Just a couple of notes on things which I have been observing in the last couple of weeks. This year's Stanley Cup playoffs have been absolutely riveting -- made more so by all the excellent TV coverage. But ... has anyone else besides me noticed that the amount of blatent interference and stick-holding that is allowed in the NHL has grown to disgusting proportions? This is apparently with the approval and encouragement of upper NHL management. Brian Burke was quoted recently in the Hartford Courant as saying the league would **not** be cracking down on that sort of thing because it is the only tactic which protects defensemen from forecheckers in their own end. He said something like "If we cracked down, the next night we'd be picking plexiglass out of the teeth of every defenseman." Geez, is that what it's come to? I hope the college game never gets like that! All you have to do is enforce the hitting from behind rule at the same time. Btw, I think Burke was a defenseman at Providence wasn't he? The other thing that I have noticed recently, is that college recruiting this year seems to have even more of a Canadian flavor than normal. Seems like only the occasional American gets to play D-1 these days, while D-3 is populated almost entirely by American kids. Is this simply a numbers thing, or does it speak to something structural in the youth hockey programs of the two countries? -- Dick Tuthill