Visiting teams to the Pepsi Center will be exposed to many sites and sounds designed to keep the attention of the hollering hordes of Avsmonkeys -- a cheesy papier-mâché mountain strung up from piano wires, an earsplitting barrage of godawful modern Butt Rock, enough jolly flashing lights to embarrass Las Vegas, and an overmedicated spastic gentleman who has seizures to the tune of "Thank God I'm A Country Boy". The entire production is staged with one goal in mind: to distract 14-year-olds from the fact that they just got reamed $12 for a cold Oscar Mayer hot dog.

But the scariest sound any visiting player will hear as he skates into the offensive zone is the opening notes of "Dueling Banjos", a sound that signals Greg De Vries is getting ready to make his move.

Greg De Vries was born deep in the mountains of West Virginia, where he acquired his early hockey skills while sliding barefoot in hog slop, swatting at cobs of corn with a tire iron. He and his friends often danced with a local jug band, who taught Greg to blow moonshine jugs and pick the banjo. With no jobs to be found and nobody wanting one anyway, the people of Greg's village spent their days along the riverside, ambushing canoes and sodomizing city slickers.

One winter morning the village septic tank sprung a leak. The resultant frozen slick created a perfect rink for pond hockey. Nobody in the county could afford skates, but De Vries' grandpappy was able to fashion pairs of homemade "hockey shoes" from catfish skins and possum bones. Soon young De Vries was spending nearly as much time running around on the ice as dancing and picking the banjo. Folks would gather from all around, guzzling jugs of 'shine and hootin' and hollerin' as they watched Greg and his friends slide back and forth across the frozen slick of sewage. Sometimes the boys would choose up teams and take turns chasing each other with old pipes and broken branches. As talk of the excitement spread, groups of young gents from other counties would come to challenge Greg's team in weekly matches. During these crude hockey games, De Vries developed a peculiar, intimidating style of defensive play that terrifies NHL opponents to this day.

Before long word had spread far and wide about the strange, banjo picking defenseman, attracting the attention of the Quebec Nordiques. Pierre Lacroix personally traveled to West Virginia, where he was warmly received by the people of the village. Shortly thereafter, Greg was signed to a contract with the Nordiques in exchange for helping Lacroix escape from a barn where he was being kept by one of De Vries' cousins.

Though his NHL career has taken him far from his West Virginia roots, De Vries still finds time during the offseason to tour county fairs with his jug band. His nimble fingerpicking has earned him the nickname "Banjo", by which he is known to players and fans throughout the NHL.