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BRIAN BURKE'S A STOOGE
It's been a few months since I made fun of Brian Burke, so I'm thankful that he recently took time out of his busy schedule to once again display his stupidity.

One of Burke's "duties" with the NHL, aside from sitting on suitcases that won't close and washing Gary Bettman's car, is to hand out suspensions. He is the man in charge of league discipline. Yeah, he's a regular Roy Bean... that's like an obscure reference to the Old West... I think.

Anyway, there have been a rash of suspensions lately. But no matter what a guy does, Burke just pretty much gives him two games. Someone could hijack a school bus full of toddlers and toss the tykes out the door while careening through the streets of Toronto, and Burke would give 'im two games. A guy could try to assassinate the president, Burke would give 'im two games. A guy could speak ill of Don Knotts, Burke would just give 'im two. It just ain't right, lemme tell ya.

Last week Dainius Zubrus intentionally sticked Chris Chelios in the face and only got two games. And this just wasn't the usual smack in the chops. Zubrus was looking right at Chelios, then dug the point of his blade in the all-world blueliner's face in a stabbing motion. Zubrus was given a five-minute major and a match penalty for intent to injure. Luckily, Chelios wasn't hurt on the play.

And that seems to be the rub. If a guy isn't hurt too severely, than Burke simply refuses to hand out more than two games. Forget that if Zubrus' blade was about an inch to the right Chelios might have lost an eye, that's still not good enough for Burke. Burke's motto seems to be "no harm, no foul."

In another incident of illegal stickwork, San Jose's Joe Murphy chopped Dallas' Richard Matvichuk over the wrist and received the ol' deuce from Burke. The thing is that the slash was totally removed from the play. Murphy and Matvichuk were the only two players still left in the Dallas zone and both were casually making their way up ice when Murphy came up from behind Matvichuk and lowered the boom. It's hard to imagine a more blatant attempt to injure. But what else would you expect from Murphy? Under Hobbies in this year's media guide, Murphy listed "thievin' chickens..." Hey, I'm just saying he's a weasel, that's all.

Then you have Sergei Fedorov riding Anaheim's Jason Marshall from behind into the boards, rendering the defender motionless on the ice for several moments. But apparently he didn't stay under long enough to earn Fedorov anything more than two games.

There have been 24 suspensions this season in the NHL, with 12 being only two games in length. And what's two games? That's nothin', that's what that is. It's an absolute joke. Here's a breakdown of the punishments so far this season:

Length  Number
1 game      3
2 games    12
3 games     6
4 games     1
5 games     1
8 games     1
----------------------
Total      24

The two longest suspensions were all given to two-time offenders. Rick Tocchet got saddled with his nickel after kneeing both Ryan Smyth and Steve Yzerman in a span of 10 days. Bryan Marchment is the proud owner of the eight-game suspension, getting collared for kneeing Mike Modano and Kevin Dineen. His past history with such incidents earned him the extra few games.

So I guess the message in all this is that if you want to two- hand somebody or run 'im from behind, feel free. Just don't do it twice, or you might actually have to pay the consequences.

You hear announcers and commentators state all the time that players just don't respect one another like they did in the old days. Some think that's why there have been so many injuries the past few years. Well, if the players won't respect each other voluntarily, then it's up to the league to see that they do. And that means stiffer penalties to scofflaws, and an end to Brian Burke. But good news, there are rumors circulating that Burke won't be back next season. Yeah, apparently a job just opened up for a village idiot...

ROY WON
How cool was it to see Patrick Roy calmly remove his gloves and mask and then skate out to center to challenge Chris Osgood? That was amazing. And enough of this garbage about Osgood winning the fight. Give the kid credit for answering the call, he in no way embarrassed himself, but Roy was the man. St. Patrick was dealing. Just because Osgood tackled him at the end doesn't mean he won. The tackle is the last ditch effort of anyone getting worked. Roy won. End of conversation.

There's also been talk that Roy made a mistake in fighting, that it will just be something else to galvanize the Wings. Um, well, no. Roy did what had to be done. It's all part of the game. The boys on the bench knew what the gesture meant, and that's all that matters.

USA HOCKEY TEAM STAYING HOME
Team USA received some painful news this week when it was announced they will not be invited to the White House with the other US Olympians. This is apparently some form of punishment for no one coming forward to accept blame for trashing the Japanese hotel rooms. Maybe the Olympic committee should get together with Brian Burke, because exactly how is this a punishment? Is it really an honor to go to the White House anymore? If they wanted to punish the guys, they should force them to go to the White House and be interns. Now that's a punishment.

LCS HOCKEY CHAT ON AOL
Matt Moore, our Los Angeles Correspondent, will be hosting a chat session on America Online Wednesday night, April 15, at 8:30 PM EST. It's scheduled to be a discussion on the impending playoffs, but I'm sure Matt will also have some last-minute tax tips available. Be sure to swing by and check it out. That's keyword "LCS".

NEW BANNER ADS
Hey, you may have noticed new banner ads running on the web site. Like do us a favor and click on every new one you see each time you're on the site. I know it's weak, but we need scratch. Those bottles of Night Train don't buy themselves.

And really, is clicking on an ad that big a thing? We've been makin' the LCS for almost four years now and haven't charged you, our valued readers, dollar one for the service. Think back over the past four years to all the entertainment LCS has given you. We're talkin' six, seven, maybe even eight solid minutes of entertainment. That's gotta be worth something. If you had a web site I'd click on ads for you. Okay, well, maybe I wouldn't... but that's just because I'm a dick. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

GERMANS LOVE LCS
It has recently come to my attention that Germans love LCS. So I'd like to take this time to say hello to all our friends in Germany... ahem... "Hey, Germans... how's it goin'?" And a special thanks to Marc Hoppenz for letting me know that Germans love LCS. The way I hear it, we're like right behind David Hasselhoff... so that's pretty good.

Now that Germany is on board, there aren't many countries standing between us and world domination. Everyone knows that the Swedes love us. And in the past we've received letters from such places as Finland, Russia, England, France, the Czech Republic, Australia, South Africa, China, Japan, and Mexico. However, we would like to hear from people in either Norway or Switzerland. So if you live in Norway or Switzerland and read the LCS, please drop us a line and let us know. Thank you.

NORWAY WINS AGAIN...
The LCS hockey wars on the Sega Saturn continue to wage. And guess what? Norway continues to win. Go figure?

Norway won its fifth straight series over Switzerland, this time by a four-games-to-two margin. Norway has never lost a seven- game series to the Swiss.

Swiss captain Zippy the Wonder Chimp was unavailable for comment, so I'll just make up a quote.

"We suck," said a disenchanted Zippy. "Norway is just too great. They make us look like little school girls. We should really stick to making chocolate clocks and leave hockey to the Norwegians."

Well said, Zippy... well said.

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