How much do we love the wives and girlfriends of NHL players? More than you can know here at FanHouse.

And one of the gifts that keeps on giving is singer/actress Hillary Duff, now a well established item alongside her boyfriend, Mike Comrie, center for the New York Islanders. As it turns out, Duff is doing a media tour for a new movie she's starring in: War Inc. And for a few moments, Duff dished on what life is like for the significant other of an NHL player:

"[Hockey] has kind of been a new obsession," Duff told PEOPLE at Monday night's premiere of her new film, War, Inc. "When I'm in New York, I'm going to hockey games a lot."

And Comrie returns the favor.

"He sits through days of press, of me doing interviews, like one after another after another, and doesn't complain about it," said Duff (who stars alongside John Cusack and Marisa Tomei in the offbeat political satire). "He was a good sport today."

Good on Comrie for being such a good sport. Best of all, the storyline here gives us a great excuse for sharing the trailer from War Inc., a movie where it appears that Cusack is more or less reprising the role he played in Grosse Pointe Blank:



HT: Alanah at KK

Previously on FanHouse:

Ranking the Hockey Hotties
Hillary is a Hockey Dummy
Mike Comrie Gets a Public Duffing

It's no secret that the 2007-08 NHL season didn't end the way New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur wanted it to. As if seeing his team flushed out of the playoffs in just five games wasn't enough, Brodeur also got to endure a public beatdown at the hands of winger Sean Avery. No, Avery never laid a glove on Brodeur. Instead, he did something far worse: Avery shamed him with his antics, something that Brodeur only compounded as he refused to shake Avery's hand at the end of the series.

It's also no secret that Brodeur is closer to the end of his career than even he wants to admit, but if he has his way in a meeting with some fellow players and general managers in a few weeks, he'll be sure to have a significant influence on the game for many years after he's gone.

What am I talking about? This morning, the NHL and NHLPA announced the formation of the Goalie Equipment Working Group, a body consisting of five players and four general managers. According to a statement from the NHLPA, the group will "examine the configuration and dimensions of goaltender equipment with respect to safety and performance."

"If the working group decides alterations to the rules governing goaltender equipment are warranted, and will not jeopardize the safety of the goalies, these recommendations will be forwarded to the Competition Committee for consideration," the statement said.

In other words, if there's any way this group can figure out a way to shrink the equipment in order to increase goal scoring without jeopardizing the life and health of goaltenders, they'll do it. Then again, taking a look at the members of the group, my guess is we won't be seeing any dramatic changes after that June 11 meeting.

When I was reading the Bill Simmons column earlier this week about his casual bandwagon hockey habit, I couldn't help but pick up on the fact that he waved poetic over the fact that you could hop onto YouTube anytime to watch the classic battles between Clark Gillies of the New York Islanders and Terry O'Reilly of the Boston Bruins that took place during a Stanley Cup Playoffs Quarterfinal series between their two teams in 1980.

And indeed, you can find those fights -- all four of them in fact. But after I did some more poking around, I found a battle that had some historical significance -- a piece of video that would seem to have recorded the first NHL fight between O'Reilly and the man who for a time would become known as the most brutal in hockey, Dave Schultz of the Philadelphia Flyers. Click here (embedding disabled by user) to watch it.

After watching the clip, I'd have to conclude this is a Boston-area telecast, probably from WSBK-TV, the station that carried the Bruins back in those days before sports cable giants like NESN, YES and MASN strode the earth. Given that the play-by-play team say that this was the first time the two fought in the NHL, though they had tangled previously in the AHL, I'm guessing the clip is vintage 1972-73.

The previous season, where the two supposedly fought earlier, O'Reilly compiled a modest 134 penalty minutes playing for the Boston Braves. Meanwhile, Schultz piled up 392 PIMs for the Richmond Robins. I think it's safe to say he knew by then what he needed to do to get to the NHL.

Oddly enough, even though I was raised on Long Island, O'Reilly was the one player who I admired the most. Watching and playing the game as a young kid, there just didn't seem to be anybody else on the ice who played with more hustle, desire and bravery than O'Reilly did. That's probably why his name hangs from the rafters beside a number of men who either won Stanley Cups or have a bust in the Hockey Hall of Fame -- honors O'Reilly never earned himself.

