FanHouse Nhl

For the moment, Wayne Gretzky has chosen to walk away gracefully, with dignity. Of course he is concerned about his personal legacy -- The Great One's ego didn't melt from the Phoenix sun, no matter how ordinary he proved to be working in an environment that never felt as natural as his office behind the net. But the broader picture here -- beyond Gretzky's resignation as head coach and director of hockey operations of the Coyotes Thursday, beyond his bruised feelings and grumblings to friends about being treated unfairly -- still circles around one cold fact:

Wayne Gretzky is hockey.

And the NHL would be wise to do whatever it takes to assure its greatest ambassador remains a part of the game, somewhere, somehow.

---

---

Week 1 of the NFL season featured some gut-wrenching losses and improbable finishes across the league. Take, for example, the Kyle Orton-to-Brandon Stokley 87-yard pass in the closing seconds of Denver's 12-7 win in Cincinnati. If that play had happened in a playoff game it would already have a fancy nickname and be talked about as one of the great fluke plays in the history of the NFL (which it most certainly is).

If that wasn't enough, Buffalo, yet again, was on the receiving end of a heart-breaking loss when it snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, surrendering an 11-point lead with five minutes to play thanks in large part to Leodis McKelvin's fumble with just over two-minutes to go in the fourth quarter.

(And that doesn't even include Hines Ward fumbling at the two-yard line during the season-opener on Thursday night, only to have the Steelers rebound and win in overtime.)

It was enough to make us look back at a few other mind-blowing finishes in recent sports history. These plays are great ... unless you happen to be a fan of one of the teams that blows it late.

During its humble beginnings, MTV's The Real World could have been considered cutting-edge television: "reality" TV way before the current abomination that is now reality TV that makes people famous for absolutely no reason at all. I use the phrase "reality" loosely, simply because I don't know many 25-year-old men and women are living in a reality where they get set up in an amazing apartment that they share with four half-naked members of the opposite sex.

So now, as quickly as it takes to make one phone call (wink-wink), the story flip-flops. Turns out the 62-year-old Buffalo taxi driver who allegedly was assaulted by young hockey star Patrick Kane, the homegrown pride of that parochial New York town, suddenly doesn't think it was so awful that Kane and his cousin grabbed his throat, "broke my glasses (and) ripped my clothes." The story has gained nationwide attention because: (a) Kane is known as a baby-faced angel; and (b) the baby-faced angel apparently wasn't happy that the cabbie didn't have 20 cents in change for a $15 fare, which trumps Scottie "No Tippin' " Pippen for lows in penny-pinching.

In Chicago, Milton Bradley further endears himself to Cubdom by flipping a ball into the seats with two out, a farcical sign that 100 years without a World Series title soon will be 101. In Cleveland, the poor people still haven't won a championship in any sport since 1964 and might lose LeBron James to New York, assuming the gulls and midges don't eat him first. In Buffalo, they're not yet over the sting of reaching the Super Bowl four times and losing four times, which still trumps chicken wings as the civic identity.

"That's life," Bradley explained. "These people have high expectations. I have high expectations for myself. I never made a mistake like that (losing track of the outs) in my life. Sue me."

"Something needs to be done," the Indians' Ryan Garko said of the birds and bugs that attack Progressive Field. "There's got to be a way to get rid of them. It's kind of embarrassing. We look like a bunch of kids playing on an abandoned field. It's kind of funny, but kind of not funny."

DETROIT -- Extraordinary. Wait, that word isn't grand enough to describe what happened here Friday night. Thrilling? Stunning? It was both, and so much more. It was babyface goalie Marc-Andre Fleury making a couple of huge saves in the final, throat-clutching seconds. It was Sidney Crosby lifting the silver chalice and kissing it once, twice, barely buckling under his twisted knee. It was heavy-handed Maxime Talbot scoring a pair of improbable goals, while Evgeni Malkin raised his game to an entirely different level.

It was Marian Hossa dropping to his knees in sorrow, the pain that accompanies having to watch another team celebrate on his home ice for the second straight season almost unbearable. It was Chris Osgood, dazzling in goal, but not dazzling enough. It was a wave of wing-wheeled, veteran Europeans pushing the reigning champions as hard as they could be pushed, and the young, energetic pups in black refusing to budge.

It was Pittsburgh 2, Detroit 1, the Stanley Cup changing hands in spectacular fashion.

---

---

DETROIT – Sure, the flying octopi help. So do the throngs of rabid fans wearing jerseys ringed in the color of blood, and a no-nonsense building that doesn't require fancy bells and whistles in order to rock, and old-school rituals that get passed down like success.

As Red Wings coach Mike Babcock was saying Thursday, on the eve of one of the grandest, coolest spectacles in sports, this city is a part "of Canada that just got lost ... and these people love hockey, absolutely love hockey."

Former great Ted Lindsay, born on the cusp of the Great Depression, makes a point of stopping by for team meetings before each round, plopping down in his stall in the dressing room. Legends roam the halls, from Gordie Howe to Steve Yzerman. Players here retire, or maybe they get traded, or go elsewhere for a salary bump, but few ever really shed the thrill that comes with lacing it up for Hockeytown, USA.

PITTSBURGH -- Marian Hossa must know how he'll be perceived. The cameras will zoom in close, searching his face for elation or tears. Outsiders might mock or pity him, possibly both. Hockey insiders will again debate the repercussions of his professional and personal choices. Was he a fool to bolt the Penguins, leaving all those millions on the table? Does he regret signing with Detroit, a team he thought had the best chance of winning it all?

No matter how Hossa's controversial, admirable journey ends Friday night in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, he deserves a tap of the stick for following his heart rather than the dollar. In Hossa's perfect world, he'll live out every rink rat's childhood fantasy and score the goal that gives the Red Wings their second consecutive Stanley Cup, allowing Detroit to party in front of a home crowd that's grown accustoming to feting Lord Stanley. Hossa's decision to swap Penguin black for Detroit red will be justified, perhaps even lauded as a fine example of the satisfaction that follows when rejoicing collectively trumps profiting individually.

PITTSBURGH -- What a shame hockey didn't own this night. Americans from Florida to California should have been glued to the extraordinary image of Marc-Andre Fleury doing somersaults in front of the net to save the Penguins' season, of Rob Scuderi using the edge of his skate to stop what surely would have been a dagger to the gut, of scruffy-faced athletes pushing the sport to a transcendent, desperate finish.

When it was over, when the last frantic second expired on Pittsburgh's 2-1 Game 6 win over the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals, the 17,132 lucky souls who witnessed this gem in person managed to dislodge their hearts from their throats and turn The Igloo into something that sounded pretty close to a rapturous revival. It was tough to decide where they should genuflect first.

---

---

CHICAGO -- They are a mind-numbing machine, really, almost monotonous in their dominance, discipline and staying power. Sport in the 21st century isn't conducive to a dynasty lasting a dozen years, but the winged-wheel jersey and slimy octopus of the Detroit Red Wings have been lodged in our consciousness since 1997, good for four Stanley Cups and maybe a fifth next month.

---

---