BUSSCHE PARTY IN TURKEY POINT

On a day when Steve Yzerman retires and Chris Pronger gets traded, you have to hand it to a Pittsburgh Penguins enforcer for getting his name into the headlines, even when it's for all the wrong reasons.

Yours truly comes not to bury Ryan VandenBussche, who is currently in custody and facing five charges after a late-night run-in with the cops "outside a hotel in Turkey Point, Ont."

Ah, the Turkey Point Hotel, I know it well. It's an infamous meet-market mere metres from the shores of Lake Erie, 15 minutes out of Simcoe in Norfolk County. It's renowned all over southwestern Ontario for being a place where you can scope out the talent -- university-aged girls who are either local or the daughters of rich cottagers -- have a few beers and usually have ringside seats for the inevitable police takedowns at the end of the night.

In other words, pretty much all the trappings of last call in Any Small Town in post-colonial Canada -- but close to the water.

Believe you me, NHLers from that corner of Ontario know all about the fun that's to be had down at Turkey Point, especially on a summer long weekend. (Not saying which player it was, but on a drive along the waterfront a friend once pointed to a beach house and said cryptically that one player used to live there "in his bachelor days.")

According to the OPP, VandenBussche "apparently came to the rescue of a friend" who was being arrested, or in other words, stuck up for his buddy, just like he's done on the ice, lo, these many years.

Ultimately, let's not pick on VandenBussche, although you have to wonder what he was doing out, seeing as he and his wife have an one-year-old child and are expecting their second. This is the kind of the story that only gets in the news because it's a pro athlete is involved, and any athlete involved in a crime is treated as news these days, even when it's a fairly obscure 33-year-old journeyman hockey player whose NHL future is dodgy after after having cervical spine surgery in February. The only reason it's being commented on here is because yours truly interviewed VandenBussche a couple times for the Simcoe Reformer.

From the little I got to know of him, he seemed like a genuine down-to-earth guy, "easy-going and friendly" (as Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Dave Molinari told the Reformer) and hopefully there won't be any long-term embarrassment for him or his family or negative impact on his career.