It’s enough to induce a cold sweat

How hard is a hockey puck?

Hard enough to break the left foot of Ducks defenseman Chris Pronger, who was interrupting a shot by Minnesota’s Mark Parrish.

How cold are hockey games in Alaska, where high school teams still play the sport outdoors, even in the dead of winter?

Cold enough to break a puck into pieces when it hits the pipe.

With mid-game temperatures sometimes dipping below minus-30 degrees, rinks in Alaska come equipped with warming huts as well as penalty boxes, for players to ward off frostbite. Rules prohibit plastic face masks once temperatures drop below zero.

Why play hockey outdoors when indoor arenas are available?

Because, in Alaska, they can.

According to the National Federation of High Schools, Alaska is the only state that still offers outdoor hockey to high school athletes.

“The sport was made outside, and it was meant to be played outside,” Chris Van Wyhe, a Kenny Lake High junior, told the Anchorage Daily News.

Although bylaws state that no game can start if the air is minus-20 or colder, games are rarely canceled.

The newspaper reports that “the outdoor game is different.... Outdoor teams have an advantage over inside teams, and the puck moves faster across ice that is more dense -- unless it’s snowing.”

Said Van Wyhe: “Playing inside is like skating in water.”

Trivia time

Scott Gomez of the New Jersey Devils is the first Latino to play in the NHL. Where was he born?

A shattering experience

Girls’ hockey teams also play the game outdoors in Alaska. Sarah Carlson, a former Kenny Lake player, told the Daily News that her best childhood memory was unleashing a slap shot in frigid weather and watching the puck break. “I hit a slap shot off the crossbar and cracked the puck in half,” she said. “I felt so tough.”

Cold as ice

A recent game between Kenny Lake and Hutchison was played at minus-6 degrees. That was no big deal to the Alaska players -- or to a certain hockey team that plays indoors in Southern California.

Minus-6?

The Kings were minus-four in their last game, Sunday’s 6-2 loss to the Detroit Red Wings.

An expert in loutish behavior

During the final two minutes of New England’s 40-23 victory over Tennessee, Patriots Coach Bill Belichick summoned 43-year-old third-string quarterback Vinny Testaverde from the bench to throw a six-yard touchdown pass, enabling Testaverde to extend his NFL record streak with at least one touchdown pass to 20 seasons.

Afterward, a Titans player complained about Belichick’s decision.

“I think they’d already won,” the player was quoted in the Tennessean newspaper. “To bring in a 50-year-old guy to throw a little pass, probably the last pass of his career or of his life, I don’t know. Whatever.”

And who was this defender of proper sportsmanship and football decorum?

Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, who was suspended for five games without pay this season for stomping on an opposing player’s bare head.

Trivia answer

Anchorage.

And finally

Coach George Karl of the Denver Nuggets to the Denver Post, on why he finds Utah’s Jerry Sloan the toughest to coach against: “Basically, my stuff doesn’t work against him like it works against some other guys.”

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