NO WORRIES

Ottawa Senator center Radek Bonk celebrated his 24th birthday Sunday . . . with the flu . . . in an airplane.

Life is fun? So he says.

Neither flu nor jet lag could dampen his outlook.

Hard to believe, but this is Bonk’s seventh professional season, though time hasn’t exactly whizzed by. The last two seasons, however, have been in his comfort zone.

Gone are the doubts by Ottawa fans--and even Senator officials--about Bonk’s ability to play in the NHL.

Gone is the drunk driving charge, which hung over his head for a year before the charge was dropped last March.

Gone, too, is Alexei Yashin, the talented Senator center whose holdout opened a door, one that Bonk seemed to walk through effortlessly.

Yashin, who refused to honor the last year of a four-year contract, has been working out with a team in Switzerland. Bonk, meanwhile, is Ottawa’s top scorer.

Let the good times roll, eh?

“The most important thing is I started having fun again last year,” Bonk said. “I decided not to worry about scoring goals and getting points. Everybody expected me to score and, when I didn’t, I started wondering and my confidence went down. I just don’t let that happen anymore.”

And no one is questioning anymore.

The Senators, who are in Southern California to play the Kings tonight and the Ducks Wednesday, head into the season’s second half with 50 points, just five behind the first-place Toronto Maple Leafs in the Northeast Division. At this time a year ago, with Yashin leading the way, the Senators had 51 points.

Maybe Bonk doesn’t deserve all the credit--and he claims that he doesn’t--but where would the Senators be without him?

Bonk has 12 goals--six coming on power plays--and 32 points. True, those aren’t exactly on pace to reach Yashin’s numbers of last season (44 goals, 94 points), but Bonk has been a more-than-adequate replacement on Ottawa’s top line.

“One guy is not going to do what Alex did,” Bonk said. “He was our best offensive guy and everyone knew they were going to have to step up their game.

“Sure there was pressure on me, but there was pressure on everybody else too.”

Bonk, though, may have been the best equipped to deal with it. Pressure? Try having an entire city against you.

There was much expected from Bonk when the Senators made him the third overall pick in the 1994 draft. Had been the International League’s rookie of the year in 1993-94, when, as a 17-year-old, he scored 42 goals for the Las Vegas Thunder.

Bonk was called up by Ottawa in January the following season and scored on his first NHL shot. He tumbled quickly from there, landing with a thud in 1996-97, when an abdominal injury and a broken wrist limited him to 53 games. He finished the season with five goals and 18 points.

“It was tough because everybody expected me to do more,” said Bonk, who began playing professionally in his native Czech Republic when he was 13. “I probably did too. But this is the best league in the world. It’s not that easy to score goals here.”

Yeah, yeah. Folks in Ottawa didn’t want to hear about the labor pains.

Bonk was a constant media topic. Trade rumors evolved, sometimes weekly. Then came his arrest for drunk driving in March, 1998.

“Here was a young guy from another culture and he had high expectations placed on him at a young age,” Ottawa Coach Jacques Martin said. “He struggled, but it was all a matter of maturing as a player. All he had to do was find his role.”

Martin claims to have never been a doubter. He was hired as the Senators’ coach in January, 1996, and said he saw Bonk developing despite the injuries.

“He came back and played well,” Martin said. “Then he went home and played for the Czech team that won the World Championship [in 1996]. You could see he was getting better.”

Still, it wasn’t until last season that others began to share that vision.

Bonk was teamed with Magnus Arvedson and Marian Hossa to form Ottawa’s checking line. They excelled at frustrating some of the NHL’s top scorers.

Things got even better last March, when a judge dismissed the drunk driving charge, which was a considerable relief to Bonk.

“I was trying not to think about it,” Bonk said. “My lawyers did their job and I tried to do my job. Always in the back of my mind, it was there. When it was over, I could concentrate on hockey.”

And that part of his life was going well.

Bonk, playing against other teams’ top scorers, had an offensive awakening. He scored 16 goals and had a plus-15 rating (even-strength and short-handed goals while on the ice minus even-strength and sort-handed goals allowed) last season.

“Playing against the best players, you have to be careful or they’ll hurt you,” Bonk said. “The good thing is, you can sometimes hurt them because they’re always thinking, ‘Offense, offense and offense.’

“I learned you create your offensive opportunities with defense. Playing with Hoss and Arvie last year, it was fun again. If I didn’t score, it didn’t matter.”

It did to some. As late as last summer there was speculation that Bonk’s time in Ottawa would soon be over. He missed the early part of training camp before signing a one-year, $800,000 contract.

It has proved to be money well spent, especially when contract disputes with Yashin turned into a hard-line holdout.

Yashin, who was to be paid $3.6 million this season, refused to report unless he was given a two-year extension worth about $23 million. He returned to Europe. In November, Ottawa officials suspended him for the season.

It helped sway the fans to Bonk, or at least diverted them. It is Yashin, now, who draws their ire. Bonk has them cheering.

But after years of struggle, Bonk’s concerns are not about public opinion.

“I’m trying not to think about those years anymore,” he said. “I’m just trying to concentrate on the years that will come. I was losing the fun of the game. I think I got it back.”