Games Cancelled on October 14 – The NHL That Could Have Been

Tonight would have been a thrilling night of NHL hockey. You know, if the owners and players weren’t fighting over which millionaires were entitled to more millions than the other millionaires. Every night the NHL Lockout goes on, 104.5 The Team will break down the games that both sides have stolen from us, because a world without hockey talk is worse than one in which you and Skip Bayless are the only people left.

Only one game was on the schedule in the NHL today before the players union and owners decided to stage a rich man fight that made me wonder whether or not I was watching The Social Network for a little while.

Dallas Stars at Anaheim Ducks: Both of these teams were near the bottom of the league in goals scored last year, and in the middle of the league in goals against. Such evenly matched teams surely would have produced a shootout, which is the single best event in all of sports for many reasons.

First of all, unlike other sports that use the shootout concept, the NHL knows when the right time to use it is. In the regular season, they let the shootout, which is largely a crapshoot, to decide games before letting both teams play as many overtimes as it takes to score an actual goal to win in the playoffs.

Meanwhile, in soccer, we can just have ties all day long in the regular season until they switch to the shootout format in the playoffs of major competitions. At that point, you may as well flip a coin to determine the winner of a big time tournament.

So, in short, if not for the whole "second lockout in eight years" thing, the NHL has their act together. Silver linings, hockey fans. Silver linings.

Enjoy the game today. Oh wait, nevermind.