Imagination and broohahas!

"You've heard of the French nation? Well, this is the Imagi-nation!"
-Kris Kringle, A Miracle on 34th Street

Say this about Joey Porter, he has a healthy imagination. In his mind, he's already won 2 extra Super Bowl titles. I'm jealous: when I was a kid, they best I could imagine was owning a time machine! I'm just curious, in his fantasy kingdom, does he own a pony?

I know the Spygate flap generated a lot of goofiness, but is this true of other NFL players? Are there 300 people floating around the NFL all imagining they would have won multiple Super Bowl titles if only the Pat's hadn't used videotape? (because it's perfectly legal to use other methods of spying for some reason that will never - EVER - be explained to the general public. Yeah.)

Speaking of delusions, the Montreal Canadiens have somehow reached the rather bizarre conclusion that the team's some times somnambulant performances this year can be boiled down to one thing: Milan Lucic's refusal to fight Georges Laraque. Huh? Let's face facts - Lucic is a fun player. He can score goals, he can hit people and get under the skin of teams and he can certainly handle himself in a fight. But Laraque would kill him and apparently, the Bruins are aware of this and told Lucic not to fight Laraque on Saturday night. This is an amusing subplot. Unfortunately, it came back to bite Montreal in the rear as Lucic scored one of the goals that allowed the B's to earn an overtime shoot out "win" (I'm sorry, even when the Bruins "win" the shootout still sucks). So, not only are the Bruins 2-0-1 against a team they couldn't beat at all last year, but they now they're winning mind games against les Blue, Rouge et Blanc too.

I might be wrong about this - I haven't been alive for most of this one-sided rivalry - but isn't it usually the Bruins who are obsessed with "making points" and "dropping the gloves" and the Habs who go about actually winning the games? I know the Bruins were obsessed with winning fights against Montreal last year and their inability to get one win against les Habs last year proves this to be a poor strategy. So why is an intelligent franchise like the Canadiens buying into this circus sideshow? Am I missing something? Did the Canadiens establish their dynasty by scoring, defense, and goaltending, or were Rocket Richard, Jean Belliveau, and Guy LaFleur actually giant Hansenesque cementheads who pummeled everyone into submission? One of the criticisms against Laraque is that he doesn't do the requisite illegal hitting to initiate fights. Fancy that, he acts like a human being instead of a giant goon!

I'm not one of these people who wants to ban fighting from hockey, but the obsession with fisticuffmanship that the Habs are indulging in is at least as funny as Joey Porter and the Super Bowl rings he likes to look at while he rides his Pegasus over to Gum Drop Mountain.