Without professing even half a cup's clairvoyance into what will unfold tomorrow night in Columbus, here's the way the NHL draft ought to go, and, for that matter, all professional sports drafts henceforth.

The selected stud, perhaps Patrick Kane in the case of the 2007 hockey draft, should walk to the staging area, pull on his ceremonial No. 1 Blackhawks jersey, describe some degree of excitement if not gratitude and humility, then proceed to another staging area where technology shall record the following statement for posterity:

"I do solemnly declare to my team, my colleagues, the National Hockey League, to Don Cherry and to the public at large that, even though I'm perfectly willing to perform invasive unlicensed cranio-facial surgery with my blade, elbows, fists, and/or the puck and wouldn't think twice about cross-checking Sister Mary Albatross were she to linger in the crease, I am not a doper and will not commit any violation of the league's drug policy or abuse any substance that in any way diminishes either the competition at hand or the accomplishments of the players who have preceded me in this great game."

Yeah, that should do it.

As it happens, hockey's drug problem is likely dwarfed by the oversized performance enhancing medicine cabinets of some other sports, but since its draft is at hand, I thought this prototypical pledge should get its debut sooner rather than later.

Some will say it's just too quaint, as did I when hatching and quickly dismissing the very idea years ago, discarding this suspect notion that making athletes publicly swear to uphold their sport's integrity, at least from the pharmaceutical angle, might be part of any resolution on the drug issue.

But now the bedeviled sport of cycling, still pedaling furiously through the ever-splashing muck of steroids, HGH, EPO and various other highly sinister acronyms, formally has instituted this very thing. The International Cycling Union (UCI for some perfectly legitimate linguistic reason) has announced that anyone who refuses to sign an oath of drug-free participation will not be admitted to the field for the Tour de France, which begins in little more than two weeks. Further, the UCI will post a list of signers on its Web site, instantly indicting by implication cyclists whose names are absent, and that any signer later shown to have broken this pledge will pay UCI the equivalent of his 2007 salary to be used in its anti-doping campaign.

So even though, yes, the noblest of intentions are routinely torched by fractured oaths, even to the extent that some who swore to preserve, protect and defend nothing less sacrosanct than the Constitution of the United States have barely stopped short of using it as a doormat, someone, somewhere actually thinks this can work.

That's why I'm back on board. I'd make the pledge a little more elaborate than the UCI signature protocol, which is why I suggested videotaping every draft pick's pledge so that it can be dusted off for SportsCenter's Liar of the Night segment upon every transgression.

Even more helpfully, here are the proposed texts for the other sports, free of charge.

The Baseball Pledge:

I do solemnly declare to my team, my colleagues, Major League Baseball, to the authors of "Game of Shadows" and to the public at large that, even though I might not bother to run out ground balls all the time and might carelessly turn a triple into a double, I am not a doper and will not commit any violation of the game's drug policy or abuse any substance that diminishes either the competition at hand or the accomplishments of the players who have preceded me in this great game.

The Football Pledge:

I do solemnly declare to my team, my colleagues, the National Football League, to Peter King and any and all local, state, federal and international law enforcement agencies that, even though I may not have all the proper paper work to carry a piece and that my associates were not exactly finalists for positions on the International Atomic Energy Commission, I am not a doper and will not commit any violation of the league's drug policy or abuse any substance that diminishes either the competition at hand or the players who have preceded me in this great game.

The Basketball Pledge:

I do solemnly declare to my team, my colleagues, the National Basketball Association, to Charles Barkley and to the public at large that, even though I might interpret a teammate's having 14 children by nine women as having just missed a double-double, and I can't promise I'll never leave my Rolls Royce in the handicapped spot again, I am not a doper and will not commit any violation of the league's drug policy or engage in any substance that diminishes either the competition at hand or the accomplishments of the players who have preceded me in this great game.

As ever, no need to thank me.