IN OTHER NEWS, THE ROMANOVS HAVE DECLARED AN AMNESTY

I am not a hockey fan. This is true mostly because the man that owns the team believes that if games are on free TV, fans will not come out to games. He has believed that for years. Thus, as a child I never watched hockey, and do not know the game. Just as an aside, the Cubs games were all on free TV through the 1990s, and they easily outdraw any other team in the city. Hmm. Maybe you build your brand on TV... Oh well.

The point is that I had to laugh when I saw that the Chicago Blackhawks, whose league locked their players out and did not play last year (and may not play next year) hired a new General Manager, who promptly fired the head coach. Said the new GM "I've thought about this long and hard for six weeks. This is not about the past, it's about the future." Future? The NHL has no future. They abandoned Canada for the Sunbelt. They never took the opportunity, in a league full of Europeans, to have a European division and play the Stanley Cup finals North American champion versus European champion. They paid players as if the sport actually generated revenue.

Wow. The NHL is *so* screwed up.