There are those out there who never met a shallow stereotype they didn't like and more than a few of these types are old-fashioned hockey fans.

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Who, by the way, must be vibrating in alarm at the thought of a whole cluster of their prejudices being exposed in the next few days by the soon-to-be Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings.

If the form chart holds, and Detroit wins, fans of artistry on ice are about to see the Red Wings hit a myth-debunking trifecta: seeing yet another European-laden Detroit team win the Cup; watching captain Nicklas Lidstrom, a Swede, take a twirl 'round the ice with the big trophy, the first European to do it; and seeing the sublime Henrik Zetterberg announced as the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs.

If Zetterberg does garner that honour -- as he should -- he would follow his teammate, Lidstrom, who won the Conn Smythe in 2002, the last time

Detroit won the championship.

It must be particularly galling for those who subscribe to that old whopper about Europeans lacking the requisite passion to be the ultimate playoff performers.

"How can this be?" they must be wondering. Europeans don't grow up yearning to win the Stanley Cup, the refrain has gone for years, they're too soft, on and on.

There's another hockey bromide about a team's best players needing to be their best players for them to succeed in the playoffs.

Well, if the playoffs have seen better performers than the likes of Zetterberg, Pavel Dasyuk, Lidstrom and

Johan Franzen, they have escaped my attention.

On the subject of passion, heart, courage -- call it what you will -- that crucial quality too many Canadian hockey people have attempted to claim unique ownership of, a splendid Team Russia put the lie to that one in Quebec City last month, when they roared back from a two-goal deficit to defeat an excellent Team Canada and win the gold medal at the World Hockey Championship.

At game's end, no one witnessing Russian scoring hero Ilya Kovalchuk weeping joyfully as his ecstatic teammates emoted all over the ice surface, could possibly believe the Russians do not 'want it' as badly as good, Canadian boys.

Canadian boys who, in this case, had a chance to make history and win the World's on Canadian soil for the very first time.

It didn't happen for the simplest of reasons -- the Russians outplayed them.

Of course, many of the best players are unavailable for the World's, year-in-year-out. This time around, much of Team Sweden was busy helping Detroit win the Stanley Cup.

That's hockey, eh?