Emptying the notebook, Day 1, Dallas-Detroit:

In a blue-collar town, there are blue-collar heroes and one of them is Joe Louis Arena building manager Al Sobotka, who made his name by twirling an octopus above his head in seasons past, just before puck drop, as a means of energizing the building. That tradition came to an end in the second round, after the NHL ruled that Sobotka sometimes sprayed the opposition – or more importantly, the ice surface – with bits of octopus gunk. The NHL apparently is relenting slightly, and will now allow Sobotka to do the traditional twirl in the Zamboni entrance, upon leaving the ice surface, where it can be shown on the Jumbotron. That would have the effect of restoring a tradition, without messing up the ice. It also means the linesmen – Pierre Racicot and Jean Morin (tonight's referees are Bill McCreary and Kevin Pollock) – won't have to get octopus goo on their hands before the game either …

If Stars' goaltender Marty Turco is at all nervous about returning to the scene of past struggles, he did a job good of concealing it Thursday morning. Turco held court for an extended period on the morning of the game, entertaining all by retelling a funny story from his rookie season, when he chased down and tackled a burglar that had broken into his garage and stolen some beer. Turco was mostly upset because he pilfered a cold one from the fridge, rather than helping himself to one of about 30 cases that were stacked in the garage, in anticipation of pouring some Christmas cheer for visitors. The tale surfaced publicly only because a small weekly community paper, the Lewisville Leader, picked it up off a suburban police blotter. From there, the two major dailies followed up the story, one of the first times Turco's larger-than-life personality bubbled to the surface.

“I hunted him down like Red October,” quipped Turco this morning, adding that he chased him, through the snow, in stocking feet before bringing him down with a tackled that would have made Deacon Jones proud …

Turco's Stars' teammate, Steve Ott, is from Windsor, Ont. and naturally, grew up as a Red Wings' fan. Ott, an agitator along the lines of Sean Avery, another ex-Detroiter, but it wasn't him, or the Grind Liners that he followed. It was Steve Yzerman.

“Being so close to Detroit and especially in their heyday, when they won three Cups there and became a very successful team, I was a huge fan,” said Ott. “All my friends are still Detroit Red Wings fans to this day, so it's quite the controversy. My buddies are cheering for us and them at the same time. They were just such a fun team to watch.”

Ott figured that even with no bad blood between the Wings and Stars, the emotions would get ramped up pretty quickly, noting: “The way we feel about Detroit is, they finished first, but we matched them pretty much all season long. We were just on their heels until a bad March. They've had our number for a few years now, but playoffs are a different brand of hockey. We have to show that it is.”

The Stars, incidentally, have a pair of slogans that they wear on their T-shirts. On the front is Lock It Down; on the back, it reads Think Pack. That's better than their opponents in the second round, the San Jose Sharks, who had the more hopeful ‘Why Not Us?' as their playoff slogan.

“Why Not Us?” repeated Ott. “Yeah, too bad, it's not you.”