Sports from the past week.

Past sports article for the week of 6/26/06

Russian Oriented Regulations Proposed for Next Stanley Cup
By, Grey Sports

Even as another Stanley Cup result is achieved, certain shadowy figures within the world of ice hockey seem intent on kicking the legs out from under the sport.
New regulations to limit the number of foreign players, something that could even affect naturalized citizens, in ice hockey are up for consideration.
The gist of the new rules would be to limit the number of players from outside of the state play for teams, phrasing that skirts the edge of being racist and could still be challenged in court if enough teams get behind it.
However the willingness of certain forces to ignore player based outrage for years at a time is legendary, it is quite possible that they will be willing to hold out against people who’s violent tendencies prevent them from operating in a nonhockey environment.
The effects on the sport could be devastating for the US, whose teams are approximately forty percent Canadian and fifty five percent Russian. Native-born Americans make up less than four percent of the total professional hockey players.
While teams such as Tampa Bay could be gutted anyone operating out of Hawaii would be destroyed.
Commentators wonder if this is some sort of conspiracy to allow for the dominance of Canadian teams in the future, this would not be the first such attempt, the most famous was the “Maple Leaf” incident in 1978 that resulted in the death of four team mascots and an unspecified number of chickens.
Other believe it is a plot aimed directly at Russia, who would lose a great deal of income as Russian players are swiftly banned and unable to send money home.
Additionally there are several die hard anticommunists within ice hockey who are adamant that “The commies are just lulling us into a false sense of security. The first chance they get the Berlin Wall will rise up and the Iron Curtain will come down and then where will ice hockey be?”
Of course, such mad ramblings could be a deliberate attempt to draw attention away from the real culprit, Alaska.
The Freak State of the US (Hawaii being far more acceptable given it’s sunnier disposition) has long been jealous of its fellow states and is the only one capable of maintaining a native heavy team of any credibility.
For now hockey teams vow to fight against the proposed rules, though contingency plans are in place, including bringing Russian couples over for the birthing, indeed the conceiving if need be, of their child to ensure at least duel citizenship.
This hit and miss approach would be expensive, and this approach to athletics strongly mirrors recent German attempts to breed chiefs of quality who can cook something without relying on various sausages by putting most of their natal units in places such as Paris, India and even Mexico City.
Hope now resides in common sense, which never works; the outrage of the players, which is constant and ignored; and a rather large bribe to be delivered at a specified time and location should anyone ask for it.