10 Things I'd Say to My Kid

Yes, I've missed eight installments of Cam's Hat Trick. But judging from a lack of raging comments, I'm going to guess you simply take your Red Wings reading elsewhere whenever I succumb to laziness or a broken computer. Either way, I'm going to try and get back on the horse even though I rarely get to see any games and make most of my judgments on highlights. It's a handicap you'll have to accept if you visit Egypt's Land.

So what'd I miss? Well, the Wings won six and lost two. They're awesome and way better than your team. Enough said. I'll have a Hat Trick for you tomorrow night following the Wings and Ducks game.

But you came here for new content. I've got that in spades.

Bill Simmons is a popular writer on ESPN. He's great; I like his style, but too often he focuses on basketball and Boston sports - two topics I really could care less about. Sometimes though, he melds his personal life with sports and his column really hits home for me. Wednesday's piece was just that.

He wrote about his five-year-old daughter's envy of an opposing team's uniforms, which were purple and gold - the colors of the Los Angeles Lakers and nemesis of Simmons' beloved Boston Celtics. When he asked her what she thought about green uniforms, she said she HATED green, emphasized with a grimace.

Now, they were just soccer uniforms in a youth league, but Simmons' quick mind immediately flew to the worst-case scenario.

When she's in the ninth grade, I can't have some senior showing up with a Gasol beard, a USC hat and an SUV shaking my hand and saying that they're "just going out for a bite to eat," only he's going to have that barely perceptible, "I've felt your daughter's boobs before, and I'm going to do it again tonight" smirk on his face, followed by me stabbing him to death and serving the mandatory sentence.

I can see myself in a similar situation, should my future daughter ever choose a man with Buckeye allegiances or a Crosby crush. My immediate thought was simple and emphatic:

Oh. My. Christ.

I can't let that happen. So, as Simmons points out in his final paragraphs, a powerful tool can be your parental influence when the child is young - even if that means lying.

So here are 10 little lies I'd tell my future child. With any luck, they'll help my son or daughter see red and think Red Wings, not Buckeyes.

1. "Remember Mr. McGregor, the bad man from all the cute Peter Rabbit stories you love? He grows Buckeyes in his garden. Then all the little bunnies die."
2. "Yep, an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. They say it came from Pittsburgh."
   
3. "Of course it exists. The fire swamp's just over in Colorado. That place is rife with ROUSs."
4. "Why did Scar kill Mufasa? Well, it's because he had a Notre-Dame education, honey."
   
5. "The Blackhawks are the Indian tribe that started slavery."
   
6. "Ohio State scientists captured the Berenstain Bears and did experiments on them."
   
7. "Oh, don't cry! Captain Hook's not real. He won't come take you away. But Patrick Roy might."
   
8. "Everyone in the world believed in Santa Claus until Eli Manning said something."
9. "Snape? No, no no. You're thinking of Sidney Crosby. He's the one who killed Dumbledore."
   
10. "Without Steve Yzerman, you'd never get any Christmas presents. Or birthdays."

Seems harmless enough to me. I see no future ramifications. Leave your own manipulative lies in the comments!