Detroit Free Press

Although they are as close as players and coaches can be, you won't see Jacques Demers, Bernie Federko and Brian Sutter socializing during this playoff series, won't see them at restaurants, or chatting before the bus pulls up to the hotel.

BOSTON -- Minutes after the game was over, a mob of reporters was already around his locker. Cameras were steadied. Microphones were tested."When's he coming?" the voices cried."He's not coming," came the answer, "there's not enough room in here. He's doing his interviews out in the stands."

I did not go to the Red Wings game Tuesday night because they were in first place. I went because . . . I love hockey. Yeah. That's it."How about that Greg Stefan?" I said to a familiar-looking face in the press box elevator. "He's looking awful sharp, don't you think?""Who are you?" came the answer.What a kidder. Yes, the Wings are something, aren't they? Bounding back from that embarrassment of a season last year, and now, under coach Jacques Demers, playing a different kind of hockey, the kind with effort, the kind with heart.

"Kids around me 20 and 21 years old, were acting like infants. . . . I said to myself that I had come all the way to California at the age of 18 to find out I was a very old person." Lew Alcindor in 1969, on his UCLA years

LAS VEGAS -- Bulls-eye.Right in the face. A glove in the kisser. A mash job. Less than two minutes and the guy is out cold and Thomas Hearns, who had more rain water on him than sweat, that's how easy this thing was, blew a kiss to the crowd and told the world in no uncertain terms that he is not done hitting.Not by a longshot.

NEW YORK -- This place had always treated him like garbage, and there he was in the gutter again. A zero. A big fat zero. Thirteen stinking minutes into the U.S. Open final, in front of millions of people, and he hadn't even won a game from John McEnroe -- not a single game, and only one lousy point -- while McEnroe had cruised to three straight wins without breaking a sweat. People already were whispering "slaughter."He could feel it. The collar. Tightening."There he goes," said a reporter in the press box, "the choking dog."

WIMBLEDON, England -- It must be a hell of a feeling to be a black player in a stadium filled with white fans and a white Princess and a white Countess wearing white gloves, with white line judges and white officials standing all around you.

FREMANTLE, Australia -- For a few minutes there, I had the story of this America's Cup. I was bringing it home. I was about to deal for history, I was . . . But wait. Let's start from the beginning. Friday afternoon. The day before the finals began. The coffee was gone. The note pad was empty.