Through the Five Hole
Son Letter B (they're twins) greeted me with the news of a deal. Hockey returns. He can stop following Champions League football so brilliantly. We turn to Shallow Center, the fine baseball blog that we managed to miss at first in our round-up Monday of mid-season Phillies things.
THERE'S REJOICING AMONG gum-chomping, big-haired South Philly chicks wearing Tim Kerr sweaters. After flushing untold millions of dollars down the toilet, the National Hockey League and its players have reportedly nailed down a new collective bargaining agreement. The league's lockout of players wiped out the entire 2004-05 season, in essence because a bunch of millionaires couldn't sit down and figure out how to divvy up an obscenely large pile of money. By all accounts the players are accepting a deal substantially worse than those offered at the beginning of and during the lockout, which means they accomplished nothing except donating to their teams' owners lots and lots of scratch over the last year.
Then again, if the "brand new salary structure ... keeps high-spending teams such as Toronto, Philadelphia and the New York Rangers in line," as ESPN.com's story says, and that means Bob Clarke will have to stop throwing cash at gritty, lumbering forwards who can't skate, then the whole thing will have been worth it.
P.S. I know the South Philly crack was a cheap shot.
P.P.S. You know you were thinking it, too.
Hate letters to Tom please, not to me.
Minutiae blew the whistle on Shallow Center - two minutes for stereotyping - then went on happily:
A lockout that lasted only two months and four days short of a whole year is finally over, bringing the coolest game back onto its ice and hockey nuts everywhere (including me) out of hibernation.
The lockout showed the worst sides of what can happen when people start getting too used to the amounts of money that are thrown around in professional sports today. Millionaires fought with millionaires over just how many Beamers they should have in their driveways, or something like that.
I'm not even going to look at the terms of the agreement. I don't care. I'm just happy ecstatic elated to have my favorite sport back.
Bummer. My dreams of the hockey lockout lasting forever will go unrealized. After a dream winter of exciting ACC basketball, looks like another winter of watching sporting events that end with a score of 1-0 between teams like the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Philadelphia is probably one of about four American cities where people even realize that these goons went on strike in the first place. Should be interesting to see what kind of crowds hockey gets this year outside of Philly and Detroit.