All right, let's start off this week's hockey column with some Rangers news, shall we? Actually it's a little "Ranger bashing", but not in the usual sense… Congratulations to head coach Bryan Trottier for his "very nice" line combination of Krzysztof Oliwa, Sandy McCarthy and Matthew Barnaby at the end of the Rangers/Blue Jackets game last Saturday night. With the Rangers trailing 6 - 3 in the closing minutes of the game, I don't think that Trottier was hoping for a "hat trick" from this offensively challenged line, do you?

Well sure enough, doing their best impression of the Hanson Brothers during the National Anthem, the MOB line (McCarthy/Oliwa/Barnaby), and thank you Foil Up Walt for the moniker, proceeded to "go Ralphie" all over the Blue Jackets. As the horn sounded to end the game, Oliwa attacked Grant Marshall, McCarthy kicked the stuffing out of Tyler Wright and Barnaby laid out some guy named Derrick "and the Dominoes" Walser (or would that be "Layla'ed out?"). Prior to that, just before the game ended Jody "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" Shelley, did his best Olivia Newton-John impression, "getting physical", and kicking some Vladimir Malakhov cocktail. Even earlier, at the start of the 3rd period Matthew Barnaby and Mikael "Don't Call Me Ulf" Samuelsson beat the Grand-Piss out of Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre!

Not too shabby! All we needed was a few rowdy fans, some beer thrown on the ice and Jerry "The King" Lawler and Jim Ross at rinkside! "What's this?" "Oh my god, that's Krzysztof Oliwa's music!"… Thirteen penalties were called after the final horn, including game misconducts against McCarthy and Oliwa. The penalties against both teams totaled 86 minutes. "We were just trying to keep things calm,'' Trottier said after the game. "It's unfortunate -- those things at the end of the game take the focus away from hockey.'' Very nice comments there Bryan, very nice indeed! My apologies to ESPN.COM's Page 2 Boston Sports Guy for stealing his "Jim Ross/WWE riff" but since his announcement that he's going to be writing a lot less these days, someone's got to pick up the slack…

Moving away from fighting and over to the NHL standings I see that our "entryway into an alternate reality" has moved up to New England as the Bruins stand atop the Northeast at 10 - 2 - 2 - 1 (and you can get all your calls for under a buck, just dial 10 - 2 - 2 - 1!). Led by Joe Thornton, the offensive defensiveness of Bryan "Left Eye" Berard (Walt's on a nickname roll this week, let me just tell ya!) and the goaltending tandem of Shields and Yarnell, uh, better make Shields and Grahame (and Thomas), the B's are the early season toast of Beantown. Byron who? Oh yeah, isn't he that guy who's about to sign with the Thrashers? "Da fe, Da fi, Dafoe, Da fum. Playing goalie for the Thrashers is quite dumb!"…

Leaving Boston and moving less than an hour south and west in Massachusetts we get to Feeding Hills, home of the defending Slap Shot League champion Fargain Hansons, who move into first place this week after Sticking It Up The Ice of The Commish and Kevin. But the biggest mover in the league this week is In Satan We Trust, who move form the cellar into 9th place on the heels of a +8 increase, a result of finally getting a little love between the pipes. Or would I be safer saying, they've got some better goaltending numbers?

Meanwhile, moving back north, things are looking a little brighter in Buffalo. Despite the lackluster record, Gary Bettman is close to finding a buyer for the Sabres franchise, currently being run by the league a la the Montreal Expos in major league baseball. The two ownerships groups interested in purchasing the club are led by Rochester billionaire Thomas Golisano and Mark Hamister, owner of the Arena Football League's Buffalo Destroyers. Now I'm not saying either of these two guys would make bad owners but if I'm a Sabres fan (and I'm not, nor do I play one on TV) I've got to ask a few questions here. First off, if Golisano can't beat Pataki, how's he going to beat the Canadiens? And secondly, if this Arena Football League owner gets the club are we going to have to see Rob Ray skating around with a Hamster logo on his sweater? "And the "C" stands for "cheese"! If you ask me, the whole thing's a bunch of bull-Zhitnik…

In case you were wondering what's happened to a certain Red Wings defensemen I give you this, direct from ESPN.COM. "Veteran defenseman Jiri Slegr, who won a Stanley Cup last season with the Detroit Red Wings, on Monday signed a one-year contract with Avangard Omsk of the Russian Extraleague. The son of former NHL defenseman Jiri Bubla, Slegr will be reunited with Ivan Hlinka, who coached him on the Czech National team and with the Pittsburgh Penguins." Again, I've got questions… Avangard Omsk? Sounds more like a trendy men's cologne than a hockey team, doesn't it? Can't you see Anna Kournikova endorsing this? "I won't go out with just any right winger or latin singer. All my men wear Avangard Omsk (by Mennen!)". So what's this Russian "Extraleague"? Did they have a few teams left over so they decided to create another league? Kind of like all the kids who don't get picked for dodge ball in gym getting together for a little side game of handball? And I didn't know that Slegr's father was Jiri Bubla! I've got to go watch "Attack of the Clones" again (available on DVD as of last Tuesday)! And to think, all this time I was thinking Slegr's dad was Boba Fett…

Oh where does the time go? It's 9:30 PM on Thursday night and thanks to the mighty "hurry up face-off" rule, all the early NHL games are already over and I'm left watching the Penguins and the Wild on DirectTV's Center Ice package. "Hey wait a minute! What's this? Oh my god, that's Dick Tarnstrom's music!" And it says here in The Guide that the Rangers and Flames skate at 10PM in Calgary. Great! Chances are good if I watch that game in it's entirety I'll see at least one of three things. 1) A naked guy fall to the ice wearing just red socks, 2) a post game bench clearing brawl, and/or 3) Martin Gelinas on the power play. Must see TV! Gotta run and grab me a Molson Ice and some pretzels before the action begins. 'til next week…