By ERIC DUHATSCHEK, Toronto Globe and Mail

Wayne Gretzky played for Canada during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano and then managed the men's hockey team for each of the next two Olympics -- Salt Lake City in 2002 and Turin in 2006.

So there it is. Another year passes and once again, no Canadian-based NHL team enters the winner's circle.
This marks the first full decade (2000-09) since the NHL was formed in 1917 that a Canadian team won't have won the championship.

Ah, the first round of the NHL playoffs, a time when hope springs eternal; when Cinderella is still prepping for the ball, with midnight many hours away.

Some 29 general managers took the temperature of the NHL Wednesday, forecast rainy days ahead and decided to chart a slow and cautious course at the 2009 trade deadline.
Only one decided to roll the dice. That would be the Calgary Flames' Darryl Sutter, and who really was surprised?

Only three weeks to go until the National Hockey League trade deadline and usually by now somebody has made a move.

On that July 2 date, when Sean Avery signed a four-year, $15.5-million contract with the Dallas Stars, he probably gave just a cursory glance at the 11-page document in front of him -- the NHL's standard players' contract (SPC).

Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland has a theory about the NHL playoff race that makes a lot of sense. He believes that after Thanksgiving weekend, NHL teams move in a pack.
If they were good early, chances are they'll be good the rest of the way, or at least good enough to make the playoffs.

No one has been able to make the NHL All-Star Game a meaningful exercise for going on two decades now, no matter how much they tweaked and adjusted and tried to convince you that the light-hearted shinny they play bears even a reasonable facsimile to the way the game is played, night-after-night, through a grueling 1,230-game regular season.

CALGARY -- So naturally, your first thought is, what could they possibly be thinking?