"I love the shootout. The game on the line. One team's best shooters against the other team's best shooters. The goalies quaking in their bulky skates. Fans going crazy. The clock frozen. A full day's blood, sweat, and tears boiled down to the itsiest-bitsiest moment in time and the game right there to be won.

Now that's hockey, pure and palpable - hockey served up like caviar and poured out like champagne.

Rubbish. Regular readers of this space know I don't believe a single word of that. I typed the whole pack of lies with my fingers crossed. (And if you think that's easy, sit down right now and try typing "blood, sweat, and tears'' with your fingers crossed.)

The lying is easy, but the typing requires some real touch, not unlike Tyler Seguin's dazzling stick work and crackerjack backhand lift for a shootout goal in the Bruins' 4-3 win yesterday.

Now more than 6 1/2 seasons into the New NHL, I'd like to report here this morning that I have been won over, that the game's line-'em-up-and-let-'em-rip amendment of 2005 has captured my soul and spirit."