Detroit Free Press

The gloves were tossed, the confetti came down, and into the happy heap they flew, the old guys and the new guys ...

No, he said. He would not go onstage. He would stand near it. He would stand in front of it. But he would not go up on it. Superstition. No stages.And Dominik Hasek would not budge.So the reporters in the Joe Louis Arena news conference had to leave their seats and swarm to encircle him at ground level. Half of them ended up on the very stage that Hasek refused to ascend, poking cameras over his back and tape recorders over his head. It was a hot, uncomfortable crush. Silly, really. But the message was clear:He'd gotten this far doing it his way.

Quietly, like a stagehand moving behind the curtain, Scotty Bowman has ascended to the throne room, sliding gingerly into the marble chair, waiting only for the crown to be placed on his head. He has been in the castle so long, few people even noticed.Bowman will, when this championship is officially handed to Detroit -- quite possibly Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena -- be all alone in hockey history, more Stanley Cups than any coach before him, more NHL finals victories than any coach before him, more everything, pretty much, than any coach before him.

RALEIGH, N.C. -- It was only a number. It was only one shot. And Brett Hull has taken a million shots in nearly ...

Dear Commissioner Bettman:May I make a request, before it's too late? I know it sounds strange, coming from a ...

Can we end it now, this infatuation with a washed-up fighter named Mike Tyson? Can we finally, admitting our own ...

Jesus got bleeped.It happened during a recent airing of "The View," the ABC mid-morning show that features a ...

It could have all been different. Tonight, when the Red Wings and Hurricanes skate out for Game 3 in Raleigh, the first Stanley Cup final in North Carolina, and the building explodes and the Wings are roundly booed and the Hurricanes are cheered so loudly you'll need concrete in your ears, it could have all been reversed for Sergei Fedorov.He could have been on the side of the angels.