Day 98 - The Mayan Prophecy

As of this writing the world hasn't ended, but hockey may have, for at least this season and probably the next. Games have been canceled through the 14th of January. Even with a ridiculously short schedule, that leaves us with just under fifty games, a schedule that would essentially be the same length as the postseason that would follow. This March Madness buffer really offers no solace. This season has been nothing but office meetings with no results. It's like hockey is run by a college administration, hopefully not a FBS school, because that would leave us without a playoff. The Stanley Cup winner would go to the highest voted team, which would probably be Boston College.

I'll get my archaeological friends to look into the Mayan tablets to see if there was anything that points to the melting of the polar ice caps, which would either mean some kind of Nostradamus layering of hockey being canceled, or the polar ice caps would begin melting and North Carolina would finally get some snow. Either way, it's bad.

I do want a season and I'm not against a de facto home-and-home series amongst all the teams; I just want everything to be done right. Do right by your fans. Please.

Day 97 - The Conferences Get Shaken And Stirred

It's that time of year when schools change conferences, in search of greener pastures and higher profits, seeking more favorable opponents and more national exposure. This has led to the dissolution of traditions forged by history and the creation of conferences that exceed the size of their professional counterparts and in no way, shape, or form, represent the geographic proximity and cultural similarities that led to their naming convention. Here are my predictions for the future roller coaster ride of conference realignment.

The Catholic Seven (minus Notre Dame, so the Catholic Six) will form their own basketball conference or super-villain headquarters.

All the Texas schools and all the Oklahoma schools will leave their conferences and form the Cotton Bowl conference.

The Big 10 will stop underestimating the math skills of its target demographic and rename itself the Best of the Midwest conference.

Conference USA will dissolve and reform as Conference America with the exact same members. The only difference is that this conference will have ties to Six Flags and other local water parks.

Memphis, Towson, Auburn, LSU, Missouri, and Clemson will all form a minor Tiger conference, with the potential to add Villanova, Kentucky, and Arizona institutions as an all cats conference.

Bowling Green will go independent and then back to the Mid-American conference. No one will notice.

The remaining members of the SEC will replace the current members of the NFC East and start a dynasty of Super Bowl teams.

Day 96 - Ice Skating

I was thinking the other day about what hockey players do with their girlfriends and I thought that ice skating would be an obvious choice, but then I thought they might think, "if I see another rink, I will kill someone." Maybe they ask their girlfriend what they do for a living. "Oh, you work in an office typing and stapling all day. Awesome. I wanna watch you do that. I want to romantically look into your eyes doing that."

Ice skating is really one of those go-to dates that you only go on when you've completely run out of ideas and there is nothing else exciting to do. So a couple of weekends, I took my girlfriend ice skating, joining the ranks of other couples scraping the bottom of the barrel for their romantic activities.

It had been some time since I had been skating. The old style of skates relied entirely on shoestrings tied up and wrapped around like a Rubik's cube made of string. The new style of skate is like a plastic tie strap. It comes across as a very Playskool My First Skate feel. The beauty of this style is that it comes in two flavors. Ridiculous blood-clotting tightness or extremely clumsy, don't-take-turns-too-hard-or-at-all, ankle twisting looseness.

After the battle to attach swords to our feet, it was time to take to the ice. There was a rec-league hockey game that had recently ended, so the ice was a little chippy, but surely a Zamboni would take to the ice to resurface it any second. After eighty solid minutes, hope dwindled, my faith unrewarded in any capacity, ice rinks, hockey, Christmas. It became a belligerent evening as a fire code breaking crowd took to the ice, reducing it to mere frictionless concrete as one point.

The wonderful thing about exerting a modicum of physical energy around other guys creates an exponential growth of testosterone and destroys any inhibitions about competitions or skill level. I hadn't been skating since I was twelve, but I really thought I could be the greatest skater in the world. What started as romantically holding my girlfriend's hand and gently striding with her quickly evolved into a race against myself and other boyfriends. Three strides in, I felt I was the king of the rink, before quickly being humbled by a out of nowhere wall, because all great dates should end with a trip to the ER.

The rink was terrible. There was no couples skate, or guys only, or girls only skating, but it did take my mind off of hockey for one night. So thank you, local ice house.

Day 95 - The AHL Teams, Part 3

Chicago Wolves - They're like the Blackhawks, if the Blackhawks couldn't skate. So they're more like the Chicago Cubs on ice.

Grand Rapids Griffins - Their fans are as mythical as their mascot.

Milwaukee Admirals - Like the Norfolk Admirals, only with less beach.

Peoria Rivermen - I think this is a team mostly comprised of former World of Warcraft players who couldn't hack it on "The Biggest Losers".

Rockford IceHogs - This team name makes me think of the Frost Giants from "Thor". What would they eat? Obviously IceHogs, prepared for by their Ice Wives. After drinking vodka on ice, they would have ice cream.

