The NHL season's over. Yeah. Whatever.

The least unexpected headline of the year . A group of millionaires is whining about being gouged by a group of billionaires who are whining about not getting enough bang for their multi-million bucks.

The salary cap as they were considering it was never going to work. The League is bound by rules which say that enough dissenting votes can shut down any agreement--I believe the figure is six or eight votes.The players made an offer at $49 million in total salary outlay per team, with bonuses for teams earning more money.

One problem--or more precisely eight problems: There are at least six teams that didn't pay out that much in salary last year in the first place. So how are they likely to vote?

What I want to see here? Simple. Remove the teams from Anaheim, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, San Jose, Carolina, and Nashville, and send them to St. John's, Charlottetown, St. John, Quebec City, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon, where the fans would GET IT. Bettman is partly responsible for turning the Quebec Nordiques into a cup-winning team--by getting them sold to Colorado.

By the way--who the hell's bright idea was it to put a Denver-based team into a division titled "Northwest"?

The other, slightly more interesting alternative is to expand the NHL to Europe. Make it the IHL; then we could have the International Hockey Organization for Players.

If the owners want more bums on seats (instead of on the ice) they need to adopt two strategies: 1) Get real players--not multimillionaires who get ten grand per game to warm the bench if they're feeling peaky. 2) Drop the damn ticket prices! You could do this by firing a few multimillionaires.

Hell, if I could scare up the cash, I'd go to Regina at four AM. I'd sit by a frozen pond on the coldest day of the year, and every time a seventeen-year-old turned up for before-paper-route practice I'd offer him fifty grand a year to play for my new team. Then I'd charge twelve bucks a seat, six for kids, and watch the fans roll into my new rink.

And the first time someone wanted my star forward for $1.8 million per year, why I'd let him go with a smile. And when he was playing in Russia (during the next lockout) I'd point him out and say "He got his start with me."

Not that the owners are alone in being Δ1¢λheads. A BC Lions player (can't recall who--could be Carl Kidd, linebacker) just re-signed to the Lions for $100,000 per year. Canadian football, always a major- though-second-string sport, is exciting and spectacular. The average NHL salary is $1.8 mil. The CFL has a cap. But I can't recall the last time they cancelled a season.

The last sport to have a mass temper tantrum was baseball. They lost roughly thirty percent of their audience in the US--where baseball is programmed into the genes of every young shaver along with mom, apple pie, and the boy scout motto. Sorry about the MIDI. Try this instead.

How's hockey going to do in Tampa Bay, Carolina, etc after this? Whattaya think?

Moving the Panthers to Iqualut would have several good effects: It'd bring jobs, create community spirit, and give the kids something to do on Saturday nights besides huff gas. By the way: To understand how well hockey does in Florida, consider that the site linked to above is the highest Metacrawler hit for "Florida Panthers".

Quote of the week:
"If women ever achieved men's levels of arousal would anyone get any work done?"
--Georgie Binks