Double-secret bleepin' confirmation

Rick is in tonight.

On his way to a private lunch in his honor, Rick told us he was feeling great by the end of last night and was counting the minutes until 6:00 pm.

One of the emails of concern I received last night was from the legendary Islanders fan Matt K - Mattyboy, Matt the Coliseum usher, the author of some of the most twisted message board posts in the young history of message boards. Matt wished to express his concern on behalf of all of Islanders Country that Rick needs to make sure his priority is the NYI and that he shouldn't play tonight if it means not playing Tuesday night when the game is for real.

I know Matty knows better than that. Just one of those emails you send at one in the morning. The reason I'm so confident of Rick's decision is because, when you think about it, the whole joy of being an All-Star was felt by him over the last two days. The red carpet. The private parties. Hanging with his fellow all-stars. The standout performance and comedy sideshow with Manny Legace at last night's Skills. The game tonight is merely icing on the cake. If he didn't think he should play tonight, he wouldn't.

You might have heard that one of George Carlin's seven words slipped from the mouth of Rick and over the VERSUS airwaves last night. No matter the circumstances - and there were plenty - it is not acceptable. That said, instead of pulling the plug on Rick's mic, we will huddle with a VERSUS executive before tonight's game and see if we can eliminate the chance of it ever happening again.

The easiest thing to do would be to tell the network to, uh, you know. But when you're talking about promoting our game and the Islanders' franchise player, it's too important to make a rash decison.