Sand Controversy Threatens To Underwhelm Eastern Conference Finals

Something — be it sand, grit, or poisonous acid worms — was spilled in the hallway outside the visitor's locker room at the Bell Centre yesterday. The Flyers aren't crying sabotage; but we will!

Various sources, from an unnamed Flyer, to the excitable Pierre McGuire, to Philly's skate sharpener, said something was up early in the game yesterday afternoon. Some kind of granular substance was spilled in the only passageway from their dressing room to the ice. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to play beach hockey on ice skates, but sand is not good for skate blades.

Sure enough, Mike Richards had to leave the ice three times with skate problems, and Kimmo Timonen twice. A handful of other Flyers also missed shifts to get their skates re-sharpened.

So, some kind of conspiracy reaching the highest levels of the Molson family, to give the Habs an edge (pun definitely intended)? Or simply P.K. Subban sneaking over to the Flyers' locker room, sprinkling his bag of pixie dust as he went? We'd love for this to be a full-blown controversy, but sadly, it won't be until the actual players make a big deal about it. And they're not.

Peter Laviolette says, "I'm not familiar with the rumors, but we certainly had some skate issues."

Mike Richards says. "I'm not sure [what happened]. I didn't check the carpet for [sand]."

No! That's not how you start SandGate! You make a big stink about it, and your fans all bring bags of sand to game 5, and one of two of them throw it on the ice after a hat trick, and somehow this whole non-story becomes about how unruly Philly fans are. That's how hockey works!

Who spilled the sand? [Philly.com]