We open this week's column with a quick math quiz: Which of the following is longer in minutes? (A) The length of Phoenix goalie Brian Boucher's current shutout streak, (B) The amount of time it takes The Commish to write this column, or (C) The length of Britney Spears' marriage? OK, time's up, please put your pencils down. Although for those of you still fixated on thoughts of consummating that Britney Spears' wedding, you might have a little more trouble getting that #2 back on the desk! So enough of that. How about all those spectacular pictures coming back from Mars? I mean, I haven't seen that much wide open space since the Rangers tried to implement the neutral zone trap for the first time…

Have we gone off Orange Alert yet now that the holidays are past? Does anyone really know why we went to Orange in the first place? I'm not sure, but I hear that Canada's also got their own alert system and they're currently sitting at Orange, Yellow & Brown alert as all Canadian citizens live in fear of the Vancouver Canucks wearing their hideously ugly throwback jerseys containing just those colors… Well now that we've pretty much got all the recent current events covered (Mad Cow? Five minutes for fighting!), its time to start a game that even Pete Rose can bet on! Read on, I think you're gonna like this…

I'm sure you're all familiar with the hit CBS reality television show Survivor, right? Well here's what we're going to do for the next 12 weeks of the season. I'm going to create two "tribes" of NHL players and strand them in the Hartford Civic Center without food, water or fans. After all back when the place wasn't abandoned like it is now, the food sucked, the water was $4 a bottle and there were no fans there then either! So what better place to hold our inaugural NHL Survivor contest? These two tribes will be called the "Easters" and the "Westers" and will consist of 6 players from each conference. Mixed together and forced to "survive" will be forwards, defensemen, goalies and goons. Got it so far? OK, now here's where the fun begins so listen closely…

Each week, by using the weekly poll on the league home page, we're going to collectively vote off one member of either tribe. We'll alternate the poll each week so it's the "Easters" one week and the "Westers" the next. We'll continue this way for the next six weeks until we've got 6 players left, 3 from each tribe. At that point we'll combine the remaining players into one group, move them all into one of the spacious "luxury boxes" high up in the Hartford Civic Center (where they might find some leftover hot dogs and skunky beer), and continue to vote them out one at a time each week until only one player is left. That player will be crowned our NHL Survivor and receive absolutely nowhere near the usual one million dollar prize the Survivor winner usually takes home. We will however, write about him in this column so that's worth close to a mil, no?

Everyone's allowed to vote as many times as you can figure out how to each week (I'm not giving anything away, that's part of surviving). Although we only have 14 owners in the league, the weekly vote totals should exceed that number. We often have "stray" visitors to the site, whether they come to read the weekly News & Notes column or accidentally surf to COMMISH.COM while looking for some good Internet porn because owner Rob Hanratty's name popped up in a Google search, and they're allowed to vote also should they wish to. Also, to keep this contest legit, The Commish promises to vote only once, as only he holds the power to fix the voting results to his desire. "One ring to rule them all, one ring…" oh never mind…

Weekly voting ends when I sit down to do the stats on either Wednesday or Thursday night. We'll announce the "losers" in the News & Notes column each week and of course we'll write about life in the Hartford Civic Center for those who remain "on ice". If anyone hears some good "island gossip" be sure to send it over to me for publishing! Finally, should a tied vote occur, The Commish will break the tie by placing both players names in a hat and seeing which one his two kittens (Gypsy and Bella, by the way) pull out first. Sounds fair right?

So without further delay, the tribe's about to speak! The first poll is already up on the league home page, so vote for whom you'd like to kick out of the "Easters" first (yes we've got representatives from all the local teams in this tribe!). For now, I have the conch and will somebody please find Piggy's glasses so the fat kid stops his incessant whining…

For those of you who need a helping of Johnny La's latest ranting, please click here to read this week's La Rants column. 'til next week...