For once, I think the NHL did something right.

Actually, a couple things right. For one, despite all the things they’ve jacked up in the past (you know, like cancelling a season and other minor details), they couldn’t have found a better time to resolve their differences. Baseball just had its post-All Star game glow fade away, but the pennant run not quite full steam, the NBA is in the month of the year where they don’t have any games scheduled, football camps were just starting to open up, and the WNBA is the WNBA. For the NHL to announce an agreement, go through their draft, release a schedule and all that, they couldn’t have picked a better week. (Except may be this time A YEAR AGO!)

Hell, as convoluted as they made the draft, they pretty much got that right, too. Sure, the Florida Panthers were one of the worst teams in hockey the last time anyone was on the ice, and they picked 29th or so, but other than that, the fact that they kept shitty teams near the top of the draft was nice. Of course it is awfully suspicious that Pittsburgh gets the top prospect of the last 15 years, just in time to let Mario Lemieux push for a new arena to keep the team in town, but they have been one of the crappiest teams in the league for many years now, so it’s not that hard to take.

I’m trying my best to be excited for hockey, and I really can’t wait for it to come back, but it’s hard to remember the sport now that it’s been gone for so long. I usually take awhile to get into anything the first few weeks that the season returns, the extra year didn’t help things. Fortunately, both Carolina and Columbus seemed to help themselves immensely with their first pick of the draft, the Blue Jackets picking up Gilbert Brule (pronounced exactly NOT like it’s spelled), another young forward to add to their stable of young forwards. Hopefully we’re starting to see the end of the month long scoring droughts, and the weeks that go by with Columbus losing 2-1 games, while Marc Denis makes 80 saves a night.

For Carolina, it was kind of a mixed feeling. The good news (which I suppose will overshadow the bad quickly enough) is that they selected defenseman Jack Johnson with their first pick. I had heard his name tossed around, but never really paid attention to what was said. But according to MGoBlog, he’s “a cross between Rob Blake and a PCP-crazed Godzilla.” Outstanding! I like the Rob Blake comparison, both as one of the top defensemen in the league, and a BG grad, but the hepped up Godzilla should be fun to watch. Or at least see occasional highlights of. Or maybe see in a linescore on ESPN after the Red Wings vs. Avalanche vs. Rangers supergame they’ll schedule every night.

Oh, that’s right. ESPN doesn’t HAVE an NHL contract this year. No one does. So, unless an NHL team pops up in Indy, I’ll be stuck reading box scores in the newspaper. The good news is, it will be a throwback to my younger days following the Whale. The not-so-good news will be the killing spree I go on in mid-January, after turning on ESPN2 expecting to see the Devils vs. Blues vs. Flyers matchup, and end up stuck with the World Series of Solitaire. Or that little hot dog eating Japanese guy finishing off the last portions of eating a live goat or something.

Finally, I thought Bill Simmons finally got it right.

But I was wrong.

If you could bring your self to visit YankeeSox.com (you’re redirected from the site formerly known as ESPN.com, the worldwide leader in fellating George Steinbrenner), they have it linked no fewer than three times on the front page. And as much of a fan as I’m NOT of the divided page view in their extended columns, it worked here. This beast is five pages long, and it really helped my ADD. Not only that, but you could pinpoint the exact moment when the article turned into the usual Sports Guy drivel.

(Thanks simpsoncrazy.com!)

The first few pages are actually great. A little humor, but alot of information. You can see how much the players really did give up, and realize that there is no way in hell that you can feel sorry for them. Then the column drifts away into a sea of crap.

And what’s worse than reading five pages of Bill Simmons’ “pantheons” and “corollaries” and other crap that the normal sports fan has no clue what he’s writing about? When it drifts on to be normal sports fan vernacular. I can’t remember where, but I’ve seen it around. I’ll give Simmons credit, he’s got everyone using the word “pantheon,” and it has to stop. It’s like Jim Rome for a new millenium, except that Rome and his clones are still around, still “warring” this and that, and it makes me sick. So sick, in fact, that the last paragraph and a half have been no more than hate-filled slop.

I think that’s a good cue to leave.