By GENE COLLIER, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Through six breathtaking laps of its hairpin turns, cliff-tracing curves, and capacious potholes deep enough to swallow nine months of earnest hockey in a single gulp, the bedrock of this so-called road to the Stanley Cup is still right there in your belief system.

Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma walked to the bench before Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals Thursday night on thin ice, literally, metaphorically, every which way but loose. He was wondering whether a couple of essential hockey elements that his Penguins were clearly capable of would ever turn up in real life again.

The first change of venue in the Stanley Cup final brought with it a complete inversion of the luck dynamic, and with it a virtually new series thanks largely to Max Talbot, who got the first and last goal of a stunningly unlikely 4-2 Pittsburgh Penguins victory to drag his team back to life.

Even randomly selected collections of empirical hockey evidence might strongly suggest that the Detroit Red Wings need zero help to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in this Stanley Cup final.
No Pavel Datsyuk?
No problem.
No Kris Draper?
No problem.
A 2-0 series lead constructed in fewer than 27 hours at a work site in downtown Detroit?

That the Pittsburgh Penguins will skate for Lord Stanley's Cup in consecutive seasons is a striking testament to their skill and heart and to talented people throughout their "organ-I-zation,'' and right now no one should doubt their championship credentials.
Go ahead, look 'em over.

Along 7th Street here Wednesday night, the young redheaded girl toted her white sack of fast food three hours before Game 7 of the Penguins-Capitals NHL playoff showdown. She mounted the first few marble steps of the National Portrait Gallery and sat down to eat 20 feet from where a man was offering professional palm readings.

First, don't strain anything while you're stretching to give Manny Ramirez the benefit of the doubt. It's simply not worth it.
He may not have tested positive for steroids, but the drug in question is reportedly a favorite of steroid-users trying to jump start their compromised testosterone engines, a common side effect of steroid cycling.

Even in the pre-game antics for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals Wednesday night, fans were still reminded for their own safety that pucks may be propelled into the spectator area, but the standard Mellon Arena sellout might have been more at ease had the Pittsburgh Penguins simply announced that no pucks could be propelled into the net behind Marc-Andre Fleury.

Gushers of architectural praise counterbalanced by all the appropriate populist blowback over the two new baseball stadiums in New York will likely consume most of the summer, but with the 2009 season now underway, you wonder sometimes how baseball will sustain itself at some point where it is not constantly demolishing its cathedrals and unveiling new theatres.
At least I do.

This second day of March, now just another manic Monday, looked destined to be a landmark date in baseball's sordid drug history, the date on which the trial of the game's most notorious slugger began in federal court in California.