Instead, he just stepped onto NHL ice 891 times in his career and honored the game every time. Thanks, Terry.

As you may know, I'm an avid New York Islanders fan. I also have an avid east-coast bias. Journalistic integrity be damned, at least I'm being honest with you, right? So while the Islanders are setting up tee times for Saturday after they finish up another lackluster season against their cross-town rivals on Friday, I will still be thinking about hockey. And in doing so I have been faced with a rather large dilemma. You see, after the Islanders gained a point against the Devils tonight in an overtime loss, there are now issues at hand that are larger than tee times and putting greens. With 77 points, the Islanders are currently looking at having the 5th most lottery balls in the bucket for the draft lottery. That's a nice spot and with some losses and a little help from St. Louis that position could improve to 4th. With two more games to play, it's also possible that they could win and fall to 7th behind Columbus and Phoenix. But, you see, life is funny. It turns out that those finals two games both happen to be against the arch-rival New York Rangers. The scheduling gods sure had some fun with this one.

I think you can see the dilemma here. I can take the blue pill or the red pill. Take the blue pill, and I root the Islanders to two wins against the Rangers, and with some losses from Columbus and Phoenix they move into the 7th lottery spot. This is completely possible given that the Islanders are 4-2-0 against their rivals this season, an 8-3-2 mark when combined with last season's record. The other option is that I take the red pill and watch the Islanders lose twice in regulation on their way to 5th and potentially 4th on the lottery list. Meanwhile, I would be committing the cardinal sin of sport by rooting against my team when they face their most hated of hockey teams.

Do I root for the Isles to beat their rivals or should I ask the heavens for a better draft position?

Just 10 months ago, Rick '15 Years!' DiPietro, the 'savior' goaltender of the New York Islanders franchise, had to undergo major hip surgery on his left side. This prompted me to comment, "Any time you sign a player to a long-term contract, a major injury is a big worry. When that player is your #1 goalie and you signed him to the most insane deal ever, you have to hope this hip problem doesn't become a constant thorn in Ricky's side. Hip problems doesn't always just go away, as any senior citizen will tell you."

You would hope a major surgery would clear away the problems, but now DiPietro will have to face another surgery on his other hip, and the problems for their prized goalie continue to mount.

I guess it is no coincidence that DiPietro's play regressed quite a lot this season, as he dropped from 91.9% to 90.2% in the save percentage department. Rick tweaked his hip at the All-Star break, and never seemed to be in the fine form that he showed in his breakout campaign. The Isles, in the meantime, lost any hope at making the playoffs as their #1 goaltender looked about as good as Dan Cloutier handling a Nick Lidstrom shot.

Two hip injuries, some nasty concussions ... and the Isles still have over a decade left on this guy's contract. While DiPietro was perfectly healthy when he signed that massive deal, it just goes to show that any player can break down like an American-made car once they actually go on a road trip or two.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

BREAKING NEWS! SPINNING RED SIREN! MUST CREDIT FANHOUSE!



OK, so by now everyone has either heard about or seen Islanders defenseman Rob Davison's 190-or-so-foot goal that bounced past Leafs goalie Vesa Toskala -- a gaffe so egregious that it may have actually let Bryan McCabe off the hook for his own goof earlier this season. This shorthanded embarrassment was one of the most quickly YouTube'd hockey highlights in recent memory; perhaps because it involved the Leafs, or perhaps because this type of thing is just so improbable on so many levels. But Toskala laughed it off after his team's 3-1 win over New York, and for good reason: Unlike the Islanders, Toronto still finds itself in an increasingly muddled playoff picture.

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Puck Headlines, Photo of the Day, Tonight's Must-See Games and video of a solid brawl between Columbus and Calgary.)

Back in December, we brought you the Soap Opera story of Isles' draftee Kyle Okposo (no relation to mythical monster, Ogopogo), and the love triangle he was caught in with Isles' GM Garth Show and University of Minnesota coach Don Lucia.

