Detroit Free Press

You leave work Friday afternoon, the Red Wings are talking contract with Sergei Fedorov. You come in Monday morning, and Fedorov is a Mighty Duck.Talk about a lost weekend.What happened? How did the Wings let their most talented player get away for nothing?Well, as Orange County real estate agents begin hunting for a new mansion, here's the bottom line:Sergei saw himself one way, the Wings saw him another.

Editor's note: This column contains lyrics that could be offensive. But the Free Press thinks they're important to understand the columnist's view.So I went to the Eminem concert in a football stadium last week and here's one good thing I can say about it right off the bat: There were no long guitar solos. That was good. There were also no musicians. That was bad.

Don't look now, but cable TV news just wet its pants. The story it prays for every programming day tumbled from the lips of a clean-cut young district attorney Friday afternoon, against a backdrop of the gorgeous Colorado Rockies."After much deliberation, charges were filed today against Kobe Bean Bryant," said Mark Hurlbert, the DA in Eagle County, Colo. "The defendant is charged with one count of sexual assault, a class three felony. . . ."Penalties are (if convicted) prison terms: four years to life imprisonment."

Aw, shucks. Now that Chris Webber has called another last-minute time-out -- to cut a deal with prosecutors over felony charges -- there goes my chance to be a star witness. Not that I think of myself that way.But Webber's lawyer did.That lawyer, Steve Fishman, told anyone who would listen that I had important information that would prove his client's innocence. He drew up a subpoena. He went to court to get me to testify.He even accused me of hiding from responsibility, as if saving his client's butt was a civic duty.

Well, I don't like sausages, either. But I never hit one with a baseball bat.Then again, most of my sausages just sit on a plate, next to the hash browns. I never saw one chugging around third base, racing a bratwurst, a hot dog and a kielbasa. There's no telling what a man might do in those circumstances.

He took off the mask nearly 13 months ago -- the same night he hoisted the Stanley Cup -- and he hasn't worn it ...

Doug Zyskowski finally felt the last five years were all worthwhile when a 9-year-old boy threw a tantrum and had to be dragged out of his building screaming the whole way."I don't want to leave!" the kid bellowed as a frustrated mom pulled him out the door to the parking lot.Is this a new video arcade, you think? Maybe a movie?