"I put my pants on just like the rest of you, one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I win gold medals!"

The reason I'm moronically quoting the famous "More Cowbell" SNL skit is that the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics tonight feature a whole stadium full of cowbell!

There will be dancers dressed like cows, but there's no word on whether medals will be awarded for determining that their milk tastes like the cow got in an onion patch.

I don't follow hockey very closely, but I'm very interested in this brewing gambling scandal. I think it's bigger than hockey. I think it could really damage the sport, and this is a sport that's struggling to get noticed at all in the United States.

In short, New Jersey authorities have charged a Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach, Rick Tocchet, with running a huge gambling organization. That means, allegedly, that he was bankrolling this multi-million dollar operation, which just amazes me. There are also allegations of ties to organized crime. There's no indication so far that any hockey folks gambled on hockey games -- so far we're just talking about a lot of football bets. Tocchet has been "granted" a leave of absence, but the speculation is he'll never work in hockey again. He's tainted goods now.

Now, where it gets really interesting is the suspicion over how many NHL figures were involved. The Coyotes' head coach (and co-owner) is The Great One, Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky is, for most Americans, the very image of hockey, and is a national hero in Canada. Gretzky is married to actress Janet Jones. Investigators say Jones bet hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few weeks! Gretzky has emphatically denied that he was involved at all, or that his wife placed bets for him. However, investigators claim to have recordings form wiretaps of Gretzky discussing his wife's involvement in the gambling ring. In addition to the alleged involvement of Gretzky's wife and assistant coach, Gretzky's former agent, current Coyotes General Manager Mike Barnett, allegedly bet on the Super Bowl through Tocchet. So this mess is swirling around Gretzky just as Team Canada, with Gretzky as executive director, heads to the Olympics in Turin.

And now here come the lawyers. The NHL has hired former federal prosecutor Robert Cleary to head its investigation. Cleary prosecuted the Unabomber case. I take this as a sign that the League is going to come down hard on anyone involved. The NHLPA, the players' union, advised its members to talk to a lawyer before they meet with any League or police investigators. I take this as a sign that the union is very worried. Apparently, several players are suspected of betting through Tocchet. No one knows how many or how much money, but some commentators are already saying that "every player on every team around the league is suspect" until those involved step forward.

So what is the big deal? Well, to spell it out, the main concern is that players or coaches will wager enough money that they become susceptible to blackmail from bookies, and either through those inducements or their own desperation, could shave points or throw games. Fans have to trust that the game is on the level.

On the other hand, isn't one big reason that fans have to be able to believe in the fairness of the competition that they're going to be wagering on it? Tens of millions of dollars were wagered legally on the Super Bowl last week, not to mention the many more millions gambled off the books. If fans suspected the game was rigged, they wouldn't bet on it.

So are fans hypocrites if they condemn players for gambling on other sports? If they had the kind of disposable income and competitive drive pro athletes do, they'd probably throw away a wad at the casinos or horse tracks, too. But with all the perks of being a professional athlete comes the burden of not being able to gamble. They just shouldn't do it, because they work in a setting where gambling -- even legal gambling -- gives off that "appearance of impropriety" that leaves fans wondering if they're getting a square deal.

Whither Gretzky? If Gretzky is involved in a gambling ring -- and that includes knowledge that players and coaches were gambling amongst each other -- and if the NHL is serious about cleaning house, the League would have to, at a minimum, give the Great One a long suspension. Even if he kept his ownership stake in the Coyotes, he would probably never coach again. If he bet on hockey, the League would have to ban him. And that could ruin hockey in the U.S.

Banning Gretzky would be more significant than baseball's banishment of Pete Rose. As great as Rose's statistics were, and as famous as Rose was, his stature in the game was miniscule compared to Gretzky's in hockey. The best analogy I can muster is to imagine Babe Ruth being kicked out of baseball in the 1930s. I know casual fans aren't tuning in to see Gretzky behind the Coyotes' bench. But if Gretzky were forced out of the game, it would signify to casual American fans that finally, ultimately, pro hockey is a lost cause. The NHL's footing is ultra-tenuous anyway, after the lockout cancelled the whole 2004-05 season. Hockey was barely in the public consciousness at all, and if the only buzz it can generate is a gambling scandal, it will eventually rate lower than pro bass fishing in the sports world.

I should stress that this is all speculation. Nothing has been proven; Tocchet hasn't even been arraigned yet, much less tried and convicted. I'm just ruminating on the worst-case scenarios. My point is simply that the worst-case scenario here (a) isn't terribly implausible, and (b) is pretty darn awful for hockey.

