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COPYRIGHT 2001 Sporting News Publishing Co.
Eric Lindros looks like a lumberjack. Thick, full beard, muscles bulging and showing how much he has been working out since doctors gave him the OK in November. But his visit to St. Louis to take a physical last week was just another in a long list of wasted moments leading to the March 13 trading deadline.
Lindros, who is up from 236 to 246 pounds with just 6 percent body fat, said after the physical that he could be ready to play in about a week--although the Blues' doctors were left unconvinced whether they could count on him to play one more game or for 10 years.
All that talent unfulfilled. All that skill unused. What a waste.
And for what? A principle?
Just like the principle that prompted Ottawa's Alexei Yashin to sit out all of the 1999-2000 season.
No principle is worth the waste of an elite talent in a game that is straggling to compete with the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball.
When I ask Lindros about his wasted season, he blames the Flyers. "There's going to be no trade when you ask for the house, the car, the dog, the cat and the fish, and then they want you to come over and clean the aquarium once a week," he says.
In truth, there's enough blame to go around.
This isn't about Lindros, Michael Peca, Yashin and Nikolai Khabibulin or the Flyers, Sabres, Senators or Coyotes. It's about Joe Fan, the...
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