Hockey vacation

Gary Bettman is trying to steal the NHL

What the Puck?
Autumn McDowell
Sports Editor

All I want for Christmas is hockey.

It’s hard to believe that next month it’s Christmas – wow, that sounded like a tweet from @shitgirlssay – but all I’m saying is that there better be NHL by then.

And if there isn’t, then I better see the NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, brought from his happy house with all the other rich people to underneath my tree with a ribbon on his head and shackles between his ankles, and I want to look him straight in the eye and tell him what cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, inbred, dog-kissing, dickless, spineless, sack of monkey shit he really is.

On Thursday, Oct. 18 it was announced the NHL cancelled all games until Nov. 30 and it will not have a full 82 game season this year, if a season at all.

It has become increasingly obvious that Bettman is the Grinch, determined to ruin the hockey season by stealing the NHL from all of the goons down in Hockeyville.

And if canceling the games throughout November wasn’t already a huge punch in the face, the Grinch has taken it one step further by threatening to cancel the Winter Classic as well.

This year the Winter Classic was set to feature an original six match up between the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The real devastating part of this is that, if there is no Winter Classic, than there will be no HBO 24/7 special.

For those of you who haven’t seen 24/7, we are officially no longer friends. But for those of you who have, you will be able to understand the pain that I am going through.

24/7 is responsible for giving hockey fans such memorable moments as Sidney Crosby’s pre-game rituals, or Ben Lovejoy’s hilariously swollen face after he collided with a slapshot; and who could forget that it was 24/7 who revealed what a nutcase Ilya Bryzgalov truly is.

I’m sure there are at least one or two devil’s advocate jerks reading this right now and arguing that it was the Winter Classic’s fault that Crosby was seriously injured and missed many hockey games. To those people I say: it’s not the Winter Classic’s fault that David Steckel is a blindside-hitting idiot.

If you are not a devil’s advocate, then by now you are surely wondering why the hell I am so concerned with a game that isn’t scheduled for another two months.

First of all, I really don’t trust that the Grinch will get the NHL up and running by then. Second, without the current NHL these types of problems are all I have to consume my thoughts with – seriously, this column gets harder and harder to write every week – how do you have a hockey column without any real hockey?

I hope to God that by some Christmas miracle, the NHL is back and the Winter Classic and 24/7 are playing on my TV. And if anyone is looking for any last minute gift ideas for me, I would like Bettman to be fired.