Locker Room

A dream had carried the boys so far from home, some 5,000 miles across the ocean to a cramped and dingy apartment in Philadelphia: a hope that ice hockey could change their lives. Ivan Pravilov could fulfill that dream, they were told. He could take them from the daily grind of post-communist Ukraine to the gleaming ice of the NHL. He'd done it before. He'd done if for Andrei Zyuzin, who went on to play for six NHL teams. He'd done it for Konstantin Kalmikov, a third-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1996.

For more than a decade, the courts have said female sportswriters can do their jobs on an equal footing with male reporters, and they have been doing just that. But suddenly this well-established practice has raised an uproar. Three weeks ago, a female reporter said that several naked football players made sexual suggestions to her in the New England Patriots' locker room. What the players did, if her account is accurate, is not only repugnant and distasteful but also possibly unlawful, and probably will be identified as such by a special investigator assigned by the National Football League to look into it. The uproar itself - the they-don't-belong-there-anyway public reactions and the I'm-uncomfortable-with-women-around players' complaints - cannot be so easily sorted out, or neatly taken care of. If morality cannot be legislated, neither can people be forced to use common sense.

If the producers of NBC's Jan. 26 Super Bowl coverage have their way, the presidential tradition of phoning the winners in the locker room may go by the wayside. At least, what the network people consider an awkward moment on camera may not be televised. The alternative worked out with the White House is a live, pre-game interview between "Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw and the president, which would take the place of the congratulatory call. Supporting this questionable decision - obviously designed to hype NBC News - is executive producer Mike Weisman, who met with TV writers along with the network's team of sportscasters - Dick Enberg, Bob Costas and Merlin Olsen.

Montreal Canadiens winger Shayne Corson was suspended for six games, including five for entering the opposing team's dressing room, by the NHL yesterday. The suspension, which will cost Corson $66,406 in lost salary, stemmed from an incident last Saturday at Vancouver when the Canadiens left winger was sent off for an attempt to injure after high-sticking Canucks defenseman Ed Jovanovski. Corson later went to talk to Jovanovski in the Canucks' dressing room. While a news release issued by league disciplinarian Colin Campbell did not give a breakdown, Canadiens general manager Rejean Houle said he was told Corson got one game for high-sticking and five for going into the Canucks' locker room.

A Philadelphia woman who worked as a custodian at the Abraham & Straus department store in Willow Grove yesterday filed suit contending that store employees secretly videotaped her as she undressed, "for the purposes of entertainment, titillation and humiliation. " The suit, filed in Montgomery County Court by Sandra M. Ellis of North Eighth Street, alleges that a hidden security camera was used to make the tapes in the employee locker room between June 1983 and April 1985, the time she worked at the store.

Outside the world of sports, the question of women reporters being barred from the locker room after the ballgame is hardly earthshaking. Nevertheless, feminists and others concerned with equal rights have raised it as a significant challenge to women's equality. I think it is significant for another reason: as an example of how ideological taboos have made common sense discussions of discrimination impossible. The case of Lisa Olson, sportswriter, is well rehearsed. While she was trying to conduct a locker-room interview, several naked New England Patriots allegedly subjected her to lewd gestures and sexual innuendo.

We've been trying to come up with some kind of new thinking on the recurrent problem of female journalists in male locker rooms, and, frankly, the only thought we've come up with that might be even faintly novel would be to require all journalists, male and female, to disrobe before entering the locker room. That would tend to level the playing field, as the expression goes, but we realize it doesn't address the basic problem. What's worse is that neither do court decisions, fines by the NFL commissioner, or even most newspaper editorials.

For players and coaches from both Abington and Neshaminy, a roller-coaster ride of emotions was involved with Friday night's Suburban One League National Conference football opener at Harry E. Franks Stadium. First, the pregame excitement. Second, an uplifting halftime presentation. Third, a 28-10 victory for the host Redskins. Last, and worst, the revelation that someone had entered Abington's locker room and stolen much of the players' property. "We walked in and saw bags and stuff scattered all over the place," said Abington's Julien Ireland, a senior quarterback and free safety.

Simon Gratz High's football team, which is scuffling on the field this season (0-2 record, outscored by 48-8), had to scuffle in the locker room yesterday. Saturday night, according to coach Rich Kozlowski, thieves broke into Marcus Foster Memorial Stadium and helped themselves to equipment. Today's junior varsity game against John Bartram has been canceled. The varsity will still play Saturday's 2 p.m. homecoming game against Germantown. "We did lose 23 helmets, maybe 12 to 15 shoulder pads and all the footballs," Kozlowski said.

For years it has stood on a hill off East Lake Drive in Audubon, a monument of sorts overlooking Camden County's Haddon Lake Park. But this is one monument that Audubon commissioners don't want to keep. "The sooner we can tear it down, the better off it will be for the residents of Audubon," Mayor Anthony Pugliese said. What Pugliese was referring to is a locker room, a one-story fieldstone building built for the county, a structure that still has its separately labeled entrances, "women" and "men," and a window for concessions.

