IF THAT DON'T PUT THE PHILLY IN PHILISTINE...

In certain circles, PhotoShop is the 21st-century equivalent of drawing with crayons. Philadelphia Flyers fans seem to need many different shades of red to express themselves.

Flyers enforcer Riley Cote's MySpace page includes more than a known Hells Angel among his top friends, as the Winnipeg Sun reported today.

First things first: Isn't it shocking? Whoever would have thought that the Hells Angels would ever risk their good name by associating with a member of the Philadelphia Flyers?

Cote's page also includes a veritable Guggenheim of, uh, outsider art from Cote's fans and admirers. It seems to have a strong feeling of trashing Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby and the female gender, I guess. (Art criticism is not a forte -- it might have been on the high school curriculum, but more likely than not it conflicted with the never realized goal of having the perfect schedule -- gym, spare, lunch, gym and English.)

Hey, it's the playoffs. Anything goes, right? No one is judging. It's touching, in a way, that a percentage of the population will root for Riley Cote -- whose next shift in the Stanley Cup playoffs will be his first -- and resent Sidney Crosby. Sorry, but resenting Crosby means admiring a real NHL player.

Crosby is a woman, ergo, a lower form of human being. Wow. That kind of enlightened thinking will get you nowh... actually, it probably gets you a six-figure job in Molson's ad department, judging by their latest commercials.

This would have come to light much sooner if anyone you actually have respect for was still on MySpace, of course.

(Another bit of Crosby-related reading comes from Slate, where Patrick Stack explains why hyping The Kid won't bring the NHL any new fans. The NHL, lacking in the original thinking department, seems bound and determined to stick to a marketing strategy that the NBA ditched about a decade ago -- hype the individual stars, even though hockey is a sport where it's impossible for one player to dominate.

It doesn't do much for making people commit to the sport in the long run. It might bring in casual viewership, for a while, but no more.