The Ed Belfour Watch: Day 5

Will he or won't he?

The suspense is killing me.

Actually, the media coverage is.

We are, apparently, on an Ed Belfour Watch in this town. The Red Wings have interest in the 41 year-old netminder. Belfour has interest in the Red Wings. So much so, that he flew into Detroit with the expressed purpose of being poked, prodded, and wired -- all part of an extensive physical, something the Red Wings surely insisted upon, given Belfour's coming off back surgery.

The holdup to the signing is -- cue drumroll please -- money. In the form of incentives. Fine.

But we are being treated to fits of over-reporting by our venerable dailies.

"Today's news: NO news on the Ed Belfour front," the stories lately have said, basically.

But not in one sentence, like the above. Hundreds of words, complete with headline, still tell us what we've known for days, and it goes something like this:

The Red Wings have interest in the 41 year-old netminder. Belfour has interest in the Red Wings. So much so, that he flew into Detroit with the expressed purpose of being poked, prodded, and wired -- all part of an extensive physical, something the Red Wings surely insisted upon, given Belfour's coming off back surgery.

Sound familiar? It should. It's the same paragraph I wrote a few short 'graphs ago. And it's basically what the News and Free Press have been doing since last midweek.

Even Red Wings GM Kenny Holland realizes the absurdity of this situation.

"I would say sooner or later, one of us has to fish or cut bait," he said about the Belfour Watch, Day 5.

I'd say it's more like Eddie needs to pee or get off the pot, but that's jus' me.

I'm reminded of an old, old bit on Saturday Night Live, circa 1976. On the show's Weekend Update bit, Chevy Chase, or someone, would say, "And in other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is STILL dead."

Enough, already.

At this point, it's safe to say that the next "news" about Ed Belfour better be about his signing with the Red Wings, or his officially telling them that he's cut bait -- or gotten off the pot.

No more "Wings Still Waiting On Belfour" or "Bonus payments the hangup on Belfour talks" - type pieces. We KNOW, already! We get it.

Maybe the sports editors in town are still in pre-talented Tigers mode -- you know, when we all couldn't wait for Lions training camp to start, and when the Red Wings would sneeze and everyone -- EVERYONE -- would offer up a Kleenex.

Well, those annual big free agent signings are a thing of the past, pretty much -- thanks to the "new" NHL. And I think the media misses them, judging by the Belfour over-coverage.

Ed Belfour is still mulling over an offer from the Red Wings?

Let me completely slip from beneath this rock under which I've been living to say this:

I didn't know that.