Professional ice hockey is an ideal way for the entire family to keep fit. There's something for everyone:

• the kids will love participating in a loose, freewheeling sport where everybody makes the play-offs and the only activity that is a specifically prohibited is selling narcotics to your opponents on the ice;

• Dad will appreciate the fact that he's improving his cardiovascular efficiency while at the same time fleeing large vicious toothless stick-wielding men whose frontal lobes have been battered into prune-sized masses of scar tissue; and

• Mom will be pleased to learn that many of the players come from Canada, so she'll have a chance to "brush up" on several of her French phrases as Arretez vous! Je suis une femme! C'est ma balle d'oeill ("Stop! I am a woman! That is my eyeball!")