I'll be following this gambling story closely (although not necessarily blogging much about it). Even though E. McPan probably thinks I'm a hockey blashpemer, I enjoy watching playoff hockey and I think young stars like Alexander Ovechkin have the potential to bring hockey back to the level of popularity it enjoyed when Gretzky was lighting up the league in the '80s. But that's not going to happen if this gambling scandal drags on for months and turns out to be as widespread as some fear.

And that's what's the most wrong about all this: Even if Tocchet or others didn't bet on hockey games, they did something worse. They gambled with hockey's future, and right now it looks like a losing bet.

A few scattered random thoughts. None are really worthy of a whole post, but they appear to be clogging the ole brainworks, so I'm going to spill them out here.

1. Prof. Yin discusses a film mention of a building he knows, and how it differs from real life. My favorite example of something like this is the "Georgetown" Metro station in No Way Out.

Prof. Yin also mentions the security at a fictional federal courthouse. I don't want to provide anyone the blueprints for evildoings, but the after-hours security at my clerkship courthouse was pretty light. There were alarms and cameras, but certainly not a phalanx of Marshals. (At least not visible.) So Jack Bauer wouldn't have any trouble getting in.

2. Centinel has a strong return to blogging, discussing the Muhammad cartoon mess. I don't agree with all of it, but that's my typical reaction to his posts. My thought on the Iranian paper seeking Holocaust cartoons is this. If Western papers refuse to run the cartoons, the Iranians get to call us hypocrites. But if Western papers do run the cartoons, not only will they offend Jews and others who find the Holocaust distasteful (something I think we shouldn't do gratuitously), but the Iranians will just say, "See -- the West hates the Jews, too!" Beautiful.

3. Sherry gives the Devil his due.

4. Prof. Berman mentions the new Circuit Justice assignments and the death penalty stays issue. Once again, I get no credit for my post discussing this seven months ago (where I correctly predicted the new assignments even before any new Justices were nominated!), nor for my post last week noting the new assignments. Not that I'm just in this for the publicity, of course....

5. I was thinking about the Rolling Stones after their performance during the Super Bowl halftime show. I think we all knew they would play "Start Me Up." I doubt you could even get odds on it in Vegas, it was such a sucker bet. And Chuck Klosterman nailed it when he predicted

The Stones will perform three songs in 12 minutes on Sunday, and the NFL is being predictably tight-lipped about what those songs will be. In an alternative utopia governed by aristocratic griffons, these songs will be "Star Star," "Sister Morphine," and "Jigsaw Puzzle." In the reality in which we currently inhabit, these songs will probably be "Start Me Up," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," and the second single off a 2005 album that nobody bought ["Rough Justice"].

I guess I'm ok with the songs they played, although I think "Start Me Up" and "Satisfaction" are two of the most overplayed songs, ever, from any artist. So I would have liked to have heard something a little different. Most of their very best songs would have been too long or too ballady for the show. And I doubt the NFL would have wanted to hear "Street Fighting Man" or "Brown Sugar" or "Gimme Shelter." But they could have done something like "Tumbling Dice" or "You Got Me Rocking" or "Honky Tonk Women" or several others that I think would have been good in that setting. Actually, given the fuss over not having a Motown singer at halftime, maybe the Stones should have done their very good cover of "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." Of course, that might have been a little too direct a commentary on how much white rock-n-rollers stole from black blues/r&b/soul singers.

6. There's a good post at Concurring Opinions (and follow the link to a good post at Workplace Prof Blog) about teaching "sensitive" cases in law schools. These posts are mostly about sexual harrassment cases and rape cases, but they remind me of a Torts story. (I'm relying on my perhaps-faulty memory, but here's the gist.)

My Legal Ethics professor was involved in a Torts listserve, and the hot topic was a professor at a nearby school. He was teaching the law of battery. Battery is defined as an unconsented touching. So the professor walked up to a young woman near the front of the class and asked, "May I touch you?" She said no, whereupon the professor placed his hand on her shoulder. He didn't do it forcefully, and it didn't cause her physical pain, but it was literally an unconsented touching -- exactly the point he was trying to make. But it turned out that the student had a history of abuse and (much more painful) battery in her life, and was considerably distressed by the professor's action. She was especially upset because of his position of authority over her, and his towering over her in the classroom when he touched her -- it made her re-live her terrible ordeal at the hands of a towering authority figure. It's a really sad story, and a tough spot for everyone involved. The professor didn't mean any harm, but he couldn't commit a battery if the person had granted permission for him to touch. And his whole point was that even a minor, relatively innocuous touching could meet the legal definition of battery. But in the end, everyone got a pretty good lesson in the eggshell skull rule, too!

