from Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post,

On a sun-kissed summer morning in 2005, when golf bowed to the greatness of Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus played the final rounds of his storied career at a major tournament on the fabled Old Course of St. Andrews, I stood near the No. 4 tee box, watching the top ball-strikers on the planet try to take exploit a healthy wind out of the south and drive the green, 370 yards away.

“I’ve been waiting to do this for years,” declared the voice of a man who ambushed me without shame from behind, wrapping my chest in a big bear hug, expelling the air from my lungs.

With a hearty laugh, legendary hockey coach Scotty Bowman wrestled me to the ground, as startled golfers awaiting their turn to tee off spun around and gawked at the commotion.

The sound and fury of the storied Avalanche-Wings rivalry had rumbled all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Bowman had journeyed to the British Open in the role of an official scorer that he cherished. But the longtime Red Wings coach gleefully interrupted recording birdies and pars to knock an ink-stained journalistic wretch like me on my skinny butt.

“Scotty, I love you,” I declared after recovering my composure long enough to realize the identity of my mischievous assailant. “But could you please get off of me?”

We scrambled back to our feet before anybody on the course alerted security. Bowman brushed the dirt off my shirt as I grinned at a beloved foil from too many combative interviews to count. We hugged and simultaneously mouthed the same words: “What are you doing here? Good to see you!”

I miss the blood feud between the Avalanche and Red Wings. Don’t you?

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