In appreciation of newsprint

Newsprint is the 21st Century's buggy whip, its railroad and rotary-dial telephone.

But, for all the wonders of the fast, vast Internet and the machines on which we access its content, newsprint still does some things better.

Check out this morning's print edition of the Los Angeles Times, Section S -- Stanley Cup: A day with hockey's holy grail.

Times photographer Robert Gauthier traveled the world this summer with individual members of the Anaheim Ducks as they each claimed some quality time with the one-of-a-kind award (one player took it to bed). The result was Section S, seven advertisement-free pages of photographs (there was one house ad on the back page that, yep, pushes the Web site).

The Stanley Cup section is the first fun effort by the Times that I've thought to save since the elaborate array of candiate portraits it published during the circus-like California Recall of 2003, the sort of thing I hope someone finds in my files 100 years from now and wonders why we ever stopped publishing the news on paper.