Boy, was it nasty! Snow claimed Lucia was a poor coach that was stifling Okposo's development and turning him into a pumpkin, while Lucia countered that the Isles were far too short-sighted to realize that the University of Minnesota does not work for the New York Islanders' farm system.

Well, the story died down as Okposo went to toil in the minors. After playing quite well, with 24 points in 29 games, and the Isles realistically out of playoff contention, Okposo is finally set to make his NHL debut. Let's see what all the hype is about!

"I didn't know when the call would come," Okposo said in a statement released yesterday by the team, "but now that it has, the excitement is off the charts. I just want to have a good practice and then I'll start thinking about playing a big game against the Maple Leafs in front of our fans. It's up to me to make the most of the opportunity."

From reports at Newyorkislanders.com, Okposo was practicing on a line with Blake Comeau and Richard Park. That's a lot of speed, and should be fun to watch.

This week in Buys and Sells, we're going to take a look at one of the big issues of the week -- playing hockey at Yankee Stadium. It's a special one topic edition! Remember, if you collect four Buys and Sells UPC codes and mail them in, you'll receive your choice of either a Eric McErlain or Greg Wyshynski signed bobblehead figurine.* Jes Golbez and other NHL FanHousers sold separately.

Strong sell: Baseball traditionalists trashing on a hockey game at Yankee stadium. Get over it. This is a sport so heaped in "tradition" and the "how we've always done things" kind of attitude that it's sickening. I love the sport. I like baseball games, baseball writers, baseball players and fans. They're a great bunch. But when it comes to tradition and baseball, that's where I draw the line because most of them are completely ridiculous. Did you know one of the most brilliant marketing/ticket selling ideas of our time -- I'm talking of course about interleague play -- took nearly 90 years to implement because it was seen as too radical. Brought up first by Bill Veeck Sr. in 1909, it wasn't until 1997 that it was put into action. And for those worried about the sanctity of Yankee Stadium, you know, that it might be a mockery to play another sport there, let's not forget that it used to host soccer and football games back in the day. And after so many renovations -- enough so it that the Yankees played two seasons in Shea -- it's about as close to the real Yankee Stadium as Michael Jackson is to the kid who sang "ABC". /end rant

It's been a while since we've had a caption contest, so I thought I'd trot out this shot that Stevonidas from HF Boards dug up -- one that's sure to be a classic once this crew gets through with it.

UNIONDALE, NY - MARCH 02: Craig Anderson #31 of the Florida Panthers during a break in his game against the New York Islanders at the Nassau Coliseum March 2, 2008 in Uniondale, New York.

Safe to say, Anderson wasn't terribly distracted, as he came away with a shutout in Florida's 1-0 win. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that's the most shots taken in a shutout by a losing team since the league started recording shots on goal in 1955.

Come on, this ought to be a layup for this crowd.

After the jump, we discover that this isn't the first time Mr. Anderson has been distracted as such.

Just when you thought Alexei Yashin was gone forever, the New York Times had to go out of its way to find him.

The reason: Reporter Michael Schwirtz followed Yashin and his ex-supermodel wife, Carol Alt, for a couple of days on the circuit around the Russian Super League. The ex-Islander is on a one-year contract with Lokomotiv, this after the Islanders bought him out of his massive contract at the end of last season.

So what's Schwirtz's angle? Essentially, that after years of yearning to play in the NHL, more and more quality Russian players are opting stay home and play in the RSL.

But is it really happening? Not exactly. Sure, Yashin is a big name, but he was one sent packing with his tail between his legs after an embarrassing end to his tenure to New York. And the other big names he mentions, Darius Kasparaitis, Oleg Tverdovsy and Oleg Petrov, aren't exactly the sort of players you'd see on an All-Star roster with any regularity anymore.

The real story, however, is one that Schwirtz buries deep in the article and has been covered elsewhere in North America beginning a couple of weeks ago: Namely, that the folks behind the Russian Super League, in concert with the Russian Hockey Federation and some folks who control the purse strings at energy giant Gazprom, want to create a Pan European Super League.