Maybe the headline should have read “Hockey Gods, er, Goddesses Lift ‘Hossa Curse’”? Nah! Too easy.

Readers of this blog no doubt know of my great love and admiration for Marian Hossa. I’ve believed for years he didn’t deserve all the crap he’s taken from Pittsburgh Penguins fans who somehow feel he jilted them (get over it, you had him for three months!) and Detroit Red Wings fans who derided him as nothing but a mercenary (maybe that’s true, but it was his right — right?). It’s us Atlanta Thrashers fans who could really make a case for being the jilted ones. The ones he up and left as soon as the gettin’ was good.

But I’ve never thought of him that way. As I talked about in a previous entry, Hossa gave Atlanta many good years — years he never asked for (please recall he signed a long-term deal with the Ottawa Senators and was traded the same day for Dany Heatley — after being denied a no-trade clause). While he was in Atlanta, he became a huge fan favorite and, in my observation, got a heck of a lot more love on many days than did the ultimate Thrasher Ilya Kovalchuk.

So with a tiny bit of sadness, I watched Hossa finally raise the Stanley Cup. I am happy for him. Short of some horrible misdeed, I will always cheer for him. I just wish, as I cheered him, he would still be wearing that glorious (!) Thrasher blue. Cheers Marian!

Photo: Marian Hossa by Getty Images.

Oh Chris! Yes, I mean the Chris of the Philadelphia Flyers: Pronger. I have to hand it to him for bringing the controversy to the Stanley Cup Finals. I love that in losing efforts he raced over to snap up the “winning” (er, losing?) puck after both games in Chicago, then claimed he threw them in the trash can “where they belong.” Total asshole thing to do? Maybe. But it’s also a dash of genius in a weird, twisted Dr. Evil kind of way.

Pronger has always known how to poke and prod and push his way onto the “hate” lists of opposing players on the ice. Now, here he goes doing the same thing skating off the ice — and I love it.

I am a firm believer that pretty much any press is good press. If this gets people talking about the NHL — great! If it fired up the Flyers for Game 3 (which they did win in overtime) — also great! If it got under the skin of the Blackhawks and caused them to lose focus — way to go Chris. The mind of an NHL agitator works in mysterious ways.

NHL players say Pronger is one of those guys you loathe — unless he’s on your team. Now he’s making off with pucks and infuriating certain members of the Blackhawks (hello Ben Eager!), going so far as to remark to the media (in regard to Eager’s eager interest in his puck-snatching ways) that “apparently, it got him upset. So I guess it worked, didn’t it? It’s too bad. I guess little things amuse little minds.”

Oh Chris! You are truly evil! With such a remark, you zing not just Eager, but all of us who find your unique brand of gamesmanship so amusing.

(No word yet on who grabbed the Game 3 puck.)

So gamesmanship or disgrace? We want to know what YOU think!

Photo: Chris Pronger by The Associated Press.