[caption id="attachment_3773" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Anna Kournikova (photo: Walter Iooss Jr, 2008)"][/caption]

For our younger readers — and those who've been hit in the head with a puck once too often to remember — let's take a fond, retrospective, lingering look at Anna Kournikova as she visits our fair city with the St. Louis Aces to face the Washington Kastles. I suspect very few male readers will mind this brief diversion from the melting asphalt of our nation's capital today . . . and of course this is purely a public service, not just an excuse to search for Anna K photos without my wife giving me the evil eye. Really.

Anna Kournikova burst onto the tennis scene at 16 as a striking and talented newcomer; yet her tennis career faded as her celebrity increased. Something that many forget in the glare of paparazzi flashbulbs: she peaked as the 8th-ranked female player in the world in 2000 -- no mean feat. So while the media attention she received was disproportionate to her tennis success, she undoubtedly had talent on the court. But it was her beauty and the accompanying rumor mill that made her such a popular icon.

In 2001, there were even rumors that Kournikova might hit the big screen as the next Bond Girl. As it turns out, no. But the idea was rife with Bond-ian double entendre name opportunities (or just single entendres) . . . Dr. Goodstroke? Anita Tourvin? Ivana Scorealot? The possibilities are endless.

Now the heiress to the Russian tennis hotness throne, Maria Sharapova, has herself expressed interest in being a Bond Girl (as well as interest in the new 007 Daniel Craig). It seems the spy game still has some luster in the former Soviet Union.

Kournikova proactively pursued her outsized popularity: she's obliged, seemingly, every photo shoot request from Maxim to FHM to Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue. She was ranked as one of People Magazine's '50 Most Beautiful People' in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2003. She did not avoid the spotlight, and it did not avoid her.

By 2003, she achieved the unprecedented status of most downloaded female athlete on the Internet, in the relatively short history of that new medium. We've yet to learn of her being bettered in that feat. According to Forbes.com, there were more than 18,000 web pages "devoted to her backhand and back end" in '03.

It's rather easy to understand her starburst: her arrival coincided with the Internet's maturation in graphics and multimedia — after all, Web surfers searching for Anna were not "reading the articles."

[caption id="attachment_3766" align="alignright" width="206" caption="Daniel Craig, 007: Equal-time beefcake photo to balance the scales"][/caption]

But the biggest Kournikova story — and the most hockey-related as well — was her predilection for Russian hockey greats. Kournikova and Washington Capital Sergei Fedorov (then with Detroit of course) started as friends, married while she was a teen, then divorced soon after the kerfuffle over her connection with Pavel Bure. There was a time when both Fedorov and Bure claimed to be engaged to Kournikova . . . at the same time. Yet it was Fedorov, not Bure, who married the tennis star, albeit briefly. Chalk up another big win for Fedorov!

Much was made at the time of the significant age difference between Fedorov and Kournikova (the tabloids branded her a "Tennis Lolita"); even Fedorov attributed some of their split to the age gap: "We were just so much apart, and those [emotions] when you are falling in love, at such a young age ... it was just impossible because I was a little bit older, I think."

Apparently Sergei and Anna are no longer close, so it is unlikely that he will make an appearance at tonight's event. But if you catch a glimpse of other Russian hockey hopefuls lurking in the background, don't be surprised. Hmm . . . I've played hockey . . . perhaps I can pass as Mikhail Ruckov for a day? Da Zvidanya!