So apparently NHLPA Executive Director Bob Goodenow has a plan to end the lockout.
And guess what?
He's not telling anyone what it is.
I love that plan.
Al Strachan says NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's plan is to break the union. Strachan says it seems the commissioner doesn't have any desire to settle the lockout any other way. He also says the owners want hockey next season. I'm guessing that if things aren't settled by the middle of the summer, the owners are going to cut Bettman loose and settle for the massive salary rollbacks and a soft cap. That's just my guess, though. It just seems the owners are trying to see how far out on the ledge Bettman can go before he or the union breaks. It's almost a sport in itself.
The players have a plan, too. They're looking into starting their own league.
Truthfully, if I were going to start a sports league, I'd be going Slamball. I can't get enough of that. It's basketball. It's a trampoline. It's everything good in the world. I love it.
I also love the legs on that story about that firm that offered to buy the NHL. Would the league ever go for less than $4 billion? Would 30 people ever decide to sell their teams? But people are eating the story up. I caught the last few minutes of Mike and the Mad Dog, who host the big sports show on the big sports radio station here in the city, and one of them was talking about the purchase offer. And they never talk hockey. I guess it just sounds so crazy, people love to talk about it.

Larry Brooks has an interesting look at the NHL's proposed revenue sharing model. Basically, the big clubs don't have to kick in very much for the little clubs.
But just the fact that Brooks was able to see this document really speaks to the collateral damage of this lockout. A lot of people on both sides are really mad and upset about the lockout and they're not going to forget about it any time soon. And when the NHL does resume play, these people are still going to have major grudges. These grudges might manifest themselves in the form of certain players not signing with certain clubs, or certain clubs not signing certain players. Some of the residual anger will appear on the ice during games. And a lot of the anger will appear in newspapers, as leaks to the media.
I'm assuming at some point the lockout will end and hockey will resume. But the fallout will taint the game for years to come.
On a happier, non-hockey-related note, Sandy Koufax, my favorite athlete ever, has been hanging out with Pedro Martinez, or Petey, as Koufax likes to call him. It constantly blows me away that an athlete of the magnitude of Koufax walks among us, like an ordinary human.

Shockingly, the less the NHL plays, the more people seem to write and think about it.
Flyers goalie Robert Esche is actually talking about miking goalies to let the fans see what goalies go through during a game (login info.). It's shocking because Esche, usually a chatty guy, shut off his personality during the Flyers' postseason run last year. After watching NASCAR, he's saying that hockey has to let fans in more, the way NASCAR does.
Or so I'm told. I've never really watched a car race. It kind of stresses me out. All that racing and revving. It's unsettling.
Of course, some people aren't that into making hockey games more accessible. Larry Brooks takes ESPN's Mark Shapiro to task for suggesting players take off their helmets on the bench so TV viewers can see their faces. It's not the best idea I've ever heard, but it's really not as bad as Brooks seems to think. Shapiro is just trying to think of ways to connect viewers to players. It's hard. It's not like basketball or baseball, where you're seeing stars just about all the time. With hockey, your best player (unless he's a goalie), is going to play 30 minutes tops. Tops. So the NHL really needs to figure out a way to make viewers interested in what's going on with the other three lines. And that's why I've always thought the NHL should reduce the number of forwards from 12 to 9. It would force out a lot of the less versatile players and make it easier for fans to know who's playing.

Wow. Disney sold the Ducks (login info.). Whoever pulled that off should get some extra commission:

Salesman: Yeah. It's a great team. You're going to love watching them...(quietly) whenever they start playing hockey again.

Buyer: I'm sorry. What was that?

Salesman: Nothing. Sign here. Hurry. Don't turn on ESPN. Sign. Here. Read this story from The Hockey News' site.

Buyer: This is going to be great. I can't wait!

The LA Times has a really interesting article on Disney honcho Michael Eisner and his role with the Ducks and in the NHL. The Ducks were a marketing juggernaut for their first five seasons in the league. And Eisner was a big proponent of changing NHL rules to make the game more entertaining. Things like no red line and a bigger net. Things you've probably heard before. Things the other NHL owners shot down because Eisner was the new guy.
Eisner also proposed giving the players "transparent Jetson-style space helmets". I'm not sure what that would really do for the game. Other than freak me out.

The Times had a cool article on how hard it is for kids to be goalies. This is the best line: "'When you win everybody loves you, when you lose everybody blames you,' said Matt Murnane, a 13-year-old goalie. He was asked if he had any words of wisdom for Patrick and Dana.
'It's a hell,' he said. 'It's worth it, though.'"
I think if you asked just about any goalie in hockey that same question, you'd get that same response 99 times out of 100.