7. Finally for now, I'm currently using three different toothpastes, depending on what time of day I brush my teeth. Long story. Anyway, one of them is called "Prevident," and every time I use it, I think of John Mellencamp's song "Pink Houses" if Johnny Cougar had sung it with a speech impediment: "Boy, you're gonna be Prevident." So now I have that song in my head all the time. Maybe I should switch to Paul Simon's Loves Me Like a Rock: "If I was the Prevident/ And the Congress called my name...." And I guess there's Randy Newman's "Mr. Prevident (Have Pity on the Working Man)." Hm. I need more President songs. Or less toothpaste.

I've made my broadcast debut. That's right: From now on, you can call me "Milbarge, Radio God."

I turned on my radio, and the local sports talk radio guy was just starting his show. Even though this city isn't home to a Duke rival, the host started the show with a rant about how Duke's men's basketball team gets all the calls, the refs are biased, etc etc. For some reason, I decided, Screw it, I'm going to call in and sound off. I had the number handy because I called a couple of weeks ago trying to win a trivia contest. That time, the lines were so busy I couldn't get through, but this time they picked right up: "ESPN Radio?" I gave the guy the nugget: "Hi, I'm a Duke fan, and I'd like to talk about this foul situation." They put me on hold, but I felt optimistic about my chances of getting on the air, since they love to have people call in who disagree with the host. It makes good radio.

Most live radio shows have a brief delay, which is why hosts often have to tell callers to turn down their radios -- callers will get confused hearing everything repeated a few seconds later, in stereo. So I had turned mine down already, and was pleased when they started piping the show into the phone, so I could hear the rest of the host's intro. He finally got off the Duke rant, and went through an outline of the day's topics. And then he said, "Let's take a call from Milbarge!"

There was a subtle change in the sound quality in my ear, and I was on the air. I won't get into it all here, but I refuted his points about Duke "getting all the calls." (You can find a lengthy post on the subject here.) We had a bit of back-and-forth, and he said I made some good points. We probably talked about two minutes, which is long for shows like this. At the end of the call, he said, "Come on down to [the sports bar where they do the show] and see us sometime!" He was probably just plugging his host venue, but of course, he could have been trying to lure me down there to get pummeled by Duke-haters. No one's going to give me my own radio show, but I think I did better than a lot of the nimrods I hear calling in to the show.

I felt like I acquitted myself well, and defended the alma mater (and was the only pro-Duke caller they took). But it didn't seem to phase the host. He ranted about Duke a few more times during the show, to the point where he started getting calls complaining about the Duke focus in this non-Duke city. That was kind of exasperating, but I wasn't going to call back. I had fun, but I don't think I'm going to make a habit of it. First, I don't want them to think of me as "that Duke jerk," and second, I don't want my boss to walk in one day while I'm chattering about free-throw statistics or something.

I'll save the heavy basketball wonkery until March. As of now, and depending on how busy I am, I plan to TourneyBlog again (scroll down for more). If anyone wants to join me in that endeavor, let me know.

Also, a technical aside: If I have two computer monitors, how complex would it be to plug both in to the same computer to be able to watch two games at once? Would that require any special software or installation? Thanks for any help you can offer!

*Alternate post title is "Radio Goo-Goo, Radio Ga-Ga," from the Queen song, one that's totally appropriate for the level of discourse on most sports talk radio shows.

A few interesting items relating to the legal community in New Orleans trying to get back to semi-normal.

1. A series of articles in the latest "ABA Journal" giving some overview.

2. This article in the New York Times about people appealing the building inspector's determination of how damaged their houses are. If the damage assessment is more than 50%, they have to rebuild it flood-proof. Surprise: most of the buildings are more than 50% damaged, yet most of appeals lead to reductions, allowing people to rebuild without making them flood-proof. Why do I think this is going to end badly? (Thanks to PG for the link.)

3. And this article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune about all the evidence that was destroyed or washed away in the floods. That includes evidence to be used in criminal trials, meaning a lot of guilty people will probably never be tried, as well as evidence that might have exonerated innocent people, if they could have gotten new DNA tests.

Good luck to everyone who's still trying to straighten things out in New Orleans. I have a feeling we'll be hearing stories like this for a long time.

Oh, and don't forget Mississippi, too. Its Gulf Coast was devastated as well. Some residents felt snubbed that President Bush didn't mention Mississippi in his State of the Union address. Here's some info on how to get your tax information from Mississippi casinos. I don't mean to make light of the situation in Mississippi. But maybe one reason we're not hearing as much about it is that Mississippians have been going about their cleanup more quietly. Here's some coverage of Governor Haley Barbour's State of the State address.