Pavel Bure Wins Soccer Hooligan Impersonation Case

Dear Lord Stanley is a big fan of Pavel Bure. He's A-OK.

But those dirty bastards at British Airways don't recognize the grand legacy of embarrassed goalies he left back on the ice of so many North American hockey rinks. In fact, they don't recognize him at all. Last October, Bure was barred from boarding a flight from Moscow to London because the pilot believed him to be a soccer hooligan.

Though I'm unfamiliar with the intricacies of British Airways passenger profiling techniques (here in America we only bar people who look Arabic), I imagine the pilot was just a little paranoid in his assumption that Bure was on his way to England to throw chairs and break bottles over the heads of Manchester United supporters. But you never know.

Anyway, a Moscow district court ruled in favor of Bure, awarding him 67,000 rubles for his troubles, which British Airways will now have to pay, even though they weren't represented at the hearing because their lawyer was sick. Or maybe poisoned. Such is the legal system of Russia, it seems.

At any rate, Dear Lord Stanley congratulates Bure on his victory and hopes he will use the money to buy a new knee so he can come back and play in the NHL.

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