CALL INTERPOL: OUR STAR PLAYER'S BEEN KIDNAPPED BY PENGUINS

The Evgeni Malkin saga is now officially a full-blown international incident.

Malkin, the 20-year-old Pittsburgh Penguins draft pick whose play has drawn some comparisons to his his future boss, Mario Lemieux, went AWOL yesterday from his Russian Superleague team, Metallarg Magnitorsk, while at training camp in Finland, taking his passport and belongings, apparently en route to North America, the NHL and all the Playboy-esque pulchritude that's conjured up when you hear the words, "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."*

As you might expect, the Russians are being, well, fairly Russian about it. Metallurg's head honcho, Gennady Velichkin, told Reuters: "They all like to talk about democracy, the American way and then they shamelessly steal our best players. This is pure sports terrorism."

Or: "In soccer, a fee for a player of Malkin's calibre would be into tens of millions of dollars. He is a franchise player and we won't be satisfied with anything less."

He has a point, but with Russia's refusal to sign the year-old transfer deal between the NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation because it wants more money to let its players go, the NHL has to resort to some dirty pool to get what it wants. With the Penguins up for sale and a possible relocation, it wants Malkin skating alongside Sidney Crosby as soon as possible.

In a sense, this is great fun. This kind of James Bond international intrigue has a retro appeal, since most hockey fans probably assumed no one would have to resort to smuggling players to North America after the USSR went belly-up 15 years ago.

Of course, that was before some very wealthy people there got the idea that they could keep their best players in Mother Russia and build a league to rival the NHL. (Better you don't ask where some of that wealth came from.**)

Anyway, just to help it along, here's a solution: As compensation, Metallurg and the Russian Ice Hockey Federation can have whatever Sidney Crosby makes from his next commercial. It's only fair.

By the way, it's not necessarily the Penguins' doing. Maybe some rogue Winnipeggers with ties to the Return Of The Jets Campaign were vacationing in Finland, conned Malkin into flying back with them and are refusing to let him go until a NHL team is placed in the Manitoba capital. This has no basis in fact, of course, but considering how desperately some 'Peggers want the NHL back, it's actually not that far-fetched.

(* OK, so Pittsburgh, Pa., isn't exactly known for gorgeous women, but at least Malkin won't be making road trips there.)

(** Oil-and-gas exploration. What did you think I was referring to?)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.