Canada Will Always Love Hockey. . . Its national sport, more than the residents of the U.S. Unfortunately, North of the border, they seem to be getting more familiar with America's national pastime -- the frivolous law suit:

A New Brunswick father is suing the provincial amateur hockey association after his 16-year-old son failed to win the league's most-valuable-player award.

Michael Croteau is seeking $300,000 in psychological and punitive damages from the association. He is also demanding that the MVP trophy be taken from the boy who won it and given to his son, Steven, as well as the league's playmaker award, which was awarded to a different boy. Croteau also wants Steven to be guaranteed a spot on the New Brunswick Canada Winter Games roster.

In an interview yesterday from his home on Lameque Island, N.B., Croteau said Steven was so crushed after losing the New Brunswick Bantam AAA MVP award at a banquet in March that he lost his love for playing hockey. That, his father argues, resulted in Steven failing to pursue the Canada Games tryouts in which he had been excelling.

Sorry everybody, this one is leaving me without much to say. (Link via Drudge.)

Puck Bunnies and Ice Shoveling: Something new is catching on. Will it get you to attend more games in person? Read this Wall Street Journal article:

Hockey Goes Back to the Cave With Shovel-Wielding Ice Girls

Just a few minutes into the first period of a recent New York Islanders
game, the dasherboard gates swing open and out they come: two pairs of young
women in Lycra suits, figure skates and lots of glittery makeup. And no,
you're not imagining things. They're carrying shovels.

Have you ever gone to a hockey game and wondered: Where are all the babes?
Then this column is dedicated to you. Just when it seemed the National
Hockey League couldn't roll back the evolutionary clock any further, there's
a new craze sweeping the professional rinks of North America: Ice Girls. Or
as Islanders fan Chris Cavaioli describes them, "Cheerleaders with a
purpose."

As any hockey regular knows, NHL teams are required to send maintenance
workers on the ice during TV timeouts to scoop away the shavings that build
up in heavy-traffic areas. Of course, the rule book doesn't say the job has
to be done by fat old guys in boots and blue windbreakers. So the Islanders'
marketing department decided to change the paradigm. "We wanted to jazz
things up," says team spokesman Chris Botta.

The Bucket Brigade

The story begins last year when the Islanders called one of the strangest
auditions in sports history. "I was a little confused about what it would
be," says Ice Girl Deirdre McLaughlin, a college student who saw the posters
at a local rink. First, she was asked to show her skating technique,
executing crossovers and T-stops. Then there was a formal interview. And
finally, she says, "They handed us buckets and shovels."


Clean sweep: Several NHL teams have approached the


For $75 a night, Ms. McLaughlin and her squad mates take the ice about nine
times during the game. First, they clean up the goal creases, then they
scrape the area along the boards just in front of the benches. Sure, there
are occasions when klutzy players nearly run them over, or worse, start
gawking like Cub Scouts at a Modigliani exhibit. ("We try not to look," says
Islanders veteran Claude Lapointe.) But other than that, the job is pretty
straightforward. "It's shoveling," says Ice Girl Lauren Balcuk, a
20-year-old student and figure-skating instructor. "That's about it."

To be fair, hockey doesn't really deserve to be singled out in the sexism
department. After all, boxing promoters put beautiful women in the ring
between rounds. There's always a model or two on the Tour de France podium
exchanging air kisses with the guy in the maillot jaune. And don't forget
the Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders: The only difference between their $13
lingerie calendar and a copy of Playboy magazine is a couple of
strategically placed throw pillows.

But hockey, thuggish as it may be, used to stand alone as the only major
sport that didn't stoop to this kind of crass pandering. For most hockey
guys, it was worth the price of admission just to see a few loose teeth
skittering across the ice. Or, crazier still, a decent game. Of course, that
may be part of the problem: NHL teams are starting to feel a little insecure
about their product.

Adding Value, Losing Violence

Think about it. Did any sports league have a worse year than the NHL? With
anemic ratings, an impending labor war and a raft of troubled franchises,
things were already looking glum. But after a young fan was killed by a
stray puck, all NHL arenas had to install protective netting that's become,
to many regulars, an irritating obstruction. And after Olympic hockey stole
the show last winter and made the pro game look clunky by comparison, the
league adopted new rules to promote speed and elegance.

That said, it's no wonder the Dallas Stars have developed an Ice Girls team
of their own this season, or that the Islanders say 10 other teams have
called for information. In addition to their ice duties, Islanders girls
hand out souvenir pucks to kids and shoot T-shirts into the crowd from atop
the Zamboni: anything to add value at a time when some of the game's
Neanderthal charm is being subtracted.

Pepsi on Ice

Not that this is strictly a magnanimous gesture. Hockey teams such as the
Islanders are often run on the tightest of margins, and Ice Girls can
command as much as $100,000 a year in sponsorship dough, roughly the same
price as putting an ad or two on the dasherboards. (The Islanders' Ice Girls
are sponsored by Pepsi.) Besides, after the Ice Girls debuted last season,
the Islanders sold out 21 games and broke a seven-season playoff drought --
enough to make anybody a little superstitious about disbanding them. "Facts
are facts," says Mr. Botta.

All told, the Islanders say they've had less than a dozen letters of
complaint about the ladies in Lycra, mostly from purists who think nothing
should detract from the hockey. But a random poll of female Islanders fans
suggests they may have a larger problem on their hands. "It's a joke," says
Lori Pellegrino, watching the Islanders play the Carolina Hurricanes with
her daughter, Brianna. Given the amount of ice shavings the girls were
actually scooping up, she says, "They don't need shovels, they need
dusters."

Adds Vicki Dorney, a longtime Islanders fan and mother of six: "I wish the
hockey players would come out in skimpy outfits and skate around. That would
be nice for the ladies."

Sam Walker appears Thursdays on ESPNews