Hope you guys got a little insight into Doug MacLean from the weekend story. Sounds like there's potential there for a wild ride. What did not make it into the story was a conversation I had with the mayor of Summerside, MacLean's hometown on Prince Edward Island. I was just looking for some background, called Mr. Basil Stewart on his cell phone and got him while he was having lunch with two city councilman, both of whom also knew MacLean.

So there they were passing Mr. Stewart's phone back and forth between them while they had lunch. Much of hat they said was what I had heard before. That MacLean can be one of the most engaging and gregarious people you ever meet. But they also spoke of his volatile nature when it comes to hockey.

Passion, they called it. MacLean wants to win so badly and puts so much of his emotions into the game that if things don't go well, he can explode.

"There's no question about that. He can get fired up on the bench,'' Stewart said. "He has proven that in the past no matter what team he is with. You know he's around. He's a very passionate person about the game.''

Next the phone went to Barry Chapel, who is MacLean's neighbor on Shelton Beach where both have cottages. In fact, Chapel said he has cut MacLean's grass ever since MacLean asked him to do if for him one day long ago when MacLean's wife Jill ordered MacLean to do it, though MacLean wanted to play golf with the boys.

"He was always a great man growing up,''  Chapel said. "He hasn't changed. He's a top-notch person.''

Said friend Bill Schurman, who was the third at the lunch: "He still has the same character that he had when we played road hockey or minor baseball or minor hockey together. Doug always had a great sense of humor, a very charismatic smile. If there was anyone who was going to play a prank or hear a laugh that was recognizable, it was going to be Doug. He's one of those people you want to surround yourself with.''

Okay, I know, none of this means anything as far as MacLean being a hockey man. But it is telling. The guy obviously can have a short fuse when it comes to hockey, and being a hands-on owner, I don't know how that is going to work (if the sale of the team from Palace Sports to Absolute Hockey Enterprises goes through). But it's nice to know the guy has a human side.

And a dogged side as he helped put together a purchase proposal that was accepted in principle in just seven weeks. Not bad after his firing from the Blue Jackets as the only GM and president the franchise had ever known.

"I'll tell you what the last seven weeks have told me how Doug MacLean is,'' Schurman said. "I hope I can grow up and be like him in a way. He was the father of that franchise. Many of us would have licked our wounds, took our salary buyout. But he took his buyout and risked it doing this. If I was in Tampa Bay, I'd say 'Geez, there's a guy in the trenches.' ''