Bowled over again

Nothing new to report with the latest news out of the NHL: more canceled games.  This time through Jan. 14 and as the report suggests perhaps the last announcement of "we really mean it this time" until the ice is melted on even salvaging half-a-season.

What's that? The NHL as popular a sport here as bowling? Red Wings Coach Mike Babcock thinks so.  (Try telling that to Roy Munson, Babs. He'll have something to say about that insult.)

But you know what? Though Babcock coaches for that Sharks' rival in that "state up north" (that was for you, Woody Hayes), he's 100 percent right. I understand the Sharks' market is not inundated with puckheads like the Twin Cities, Philly or Motown; but don't think for a minute the hockey establishment hasn't thought about how irrelevant its game can become again across North America, especially below the 49th parallel if the stigma of another potential lost season is looking more and more realistic. This isn't Finland or Sweden or Slovakia, where getting through the cold winter months without your top-level hockey league is depressing. 

By the time NFL holds its Super Bowl in February, baseball's pitchers and catchers will be about to report and the promise of warmer weather and (a glimmer of) hope for fans of the Cubs, Pirates, Mets and Twins fending off mediocrity, and thus easing the sting of not seeing the Kane's, Crosby's, Nash's, and Parise's skating in those cities this winter and spring. When hockey's crunch time in the regular season is hitting its stride, a little event called March Madness will make you pay more attention to Butler, Murray State and VCU crashing your bracket instead of your top six forwards crashing the net. 

Hey, I still love hockey and would -grudgingly, mind you- welcome the game back with some shred of forgiveness if these clowns on both sides can find a solution to their bickering and make a 40-something mini-season happen. But another season gone the way of 666 Park Avenue (the canceled T.V. show, not Rick Nash's reported new address in Manhattan), and give me this guy below to get my pin instead of puck on. Everyone bring some beer and your bowling ball over to Babcock's house.