Running for Your Life: What? No Hockey?

It’s no secret in my family. Ice hockey’s in my blood. I was born on Oct. 5, the day after the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series in 1955. But Oct. 5 also marks in my mind the start of the professional hockey season. It is also hockey great Mario Lemieux’s birthday, Oct. 5, 1965.

So what’s up with hockey? As I write this the second work stoppage in eight years is about to delay the birthday-time opening of the 2012-13 edition of the National Hockey League. It is strange to think of it. When the weather changes, the nights get cooler, every year since I can remember a slice of the reptilian portion on my brain begins pulsing, hockey! hockey! hockey! hockey!

This time, as it did in 2004-2005, when the NHL owners locked out the players for the entire season, that part of my brain does gather stimuli: a PR-supplied coffee table book called “Team Canada 1972,” marking the 40th anniversary of the Summit Series between Canada and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (Wow! The In Memoriams are especially poignant: Gary Bergman, Bill Goldsworthy, Rick Martin, Michel “Bunny” Larocque and assistant coach John Ferguson); a daily taste of poison about the progress of the league’s talks with the players on www.tsn.ca; and planning for a roadtrip with buddy Coach to see an AHL Bridgeport Sound Tigers game in December. But alas it's not the same as games: pretty much every night from Oct. 5 to mid-June. It could be all that will be lost.

Oh, and I suppose I’ll be running more this season. That is, until the unlikely event that these two sides, which are currently far apart in their demands, come to an agreement and end the work stoppage. This season I'll be running with my fingers crossed.

Next: Running for Your Life: So OC, You Still Running?