Now I was all set to report a blockbuster 10 player, 5 for 5, 4 goaltender deal this past week between Walt and Brian but it seems someone got cold feet at the last minute (hey bro, I've got a nice pair of wool socks for ya!) and backed out of the deal. However, what I do have to report is a more normal 3-for-3 with only one goalie involved on each side. Vokoun, Demitra and Havlat leave the Foil and Lalime and a pair of Hurricanes, Francis and O'Neill get out from Between Periods. Not too shabby but I would've loved to see the 5-for-5 which also included Nabokov and Cloutier along with a couple of defensemen! Oh well, there's always next week…

Looking back on last week's big trade, the 3-way between Neil, Charlie and The Commish it's looking like possibly another raw deal for Neil as goalie Marty Turco injured his ankle in Tuesday night's Stars game! First Eddie Belfour and his bad back, now Marty Turco's ankle, all within a week of being traded? How does The Commish know these things are going to happen? Hey Kevin, let's not tell them about the Ouija board, OK? Speaking of, does anyone want to make me an offer for Marty Brodeur? Kevin says he's due for a slipped disc right about now. Neil perhaps? I know, "go five minutes for f*** myself"…

The trading wasn't just limited to our league either this past week as two major deals go down on the NHL front. Looks like the New York Rangers have gotten back an old friend as Alexei Kovalev returns to New York in an 8 player deal, which I hear was actually a 10 player deal also but Brian Legere showed up at The Garden in his nice new warm wool socks and convinced Glenn Sather to back down at the last minute and not include that extra forward… So now that Kovalev's back in town, are the Rangers getting the under achieving 20 goal scorer they once had or the red hot, top shelf 40 goal forward he's been with Pittsburgh? Well, I've got a poll up for this one; so make your voices heard… The other major deal consummated (I know, bad word, here comes another Hanratty/Kelly email thread!) this past week was Carolina sending the underachieving Sami Kapanen to the Flyers for Pavel Brendl and the famous Italian-French defensemen Bruno St. Jacques, I love that name!

Moving away from trades, here's a tidbit sent to me from Foil Up Walt, about the Toronto Maple Leafs own little skills competition, namely the "hardest shot on the team" competition, held during the day after the All Star Break.

…McCabe, with a slapshot of 99.7 mph, barely edged fellow backliner Wade Belak for the honour. Belak, who honed his skills shooting pucks at his parents' furnace when he was a kid, ripped a shot at 99.4 mph…

So exactly how many furnaces did Mr. And Mrs. Belak go through as young Wade was growing up? Now a baseball through the window is one thing, but a puck through the furnace? Now we're talking "Bobby and Peter Brady breaking the vase, don't play ball in the house" territory! And of course we all remember Wade Belak as the guy who a few seasons back as a rookie had two fights on opening night for a total of 23 penalty minutes and quickly became a high draft pick of Charlie Baker the following Saturday at the Slap Shot Draft, eliciting a chorus of "who the f**k is Wade Belak?" Of course Wade was sent down to the minors shortly thereafter and played about a total of 2 more games the rest of the season! But Charlie's team, for a brief time, did lead the league in penalty minutes; the only team other than Neil to hold first place that season…

Speaking of penalty minutes, how about Mario Lemieux getting into a fight last week and accumulating 29 penalty minutes in one game? Think Super Mario was a little pissed? Probably saw the Penguins financial reports that morning and figured, hell, if I've got to trade Kovalev to the freakin' Rangers, I think I'm gonna go beat the piss out of somebody tonight! I hear after the game he was still so fired up he went down to the basement of The Igloo (or whatever corporate name's on the Penguin's arena these days) and slammed a few pucks into the building's furnace, Belak style…

And now a league-wide public service announcement that I'm sure you'll all be happy to hear. My co-owner of Stick It Up Your Ice, Kevin Kelly has decided to go on a diet! Next week's poll will be based around trying to guess how long this is going to last and how many pounds the man formerly known as The Staten Island Sniper's going to shed, but for now, the game is afoot! You see, I found a section of the Slap Shot Fantasy Hockey League rules that state that the maximum allowable combined weight for teams co-owned by two partners is 401, and with Kevin and yours truly The Commish tipping the scales at a svelte 412 between us, I think it's time for both of us to start "counting the points", Weight Watchers style. Now entering the ring, from "parts unknown", at a combined weight of…

Well that's about all I've got time for tonight! Since we're sitting here at Code Orange I think I'm going to go out to the Home Depot, get myself some duct tape, a few sheets of plastic, some batteries, three days supply of food and water and a space heater and set up my own Commish's Office Panic Room! Hell, if I do have to spend three days in here, I can always catch up on my Y2K programming! Be good and be safe! 'til next week…