The Detroit Lions took Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford with the No. 1 pick in the draft Saturday. Detroit already had signed Stafford to a six-year deal with $41.7 million in guarantees and a maximum value of $78 million.  For that amount of money Detroit expects Stafford to turn around the fortunes of the Lions as well as GM and Chrysler.

IN BID TO REVERSE HOCKEY FORTUNES, CANADA DEVALUES LOONIE

OTTAWA, Ontario.  It has been thirteen years since a Canadian hockey team won the Stanley Cup.  In the last ten years, Canada has been the International Ice Hockey Federation champion only three times.  Canadian youngsters who once would proudly display gaps in their teeth caused by blows to the mouth from flying pucks are abandoning hockey for fencing, macrame and stamp collecting.

Canadian youth stamp collectors:  It's not just for dweebs anymore.

Mulroney:  "Why the puck shouldn't we?"

Faced with a national crisis of identity that threatened to bring down his government, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney today announced that he was taking the drastic but necessary measure of devaluing the nation's currency against those of other hockey-playing countries.

"This is what we call a cross-Czech!"

"We cannot stand idly by while a nation with a 'z' in it like the Czech Republic surpasses us in the hockey arms race," Mulroney said.  "Devaluation is a strategy that worked for us in tennis, where the rules of Canadian Doubles permit us to have an extra player on our side of the net."

"Two against one isn't fair!"

The Canadian dollar is currently exchangeable into just 89 cents in American money, causing Canadian forwards to come up short when compared to other National Hockey League players.  "I had an odd-man rush against Tim Thomas of the Bruins last week," said Montreal Canadian forward Aaron Downey, "but at current exchange rates that dropped to a one-on-one and he stoned me."

"I'm telling you, Canadian pennies aren't worth bending over for."

The Montreal Canadians are also known as "les Habs", a shortened version of the team's original name, "Les Habitants de Montreal", which is French for "people who live in Montreal".  This monicker was voted the most boring sports nickname of all time in a 2005 on-line poll by ESPN.

Canadian loon.

The Canadian dollar is also referred to as the "loonie", after the Canadian loon.  A member of the Unification Church is referred to as a "Moonie" after the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, its founder. 

Rev. Sun Myung Moon:  A different kind of loonie.

When a reporter pointed out that in order to correct Canada's current hockey imbalance the country should technically revalue the loonie higher, rather than devaluing its currency, Mulroney was undeterred.  "Higher, lower, whatever," he replied with an impatient tone.  "If we screw up, we will get it right the second time."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman