The TSA is rolling out its latest tool in the ongoing effort to make airport security more time consuming and increasingly pervy: Scanners that see through clothing. Hmm. Sounds suspiciously like those old X-Ray Spex that used to be advertised in the back of Richie Rich comics, along with onion-flavored prank gum and sea monkeys.

Will those noble souls who operate the scanners be able to see their subject's junk? In a word, yes. But, the TSA cautions in a press release, the "passengers face will be blurred." Phew. All of this raises the inevitable question of whether there will now be a rash of "hotness profiling" at airports across this great nation.

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I've long pondered the reasons why hockey is relegated to a lowly position as America's fourth sport (in terms of fan interest, media coverage and player salaries), behind football, basketball and baseball. Part of this lies with the fact that if you didn't grow up with the sport, it's "hard" to grasp as an adult. Too much speed, too small an object to try to follow with the naked eye, too many European names. It doesn't draw a huge fan base, so the money just doesn't follow.

But for those of us who come from an Original Six town, where hockey is a lifeblood and where pond versions of the sport formed an integral part of our wintertime activities, there is no better spectacle of sport than the Stanley Cup finals, especially when your team wins. So we take a moment here to hail the Detroit Red Wings, who captured their fourth Cup in eleven years. If ever there was a broken down city that needed the civic boost that comes with a world championship, it is present day Detroit.

Bless you, boys.

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