Welcome back after a short week of stats and a long All Star Break. Quick math quiz, which is higher the number of goals scored by Dany Heatley in the All Star Game or the number of nights this past stats week in which regular season NHL games were played? If you guessed Heatley goals (4) over nights of regular season hockey (3), you win! Johnny tell them what they've won… They've won 4 days and 3 nights of coaching behind the Rangers bench, a year's supply of Sandis Ozolinsh-a-roni, the Anaheim (not San Francisco) treat, and a new car! No wait, Dany Heatley won the new car for being named MVP of the all star game. And that's MVP as in Must Visit Periodontist! Have we seen a bigger gap between teeth among athletes? Michael Strahan you say? OK, perhaps… And a couple of teeth isn't all Dany's missing! What's up with only having one "N" in the first name and still pronouncing in "Danny"? Shouldn't it be "Dane-y" or something like that? Hey Mr. P-E-T-R "No Second E" Nedved, you're not alone anymore…

Whew, nothing like a good All Star Game stream of conscious to get the column started! Staying with the All Star Game, what's up with these same boring skills competitions every season? OK, we all know by now that Al MacInnis has the hardest shot, that no one can hold a candle to Ray Bourque's accuracy and that some European is always going to win the fastest skater contest! Enough of this already! I say we get a few new events in this skills competition! First off, I want to see goons get they're due. We'll start the night off pro wrestling style with a Big Poppa Pump Goon Pose Down. "And here's Georges Laraque with the double-bicep"… Then when that's done we go to the defensemen for the "sliding on the ice to block a shot" competition. Al MacInnis does get his due and he helps us with this one, slapping 100+ MPH shots at the net as defensemen attempt to block the shot with their bodies. "Last one with an intact kneecap wins!"… Then it's on to a team event involving the following skills: "Who can skate closest to the linesman without touching him", "Pick up the stray helmet with the stick and deposit it in the net relay race" and "Hurry Up Faceoff Circle Twister", right glove, red dot… And finally we finish the night's festivities with the always popular Goalie Water Bottle Adult Beverage Chugging Contest, sponsored by Molson!

OK, did I miss anything? Oh yes, quite a good entertaining game wasn't it? And hey Mr. Selig, were you watching? Commissioner Bettman found a way to make sure this All Star game didn't end in a tie! I don't particularly care for the shoot-out myself, wanna make that more interesting? Add land mines and a razor edged puck, but that's another paragraph for another column! Right now, we've got to talk about Groundhog Day! I hear that Glenn Sather emerged from his hole in the Rangers front office, stood up behind the bench and saw his shadow on the ice! And you all know what that means, don't you? Yes, I fear it's at least 6 more weeks of bad hockey in mid-town Manhattan… Now I was tempting to go a bit further here with some Punxsutawney Phil Housely puns, or even going so far as writing a column where the whole thing repeats itself over and over again a la Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day, but then I figured you'd all just ban together and kill me next draft for being so annoying so I scrapped the idea, replacing it with some All Star antics. Anyway, Happy Groundhog's Day…

Well coming of the short week there was not a lot of transaction action in our league. However, a three way trade and the first week I can recall where not a single free agent was picked up do give us something to chat about briefly. With six (6) players involved in a three-way deal and five (5) players coming off of their teams' reserve lists, not a single skater or goalie was plucked off the free agent list this week! And you know, that's probably not a bad thing, because had someone dipped into the free agent pool, that would mean, we've got a team in such bad shape they think Kip Miller or Ryan Miller could help them! I mean when you start picking up hockey players named Kip and Ryan (and even Dany with one N for that matter), things are pretty desperate. Now maybe if you were forced to spice the roster up with a Kip Winger or some goalie with a name like Jean-Sebastian Ryan perhaps I could turn the other cheek…

Now about that three-way trade between Trader Neil, Charlie Baker and The Commish, finalized in the Fair Lawn Lanes bowling alley around midnight on Tuesday. Hey we were shooting for the diner but we agreed on players earlier, what can I say? Anyway, Trader Neil, hoping the second times a charm, goes to the well once again, plucking an elite goalie Marty Turco from The Commish and Kevin, while also acquiring Cory Stillman. The Commish trades away his 2nd elite goalie and gets back a 2nd stud forward for Kevin to enjoy as Joe Thornton joins Billy Guerin as the return for Belfour and Turco. Charlie gets a plus/minus monster in the Devil's Jamie Langenbrunner and upgrades his goaltending, adding Tommy Salo for Martin Biron. All the details are on the transaction page and there's even a poll up on the league menu page to see who did the best. Make your voices heard, we're interested in the results…

And finally, congratulations to Fargain Hanson owner Brian Boghosian who not only broke back into 1st place this week, he also finished in 5th place at the very prestigious ABC Masters bowling tournament (considered a "major" pro tournament), and making a cool 10G's in the process. Hey Bri, I guess you don't need those fantasy football winnings yet, eh?… Well that's about all I've got for this week, got to send a few hundred Get Well cards and balloons to all my brother's injured L.A. Kings!… Hey Rob, that was Five Minutes For Fornicating right? Or maybe it's Five Minutes For Fellatio-ing? Oh well, I'll figure it out before the season's over… 'til next week…