Memo to all reporters covering the NHL: the logo police are back, and the Pittsburgh Penguins are enforcing the letter of the law. John Shipley of the St. Paul Pioneer Press explains:

So I'm in the Penguins locker room, which is about the size of a port-a-potty, and get chastised for stepping on the logo in the carpet.

Some equipment guy or PR flak comes up to me and says, "Can you please not step on the Penguin?"

Well, if it's alive I'll try not to step on the penguin. Or was some symbol representing something more important than a sports team.

I ran afoul of the logo police in the Washington Capitals locker room after their very last home game of the 2006-07 regular season. With the team soon to scatter to the four winds, some players obviously never to return and President's Trophy winner Buffalo visiting, the room was a heck of a lot more crowded than normal -- at least for that year, which saw the Caps at the bottom of the standings yet again.

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I won’t pretend to know enough about the economy in Puerto Rico to say for certain that $10 is a lot of money down there, but based on the turnout at The O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off, I’m gonna guess it is. Either that, or Puerto Ricans really, really don’t care about college basketball. Note the empty seats from the floor to the rafters in the background here as Seton Hall celebrates its upset victory over No. 20 USC:

As Larry Brown Sports notes, the 10 bucks I speak of is all it would’ve required for a day pass yesterday, which included the Seton Hall-USC game along with three other match-ups. One of those other match-ups featured Virginia Tech, whose senior guard A.D. Vassallo is a Puerto Rico native and is blogging (sort of) throughout the tournament. His thoughts on yesterday’s game:

There weren’t that many people in the stands for our game, so it wasn’t easy for everyone to get energized. It was important for us to win, so we didn’t need a crowd to get pumped up.

I mean, what is everyone in Puerto Rico doing if they aren’t indoors watching hoops ... you know, aside from enjoying the island’s legalized gambling, perfect 85 degree climate and beautiful white sand, crystal-clear-water beaches?

The latest reports on the Al Harrington deal that we discussed here about an hour ago: It's Jamal Crawford for Harrington, not Malik Rose. That's kind of a shocker. Crawford's been especially potent for D'Antoni, arguably playing the best ball of his career and, after a rocky beginning, has really gotten it. But Harrington's deal expires in 2010, while Crawford's on the books til 2011. The Knicks cap situation is a mess because they're so far over; however, this can finally free up the max money they need to do ... well, you know what they'd like to do. Bottom line: This deal is about the future, not this season.

As for the Warriors, who knows what this means for them. I guess between Crawford and Monta (once he's back) you have one total point guard. Or, to look at it another way, a guard rotation of Monta, Crawford, and upstart Anthony Morrow is potent and allows C.J. Miles to return to the bench. This being Don Nelson, though, it's anyone's guess what will happen. One thing's for sure: If these two offensive gurus have any sort of super-secret bet over whose team will lead the league in scoring, Golden State just pulled way, way ahead.

Appreciate Miami fans for what they are: college football's gleefully tasteless and charity-free barbarians. They admit no defeat, as exemplified by the Miami fan who, down by 21 last night, very seriously bellowed into the air "That's all right, we've got 'em right where we want 'em!" They address anyone and everyone around them in opposing teams' colors in an ... overly familiar fashion. ("Hey, Tech fan. Your white out sucks. You're gonna die.") They shave the "U" logo into their back hair and have been known to get creative with dying other body hair, too.

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I'd actually forgotten that Al Harrington was still a Warrior, seeing as Corey Maggette is currently starting at power forward there. It's getting pretty Colonel Kurtz up in the Oracle, if you hadn't heard. But apparently he's just hurt, and is set -- maybe even before you finish this sentence -- to finally be headed to the Knicks.

From the New York Post:

Donnie Walsh is set to pull the trigger on his first substantive move as Knicks New York Knicks president, The New York Post has learned.

Knicks sources said a deal for Al Harrington was to go through late yesterday, but was delayed until today. A league conference call is scheduled for this morning that would bring the disgruntled Warriors forward to the Knicks, presumably for Malik Rose.

Malik Rose doesn't really seem like a Don Nelson kind of guy, especially since they just signed Rony Turiaf and are into playing youngster Brandan Wright. So maybe he's just there to spread his excellent cheese steak franchise to the West Coast. I can only hope that Nellie hasn't suddenly been hit with a rare form of oxygen deprivation that makes a man's brain normal again, because I'm enjoying Golden State way too much.

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