We are closed for the season

WTF- NHL? Seriously guys.. did you just cancel the Winter Classic? Might as well say the season's over and leave us in peace rather than stringing it along for the poor unsuspecting optimistic fools among us. (which might sometimes include me, though my optimism about an NHL season is waning by the day.)

Egads, if I could care about another sport, I would. I would drop the NHL like a bad habit and peace it to something else that would be less likely to hurt me every 7 years or so.

But I can't. Like I said in the last post, they are forcing me to break my hockey habit, but I don't want to.

Obviously I still love the game (well maybe it's not obvious, but I do love hockey in all forms), but the NHL was the easiest one to consume on a regular basis. There's a decent bit of college hockey in the Buffalo area (we have Niagara, Canisius and Buffalo State) and the Amerks aren't terribly far away either. BUT I don't live *in* Buffalo, I live an hour away. And the Sabres were on tv.. so it was an easy way to get a hockey fix several nights a week, with a few live games thrown in along the way. I don't have that anymore.

I will probably take the nephews to a Canisius or a Niagara game at some point this season. We used to go to at least one NU game a year after I stopped working for them and this year we have free tix to Canisius through work. But if we don't have NHL hockey back, there will be no road trip to Columbus to spend the weekend with my sis Brett, as we have for the past 3 years. The kids look forward to that "Weekend at Brettie's house" all year. My 8-yr old nephew has declared himself a Blue Jackets fan based on those 3 games- completely notwithstanding the Sabres and Purple Eagles games I've taken him to- Brettie took him to 3 CBJ games and he's a fan for life now. (true stories)

I've been having a hard time explaining the lockout and billionaires fighting over billions of dollars to a 6 year old and 8 year old because it doesn't make much sense to this 31 year old. Yeah, I've read about the union and revenue sharing and all that but it's still bullshit and I'm sick of it. (and 57% or 53% or 47% of $0 is still $0 just sayin.)

Give me back my hockey.

With the cancellation of the Winter Classic, it doesn't look likely.

Now we just have to wait for the announcement.