Charlotte Checkers - The southernmost city in this cadre of minors, this name lost to the Charlotte Yahtzee by four votes.

Houston Aeros - Their mascot looks as intimidating as a Pinewood Derby car.

Oklahoma City Barons - I think it should be law that only Texas should be allowed to have Barons. Oklahoma City should go by some name that closely resembles their NBA team, like the Oklahoma City Boom.

San Antonio Rampage - Their arena would be the best arena if they had every iteration of the Rampage arcade game lined up in their corridors.

Texas Stars - Not a hockey team per se, just a supergroup of country music stars captained by Carrie Underwood.

Day 94 - The AHL Teams, Part 2

Binghamton Senators - Playing in the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena, games have been known to be cancelled due to VFW bingo nights.

Hershey Bears - Hershey is the City of Chocolate. They feed into the Capitals, who play in the Chocolate City. That's weird.

Norfolk Admirals - If they were demoted to the ECHL, would they be called the Norfolk Captains?

Syracuse Crunch - Named after a Batman fighting title card, this team is as intimidating as a Batman fighting title card.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins - The city name screams Little League baseball team. The players scream elementary school dodgeball team.

Abbotsford Heat - This team will share its arena with the Lingerie Football League team, the BC Angels. My gut instinct is that this team will "accidentally" double book itself.

Hamilton Bulldogs - I think this team is missing out on a vital opportunity to cobrand with the Pound Puppies. Just sayin'.

Lake Erie Monsters - I like to think that they misspell the team name as "Monstars" and Danny DeVito threatens to sell them to Warner Brothers on a consistent basis.

Rochester Americans - Naturally, this team is made up of 70% Canadians.

Toronto Marlies - The second professional sports team in Toronto. The other is the Toronto Raptors.

Day 93 - The AHL Teams, Part 1

Manchester Monarchs - It's a shame, really, and a tad ironic. They play in the Verizon Wireless Arena and the players can only afford Straight Talk.

Portland Pirates - In researching this Maine-based city, I found its description to be pretty close to that of Friendship, Maine from "Casper". I'd like to think that Christina Ricci and Devon Sawa are seen at the games of the Cumberland County Civic Center, which sounds more like a courthouse than a hockey arena.

Providence Bruins - The per capita income of Providence is $15,525 is heavily influenced by the pay scale of the Providence Bruins players: bottlecaps, arena food leftovers, and spare change in couches.

St. John's IceCaps - They play at the Mile One Center, whose biggest claim to fame is having the most convoluted sponsorship in the history of minor league sports and the cancellation of an NBA game between the Toronto Raptors and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Let me repeat that. Their most famous game didn't happen.

Worcester Sharks - As the farm team for San Jose, they spend the whole season prepare themselves for fizzling out in the playoffs, which is good, because it gives the DCU Center time to prepare for trade shows and kindergarten graduations.

Adirondack Phantoms - Currently located in the obscure city of Glens Falls, this team will be moving to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where their new 8500 seat arena will be able to fit all the Mennonites of the region.

Albany Devils - Double whammy. First, the team has to play in Albany .Then, the players risk getting called up to Jersey.

Bridgeport Sound Tigers - Rick DiPietro has a standing invitation to play here whenever he gets injured, which is all the time.

Connecticut Whale - The fan base for this team has doubled since the latest allegations in the UConn case.

Springfield Falcons - This is the feeder team for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Down the pipeline, there are players worse than those seen on the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Day 92 - Where the Top 10 Prospects Will Go

The following is my predictions on where the top ten prospects will end up next year, if the lockout gets cancelled.

10. Rasmus Ristolainen - Tampa Bay - His commute to SeaWorld Orlando will only be 45 minutes.
9. Darnell Nurse - Winnipeg - Is looking forward to giving to the community of Winnipeg, since hockey will probably be canceled this season as well.
8. Hunter Shinkaruk - Carolina - Will join the Staal brothers on the top line at the Dick's Sporting Goods.
7. Valeri Nichushkin - Minnesota - Destiny has led him here and then to "America's Funniest Home Videos" because when a Russian accent combines with the north midwest American dialect, hilarity will surely ensue.
6. Elias Lindholm - Anaheim - Has always wanted to live somewhere warm and the Pluto costume is a good start.
5. Sean Monahan - Toronto - Trade bait. Will probably be going to TD Canada Trust.
4. Jonathan Drouin - New York - Is projected to score the most goals at Barclays Center. By goals, I mean gold stars as the top concessioneer.
3. Sasha Barkov - Montreal - May be picked up by Major League Gaming, Mortal Kombat division for his catch phrase, "Finnish him".
2. Seth Jones - Columbus - Will be a vital part of the rebuilding process for the Ohio State Buckeyes
1. Nathan McKinnon - Edmonton - That's just where number one picks go. John Wall almost went there.