Paul "Uni Watch" Lukas has some good hockey information in his latest column.
It's all about the rise and fall of surnames on the backs of jerseys.
Apparently, back in the day, Howard Ballard, the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, wasn't a huge fan of the concept. According to Lukas, "When the NHL mandates that all teams wear jersey names, tradition-minded...Ballard 'complies' by putting white-lettered names on the team's home white jerseys and blue-lettered names on the road blues, thereby rendering the names invisible. League bigwigs are unamused, and the team eventually switches to conventional jersey names."
Now that's what I call an owner. I bet Ballard would laugh if he saw how today's owners let the players and agents walk all over them. And I bet he'd be disgusted with this lockout, which was basically caused by owners being consistently outsmarted by agents.

The lockout has been going on for a while.
Red Wings goalie Manny Legace ran into Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman at a skating rink and didn't even recognize him.
I feel so bad for Detroit that there's no hockey going on. They love the Red Wings so much. The Detroit Free Press has been covering Yzerman's use of a helmet visor like it's breaking news:

"This just in...the visor he'll wear during games won't be as tinted as his practice visor. We now return you to "Who's the Boss," already in progress. I wish Tony and Angela would just freaking do it already. What do you mean we're still on the air..."

Those Fedorov brothers sure are busy.
First, we learn that Fedor cut a few songs.
Now, we learn that Sergei is dating Tara Reid.
I pity the man. Reid is supposed to be a huge party girl. In fact, she popped out of her dress a few weeks ago. The pictures were all over the Internet. You can search on it. I'm not going to do your dirty work for you.

You know who's really hating the lockout?
The Canadian beer companies.
You know why?
Without hockey, they don't have a way to reach their core audience.
Another sad side effect of the lockout is that Canadian TV is showing more American programming in the form of American movies for MOVIE NIGHT IN CANADA (the sad replacement for the classic HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA). So while Canadian businesses struggle to find an audience, the nation loses some of its cultural identity in the very time slot that defines a huge chunk of the Canadian soul.
It's sad.
Let me cheer you up.
Vancouver Canuck Fedor Fedorov, the redundantly-named brother of Sergei Fedorov, cut an album. You can hear samples here. I can't bring myself to listen, but he's supposed to sound like a young Tom Waits. I'm sure somewhere Tom Waits is trying to figure out if he can sue over the comparison.
Meanwhile, Detroit Red Wing Darren McCarty is touring with his own band, Grinder. I don't think Fedorov will be opening for the metalish group any time soon, though.
And finally, the Belfast Telegraph reports the Belfast Giants were approached by an NHL star about joining their league. The player is a defenseman who made around $1.7 million last season and has played in almost 600 games.
In other words, it's Brendan Witt.
Sadly, the Giants have no open roster spots and they can't really afford the insurance.
Maybe Witt can put a band together. I like the name Witt's End.
There. It's settled.

According to Larry Brooks, the players' union is getting ready to bring an offer to the league. I don't really understand the offer. It doesn't seem like a cap, though. It seems more like a luxury tax, but I have no idea. They better figure something out, though. Because of the lockout, they can't even afford to turn on the heat in Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena. That's cold, dude.
And you have to love Ron Artest and the Pistons-Pacers brawl. It's made the idiotic antics of bonehead athletes seem downright quaint instead of deranged. Dan Sullivan from the ECHL's Reading Royals mooned some fans after they started giving him some business. He was suspended, fined, and probably fired by the Royals. It's just nice when fans aren't attacked.