I don't really follow hockey all that much. I enjoy watching it but I cannot for the life of me figure it all out. I understand that each team is attempting to knock the puck into the other guy's net without taking too much time out from wailing the tar out of him. Beyond that I'm at sea.

Like foreigners watching American football for the first time I suppose, I have trouble distinguishing between legal and illegal forms of mayhem. I understand the concept of the penalty box but I don't know what gets people there. There is something called "high sticking" which sound pretty ugly but some of the stuff they let go seems worse than that.

Seems to me when you make a guy explode against glass to where his mittens fly off while you ram your elbow into his spinal column that an infringement of some sort ought to have taken place but they don't seem to think much of it when it happens.

They also have a penalty called "icing" which I won't start lying about by saying I know what it is. Once again though it seems like "glassing" ought to be in there someplace but what do I know?

I guess I was glad the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup. I lived and worked in Colorado for a few years so guess I can claim some vague kinship to the team.

I watched the final game between the Avalanche and the New Jersey Devils. I hadn't watched any of the others.

They had this fella on the Avalanche name of Ray Bourque. According to the announcers we were reminded at each opportunity that this guy hadn't won the Stanley Cup yet and had been trying for 22 years. They seemed to feel this afforded him deserving status and started rooting for him on that basis. I do not mean this as a personal insult to Mr. Bourque. I found out years ago that it is unwise to make guys angry who carry a stick as a matter of course.

In fact, I'll be the first to point to anyone with pride who wins anything as coveted as the Stanley Cup, including Mr. Bourque. But to suggest that he deserves it more than most simply because he hasn't won it yet seems a little silly to me. I've been deprived of my Pulitzer now for decades but I don't find any op/ed pieces on the news that suggests my current reign of failure makes me any more deserving than the next guy.

Then they got this other guy name of Roy, but be careful if you call him that because he is subject to get testy. His name is spelled R-O-Y but is, of course, pronounced as if you'd spelled it W-A-H. Lord knows I dont need two guys with sticks angry with me but this one eludes me as much as icing. You'd think, even allowing for regional pronunciation differences, that at least one letter in Roy's name would be spelled like at least one of the sounds it makes, but no.

Kind of makes me wonder what they call guys whose names are spelled W-A-H.

But that's the French for you. I suppose we should not hold it against them that their concept of the alphabet is different from our own. After all, minds that could conceive of The Maginot Line as a surefire defense against Panzer tanks are definitely operating outside the zone.

Well there. Now I've insulted the Canadians, the French, all hockey fans and guys name Roy everywhere. Keep reading. I will try to get around to everybody in the coming weeks.