left Field

It's been a good week for whipping up storylines are only tangentially related to actual games on the ice. Feel free to consider that compensation for the reality that the Detroit Red Wings winning the Stanley Cup seems all but a fait accompli and that's it taking way too long to reach the conclusion.

Let's see. In the space of a couple days, there have been numerous Neufbert sightings, a not-so-scandalous revelation that a Philadelphia Flyers player counts a Hells Angel among his friends and Canada (population of 33 million) almost hit a new Oslo in international hockey when it barely beat Norway (population 4.75 million) at the World Championship. Good times.

Oh, and not that anyone outside Southern Ontario really cares as much as the Canadian media would have you believe, but the Toronto Maple Leafs fired their coach. Let's not waste our creativy unearthing that old joke about how the Leafs have a new coach from Korea by the name of Win One Soon. It all seems designed to keep people paying attention to hockey long after the last snow melted.

It's hard to believe that a class organization such as the Hells Angels would associate with a member of the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Winnipeg Sun reported today that Philly enforcer Riley Cote has a known member of the biker, uh, association as one of his top friends on his MySpace page and displays a logo supporting the Angels. That kind of flies in the face of all that folderol about how athletes are supposed to be role models, and such.

This might have come to light a lot sooner if anyone worth knowing actually still used MySpace, but that's neither here nor there.

The gadawful techno music on Cote's page notwithstanding, it's worth a visit just to see that the Philly knuckle-draggers have more or less proven that PhotoShop is the 21st-century answer to crayons.



Oh, I get it.Sidney Crosby is a woman, thus he's a lower form of human being. That's so witty. Stop, Flyers fans. Our sides are splitting.

Away, without Leafs: There's not much that hasn't been said about the Toronto Maple Leafs (the team I follow, because of, geographical convenience, mainly) canning coach Paul Maurice on Wednesday.

Maurice will be missed just for the way he talked to reporters. When he was contacted on Wednesday morning, the day he was fired, Maurice said he was picking up his kids from school because he wanted them to hear the news from him and "not from the TV." Anyone who still refers to it as "the TV," tells the assembled media, "calm down, it’s just the pre-season, have a cup of tea and relax" and describes the Ottawa Senators' gladitorial prowess as a "little bit of purse-swinging," should be kept around. Post-game press conferences will be a lot less fun next season.

Neufbert: The photos of Calgary's Cro-Magnon heartthrob, Flames defenceman Dion Phaneuf and actress Elisha Cuthbert hanging out in Hawai'i remove all doubt as to why he passed on playing for Canada at the World Hockey Championship.

Please don't be immature and joke that that this makes TSN/NBC hockey analyst Pierre McGuire jealous -- of Cuthbert, not Phaneuf. (McGuire's somewhat Dick Vitale-esque shtick tends to involve a lot of Phaneufellating.)

Far be it to suggest that Hawai'i is nicer at this time of year than Halifax, Nova Scotia, which offers plenty of charms, all of them involving bar bands covering Barrett's Privateers.

Attaway, Norway: For the record, my epiphany that rooting against one's own country in international sports was fun pre-dates Will Leitch wrote an essay entitled "Why It's American To Root Against the U.S.A." in his book, God Save The Fan.

It first hit home in 1998, when the Canadian juniors lost to Kazakhstan. It happened again in February 2002, during the Olympic women's hockey tournament, when Finland actually managed to take a lead over Canada in the second period of the semi-final (Canada scored like five goals in the third period and beat Team USA for the gold medal a couple days later). This country is the bully of world in hockey. It's the largest country where hockey is the No. 1 sport, so it should dominate.

That meant pulling for Norway, which was outshot 52-17 before losing 2-1 to Canada yesterday, to somehow pull off a victory. Sorry, but they just seemed pretty jazzed up about the prospect of puncturing the myth of Canadian invincibility. When Mads Hansen scored an unlikely goal -- short-handed, on a breakaway after Duncan Keith lost the puck without being pressured -- it seemed like destiny. It wasn't, but still, it was fun to see our millionaire pros have to sweat it out. Norway played like it was a defining moment; the Canadians were worried about getting razzed by their buddies when they go to the cottage this summer.

Right, still four more weeks of hockey: The Red Wings skated around the Dallas Stars like they were just props in Disney On Ice in Game 1 of the West final last night. Detroit might drop a game in this series, but it will just be one.

A Detroit Stanley Cup would be something to rub in the faces of all the Canucks who cling to the myth that European players are fragile like it was the winning ticket in tonight's Super 7 draw. Every year, when the Ottawa Senators or Toronto Maple Leafs, captained by Swedes Daniel Alfredsson and Mats Sundin for the past several years, lose out, you always have to listen to some Don Cherry wannabe go on about how, "a team with a European captain is never going to win the Stanley Cup."

Detroit is going to do it, and Nik Lidstrom will get the Cup, and that should shut the Philistines up, although it probably won't.

In the East, the Flyers probably can't beat the Pittsburgh Penguins with Kimmo Timonen, one of their best defenders, out of the lineup. The Penguins might spit the bit a couple times in this series, but should win in six games -- bear in mind that's a prediction with no research whatsoever. Sidney Crosby will be in the Cup final, not that it will help U.S. TV ratings one bit.

Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.