The "Ps" on the Philadelphia Flyers' sweaters has stood for Punishing, Pugilistic and, well. . . Philadelphia, from the time of Bobby Clarke right on down to Eric Lindros and John LeClair.

For Alexandre Daigle, however, the "P" that has signified the Broad Street Bullies since their inception has stood for Pansy, Poopiehead and Piss-Poor Performance. His offensive performance (and let's face it, it's been pretty offensive), coupled with timidness and a bad attitude bought him a ticket to Tampa via Edmonton.

The one thing I still don't understand is why, oh God, why would anybody still want this guy?

Daigle has made it no small secret he longs to be an actor and a comedian. He originally nixed a trade to Edmonton and a $1 million contract extension because he'd rather have been traded to Los Angeles because it is closer to Hollywood. Man, I wish I could completely suck at my job and still feel secure enough to turn down a million bucks. For a million bucks, I'd let Al MacInnis shoot pucks off my ass for a year.

The guy may have never had a chance on the ice after being jinxed by being called the next Lemieux or the next Gretzky. Demanding a trade to L.A. might the closest thing Daigle will ever do to being like Gretzky. Granted, The Great One, like a lot of guys at the time, wanted to be near his wife, Janet. Maybe Daigle not only wanted to be close to the swimming pools and movie stars, but to Pamela Anderson with whom he was spotted with during the off-season. I understand the short-lived relationship was a mirror image of Daigle's career-- no hitting and no scoring. Yeah, I bet after Tommy Lee she felt safe knowing that Daigle wasn't going to mistake her for a drum set.

Who knows? Daigle could still be like Lemieux and be out of the league by the time he's 31. On my planet, he's a bad practice away from skating in the Ice Capades and a bad crack habit.

Well, I've tried to put myself in the Lightning's management's position and I've come up with a few ideas why they would want a comedian who's best joke so far has been his hockey career.

1. Help Vincent Lecavalier adjust to the NHL. I was thinking something along the lines of what Craig Patrick did in the early 1990s when he acquired Jiri Hrdina from Calgary to help the young and struggling Jaromir Jagr. Lecavalier, like Daigle, is a French-Canadian selected first overall by a struggling expansion team (Tampa Bay and Ottawa even came into the league the same year) and was deemed to be its savior even before he donned the sweater. Actually, Lecavalier was compared to Michael Jordan by the Lightning's owner -- hey, you bought a hockey team, not a basketball team, ya fruitcake! Then it hit me that this couldn't be it because Daigle hasn't adjusted to the NHL yet, either. Maybe they want to Lecavalier to help Daigle?

2. So, maybe they're trying to scare Lacavalier. You know, kinda like showing a smoker a picture of a diseased lung. A Hey-Vince-if-you-don't-hustle-tonight-that-could-be-you-in-five-years type of thing.

3. Or maybe they hope Daigle's sense of humor will help in the locker room. Hey, it could happen. He could be the intermission entertainment, telling jokes of the wacky world of hockey. "The Lightning are so bad. . ." How bad are they Alex? "They're so bad they traded for me!" Woooooohooooooo!

4. The more likely explanation is that he has a pulse. Rumor has it that the team physician needed an hour to find it, but, nonetheless, he has one.

The Lightning didn't give up a lot in shipping Alexander Selivanov to Edmonton for Daigle, but so far it's been a case of you-get-what-you-paid-for. At last count, Daigle only had one helper for the men in the snazzy Flash pants.

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