Detroit Free Press

The news that Mickey Lolich had survived open-heart surgery caught many people by surprise. Including Mickey."Mr. ...

It turned out the writers, critics, talk show hosts and fans were all worried about the wrong goaltender. The guys in red weren't the problem. It was the guy in blue, a young bearded Russian whose last name -- Khabibulin -- sounds likes something you receive in a blood transfusion. And fittingly, he pumped life into a team that was supposed to be dead, and a nervous shiver into a team that was supposed to be resting this morning."Take the best word you can think of," gushed Winnipeg's Keith Tkachuk, "and that's the word for what Nik did tonight!"

Knock, knock."Come in.""Coach Bowman?""What is it, Osgood?""Um, I was just wondering if you knew who was starting ...

So many voices inside Doug Collins' head, like an army of transistor radios all playing at once. There is the voice of his mother, urging him to succeed, and the voice of his father, stricken with lung cancer, saying, "Doug . . . I don't want to die."There are voices of his two grown children, whom he adores, and voices of players, coaches, friends, philosophers -- all these voices, snapping sparks in his brain, making him run, then stopping him in his tracks.If you wondered why Doug Collins is so frantic on the outside, you should see what's going on inside.

We interrupt this hockey season for a message from the Pistons. You remember the Pistons? Basketball team? Play up ...

Patience, patience. If there was one lesson learned from the opening of the most anticipated hockey playoffs in Detroit history -- and let's be honest, you shouldn't learn more than one thing from the first game, right? -- it was that patience will not only be a worthy companion on this horse ride through the postseason, it may keep you sane."When already?" Wings fans seemed to ask, as Detroit went scoreless in the first and second periods Wednesday night, and trailed the eighth-seeded Jets by a 1-0 score as the final frame began. "What are you waiting for?"

Today, on the dawn of the most-anticipated hockey playoffs in modern Detroit history, I come to praise Scotty ...