Detroit Free Press

Scotty Bowman's eyes were moist, his shirt was soaked and his hair was sticky from sprayed champagne. It had been only two hours since he and the Red Wings recaptured the Stanley Cup, but somehow, in that brief time, something had changed. His voice. It was missing its normal edge. It was gentler now, more reasoned, more resigned, like a drill sergeant who had gone from giving orders to soldiers to taking them from his wife."I wanted to tell the team," said the 68-year-old coach, standing in the hallway outside the Wings' locker room. "I wanted to tell them how great they were."

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.

There are people who do so much in life yet feel as if they're standing still. And then there are those who are really standing still.Which brings me, once again, to the sad and pitiful story of the line waiters for "Star Wars."Two years ago, I wrote about these poor misguided souls -- adults, not children -- who sat outside a movie theater waiting for "The Phantom Menace." Not for hours. Not for days.For months!

Hang on. Let me get this straight. An NFL player, late in the game -- and it's a close game, and it's "Monday Night Football" -- asks the trainer for a pen, stuffs it in his sock, goes out and catches a touchdown pass, then pulls the pen out of his sock and signs the football for a man in the stands who happens to be his financial adviser. And I'm the one who doesn't get it?Sorry. I don't think so. You can call me square, flat, unhip, old-fashioned, old-school, no cool or dull. When writing utensils become part of your football gear, things have gone too far.

Ten years ago, a woman named Bryl Phillips-Taylor went to Washington to support a ban on assault rifles. Her son, Scott, had been killed with one.Last week, she returned for the same reason. Her son was still dead. The bullets had still come from an assault weapon. But there she was again, pleading the same case.

If Super Bowls carried subtitles, then the line beneath this first Big Game of the Millennium would surely be: "What-Are-These-Guys Doing Here?"You would say it about the Tennessee Titans, a movable franchise with four homes in the past four years. What are they doing here? You would say it about Kurt Warner, the St. Louis quarterback who came out of arena football to be this year's MVP. What is he doing here?

So I'm going to see Tiger and Phil. Playing together. That's like Elvis and Mick sharing the mike. Tiger and Phil? Together? Against Colin and Padraig? And, here's the best part. I'm walking to the job.I have never walked to the job, not in 20-plus years in this business. But the Ryder Cup, at Oakland Hills Country Club, is just up the road from my home. I breathe the healthy bus fumes as I approach the entrance. "Ahhh, like the old country," I think, as I approach the security gate, "walking to work. Isn't it grand? Isn't it--""You can't bring that in," the guard says.