PITTSBURGH - At least six more buildings at the University of Pittsburgh received bomb threats Thursday as students and their parents continued to press authorities to solve the case. No bombs have been found and no one has been injured since the threats began more than two months ago. The FBI seized computers and related equipment Wednesday night from a couple who had been questioned in the case earlier, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Katherine Anne McCloskey and Seamus Johnston have condemned the threats and said they didn't have anything to do with them.

By TED SILARY Daily News Staff Writer The march to 1,000 points began with a sprint. Even then, there was no guarantee Yahmir Greenlee would be able to begin it on time. Maybe 15 minutes before Boys' Latin Charter was to play Pope John Paul II, of Royersford, in the first round of the PIAA Class AAA state playoffs Friday night at Southern High, scorekeeper Joe Dunn, also BL's baseball coach and athletic director, revealed that Greenlee, a 5-9, 150-pound junior guard, would not be starting due to a "lateness issue.

The game ended, the doors opened, and we all brought our questions inside. I look out at quizzical faces in classrooms at Penn State as I describe the way things once worked in nearly every college football town. Those looks remind me that the chance to learn from conversations with players in their dressing-room environment, rather than the antiseptic surroundings of an interview room, has all but gone the way of single-platoon football, typewriters, and Western Union operators.

The Rochester Knighthawks romped past the Wings 22-12 in the season opener at the Wells Fargo Center in what Wings coach Johnny Mouradian called a "slug fest" when fist fights burst out with seconds left in the fourth quarter. Wings defenseman Tom Hajek and Knighthawks defenseman Tyler Burton were ejected after exchanging punches with about 25 seconds left in the game. The game resumed but stopped about 10 seconds later as each of the 12 players on the field erupted in fights with opposing players.

UNLIKE BASEBALL, there is crying in football. And a whole lot more if you're in the New York Jets locker room the day after the season ends. Jets coach Rex Ryan got so emotional he shed tears while addressing his team yesterday. "He was crying because he loves us," guard Matt Slauson told the Associated Press. "He respects us, he knows what we are capable of and we didn't even come close to our goals. " The Jets - who had gone to the AFC Championship Game the past two seasons - lost to the Dolphins 19-17 on Sunday to finish 8-8. Ryan isn't Dick Vermeil, but yesterday wasn't the first time he cried in public.

Penn State wide receiver Curtis Drake has endured a year of accomplishments and disappointments in 2011 with injuries, academic issues, Wildcat quarterback play that led to a victory, and being caught up in the storm that followed the indictment of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. But it was a locker-room altercation with quarterback Matt McGloin on Dec. 17, an incident that sent McGloin to the hospital with a concussion, that led Drake to think that he ought to step away from football for a while.

For a group that had just been knocked out of the playoffs, sealing their fate as one of the more disappointing NFL teams in recent memory, the Eagles were surprisingly at ease Saturday night. There were laughs in the locker room and talk about how maybe the team's three recent wins would build toward next season. With some reporters asking about how dangerous the Eagles might have been if they reached the postseason, players happily grabbed the bait, talking about what a threat they could have been.

IN RECENT DAYS, most of us have created a Penn State locker room in our minds. We hear a strange noise in the shower, then we see something unfathomable: a grown man raping a young boy. Rage washes over us. Instantly, we're landing punches on Jerry Sandusky, the alleged rapist, as the terrified child huddles behind us on the slippery tiles. At the very least, we're yelling, 'Get away from him, you sick bastard. " We'd be the hero that Mike McQueary, the then-graduate assistant coach who claims he witnessed the alleged rape, wasn't able to be that day in 2002.

Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger, trying to rebound from four surgeries, is already in midseason form. It has nothing to do with his surgically repaired body parts. It has everything to do with his playfully sarcastic personality. In one corner of the Flyers locker room last week in Voorhees, Captain Snarl was telling a reporter it was the worst part of his day. Why? "Because I'm looking at you," he deadpanned. Laughter echoed around the room. About 40 feet away, new forwards Max Talbot and Jaromir Jagr were cracking jokes, and chatty goalie Ilya Bryzgalov was holding court with the media, telling reporters to "have a seat" and explaining how fans have welcomed him warmly.

FOLLOWING yesterday's practice at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, 76ers forward Elton Brand wore a huge bag of ice around the back of his left hand and a menacing scowl on his face. He certainly is not happy how this opening-round Eastern Conference playoff series with the Miami Heat has progressed. In the 21-point blowout in Game 2, Brand scored only three points, his lone field goal in five attempts coming on a goaltending call. His normal work station, that area 10 to 15 feet from the basket, was pushed to an uncomfortable location farther out, leaving Brand virtually nonexistent at the offensive end. Brand, however, will correct that for Game 3. It's his way. He fights and claws for everything he needs to do to make himself and his team better.