Flyers

UPDATE: FBI Helping Chicago Restaurant Look for Game 6 Puck, We Think We Know Who Has It

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jan 31st, 2011 · 11:14 AM EST

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Linesmen Steve Miller, what a joker he is

And it's not Chris Pronger.

As we told you last spring, a Chicago restaurant is offering a $50,000 reward for the puck Patrick Kane slipped between the legs of Michael Leighton. It seems in all of the confusion of the Stanley Cup winning goal somebody stole the puck- Pronger says it wasn't him.

Enter the Federal Bureau of Investigation: [FOX Sports]

One attempt to claim the reward has already failed after the FBI used specialized equipment to show that the puck in question was not the winning one.

Officers believe they will be able to compare each nick on any puck that is turned in to digitally enhanced images they have of the winning goal.

"We feel we have enough in terms of visual evidence to include or exclude any future pucks," Chicago FBI spokesman Ross Rice said.

 

Perhaps their time would be better spent hunting down murderers, domestic terrorists, or the heist Ruben J. Amaro pulled off this winter. Either way, all of the fancy equipment isn't doing a very good job.

[UPDATE: The folks from the FBI tell us that they are not using tax payers dollars and are doing this on their own time. We figured as much.]

Thanks to some crack detective work- so we can finally show once and for all that a Flyer didn't steal the puck- we're pretty sure of who knows the whereabouts of the puck: Linesmen Steve Miller.

The video below, which shows Miller picking up the puck, follows him around for a blurry five minute shell game. We pieced together videos from NBC, CBC, and YouTube to follow Miller until the time the officials left the ice.

It's likely Miller held onto to the puck until the Stanley Cup presentation, when we see him hand something to a man in a suit, who then heads up the Flyers' hallway. 

There is some exchange between officials and players prior to that moment (which is shown), but it doesn't appear as though the puck was ever handed to a player. If it was, someone (Jonathan Toews) is hiding something, because the Blackhawks are as confused as the rest of us.

Please excuse my nasally narration, I ad-libbed this while playing the video back. Bump up the resolution to see it more clearly- it's already very blurry.

The video was taken from these YouTube videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

The 44 second mark of this one is where we clearly see Miller pick up the puck.

Miller might not have the puck, but he damn sure knows who does. Why doesn't somebody just ask him? Either way, I'm tired of looking at footage of the Blackhawks winning the Cup.

H/T to reader Lisa for sending