SOMETHING STRANGE happened to Dave Hakstol one day last January. Something wonderful. A rare day off spent with his family required a prolonged stop at a Wegman's near his South Jersey home, a supermarket teeming with people, some of them, presumably, hockey fans.
No one noticed him. Well, OK, I noticed him, but if seeking autographs or engaging him in conversation are any sort of recognition barometers - and they are - then I may have been the only one.
"Actually my wife and I joke about it a little bit,'' he was saying after practice the other day at Skate Zone.