There’s a legend that haunts newsrooms like an old ghost in a green visor and armbands. Call it the Man Bites Dog legend.

It goes like this: The editor, trying to get a rookie reporter to understand what makes news, tells him Dog Bites Man is not news. It’s unfortunate, but it happens all the time. However, when Man turns around and bites Dog, now that doesn’t happen every day. That’s news, Junior.

So what do we make of Man Bites Man? Vancouver Canuck Alex Burrows allegedly went all Hannibal Lecter on Boston’s Patrick Bergeron in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final and it was news on both coasts. In Boston, they’re calling Burrows Ol’ Chopper.

Ol’ Chopper has chewed all the other news into little bites. Did you know the Liberal government invoked closure last week on the HST debate to shut the opposition up? The government must be delighted that Burrows’ dental follies have dominated the public imagination when otherwise it would be the HST, which takes a real bite out of your paycheque.

The incident certainly lit a fire under Ol’ Chopper. Narrowly avoiding a suspension for illegal masticating, he went out in Game 2 Saturday and won it all by himself – scored the first goal, assisted on the second to tie it up and then scored a Gretzky-worthy wrap-around from behind the net 11 seconds into sudden-death overtime to lift the Canucks to victory.

If that’s all it takes, next game the boys should leave their sticks in the locker-room and hit the ice with knives and forks.

The Bruins can shrug in public all they like, but it has to play havoc with your confidence when the other side preys on you. The Nashville Predators just pretend to take a bite out of you. But the Vancouver Canucks? That orca on their jersey? It’s also called a killer whale.

The Burrows Bite has infected the whole town. We’ve got the equivalent of hockey rabies, a terminal case of playoff fever. If the government tries to pass a law to charge carbon tax on the HST on the carbon tax, no one would notice; we’re too busy trying to participate in history in the making.

Thousands of people go downtown just to watch TV. Two guys dress up in green spandex and, instead of getting arrested, get free tickets and all expenses paid to the Boston games. Women can’t keep their jerseys on, exposing green and blue playoff pompoms.

Let’s eat! Er, go Canucks go! And pass the salt.