It's not often that ice hockey is elevated to a Shakespearean stratum; the closest the NHL comes to that literally loftiness is the comedy of errors that are the Maple Leafs and the VERSUS studio show, which is typically much ado about nothing. But a few years ago - to the utter amazement and dismay of the dedicated puckheads within ear-shot - Rose Solari, senior editor emeritus of SportsFan Magazine, likened the lamentable Eric Lindros to Hamlet, the tragic prince in the Bard's most celebrated work. She later wrote about it in SFM:

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My heart sank as a hockey fan: I arrived for media day at the Washington Capitals' training camp and was faced with another NHL lockout. This time, it wasn't Gary Bettman and the owners sacrificing a season of hockey and the fans' goodwill for the sake of some heavier piggy banks; rather, the doors to the Capitals' offices were locked, with no one around to open them up. I was soon joined on the sidewalk of the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, Va. by someone just as eager to find a way inside the building: a 6-foot-2 Russian kid who has managed to score 198 points in his first 163 National Hockey League games.

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