These are the hands of the artist.

Swollen knuckles bulge above red, misshapen hands. Faint scars zag here and yon. Permanent calluses give testimony to the fists of a fighter.

"There are wires in here," Todd Ewen says. "This knuckle here comes out. These are calcium deposits caused by scar tissue. This was split open."

Beside him rests the work of the artist--delicate, whimsical drawings in vibrant colors of Whisper the Dragonfly and Hop the Frog.

Ewen is one of the Mighty Ducks' enforcers, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound right wing who is as at home in the penalty box as he is in his living room.

His hobby is writing and illustrating children's books that he hopes someday to publish.

They are stories he reads to his children, Tyler, 4, and Chad, 1, and they are about tolerating differences in others and the virtues of practicing your craft and following the beat of your own drum.

"Hop--A Frog Who Dared to Be Different," is dedicated to Tyler and Chad. Ewen penned the prologue:

\o7 A story about a frog who has the courage to be different. And about his friends, a dragonfly who reminds us of the importance of sharing our thoughts and fears and a ruffian cat who shows us that we can learn to enjoy and have fun with boys and girls who are different from ourselves.

\f7 This tender aesthetic bent in a fighter so brutish he was nicknamed "The Animal" while with the St. Louis Blues is invitation for ridicule, even from his own teammates.

Stu Grimson, a gentleman tough guy whose only canvas is other players' faces, bends his 6-foot-5 frame over to peek at the drawings, "Hi, Hop! There's Hop!"

Center Anatoli Semenov, whose English vocabulary isn't vast, stops to look and strikes a museum-goer's pose, finger held thoughtfully against chin. Then he points to Ewen's name-plate above his dressing room stall, "Picasso, should say Picasso."

Coach Ron Wilson stops by and picks up a drawing to inspect it. "He should use his feet," Wilson says. "His feet are probably more nimble. Less concrete."

If teammates tease like this, what of opponents? Ewen laughed.

"Just like bumping around, somebody will say, 'Hey, why don't you go sit down and draw some cartoons?' That's part of hockey. (Hartford's Pat) Verbeek, I think he's a third-generation pig farmer, so that doesn't come into play, \o7 ever\f7 . No one \o7 ever\f7 says anything about \o7 that\f7 ."