In the meantime, the careers of dozens of 3rd/4th line forwards, 5th/6th/7th defencemen and backup goalies continue to tick away. History suggests that the end of a lockout usually prompts a youth movement in most clubs, especially if an amnesty on buyouts is part of the deal.

NASCAR: National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. We’ll leave the redundancy of Car and Auto out of it. It’s understood English isn’t a hick’s strong suit.

Stock? Not for a very long time, although the brain trust of an excuse running the show decided to keep the bloated weight of a stock car (3,400 lbs.), along with all of three pieces: Hood, roof, trunk lid. That’s it, three whole pieces that a NASCAR racer has in common with an actual stock car.

Modern stock cars are all fuel-injected. NASCAR? Still using carburetors. Most modern vehicles are front or all-wheel drive. NASCAR still uses old-school rear-wheel drive. Even Toyota, which has no rear-wheel-drive cars in production, uses rear-wheel-drive on its “racecar.”

Real life requires driving in all conditions. Most racing organizations will race in the rain. Even motorcycles race in the rain. NASCAR? When it starts to drizzle you can find those he-men hiding in the garage.

Actual racing: Good luck, since most races see many, many laps under caution. Simple physics: Heavy car, with harder compound tires to carry said heavy car, results in vehicles driving at the limit of tire adhesion. A small bump, some disturbed airflow and, voila, pinball bumper cars crashing regularly. Unfortunately that seems to be a major attraction of NASCAR, as opposed to real racing series. And if you don’t get to see enough smash-ups during a “clean” race, just wait: At least one of the “drivers” will intentionally crash into an opponent (see recent Bowyer/Gordon stupidity), something you never see in any other race series. Innovators of the “green-white-finish” style of racing, because otherwise half the races would end under caution.

History: Born of illegal bootlegging. Once Prohibition was repealed the criminals found a way to continue their activities by running moonshine, which existed in order to circumvent federal alcohol taxation. Once law enforcement began to crack down, participants decided to go to tracks and wreck each other there.

NHL: National Hockey League. Fast-moving athletic contest played on ice skates by boys/men with sticks and a flattened ball. Relatively little illegal activity (at least on the ice) and, until lately, fairly well-managed and entertaining. Occasional fighting breaks out, but this is mostly discouraged and hardly ever starts with someone crashing their car into someone else and risking lives.

There you have it. One discipline is fast-paced, entertaining, edge-of-the-seat high-drama with superbly-conditioned athletes exhibiting skills rarely seen in the general population and the other is NASCAR.

The rest of the pro sports world is roaring with laughter while pointing at the NHL and yet another work stoppage. The laughingstock of pro sports.

Personally, i’m enjoying watching alot of the game’s biggest stars playing overseas on larger ice surfaces. That’s how the game should be played anyway.

It’s called the AHL.

While you guys bicker over who gets how much of 3.5 billion dollars, you seem to forget 0% of 3.5 billion is, well 0 dollars. Instead your 3.5 billion you can’t divide up amongst yourselves, the fans are dividing up their “spendable income” on the NFL, NBA, NCAA basketball, NCAA football, MLS soccer, NCAA hockey, AHL hockey, NASCAR, Indy Car, badminton, volleyball, Major League Lacrosse, lingerie football league, MLB baseball in the spring, golf, figure skating, water polo, the game where you scrub the ice when the saucer thing glides on it, new hd flat screens to watch these said products, jerseys of these products (except lingerie football, dudes don’t look good them, period.), and every other piece of merchandise that isn’t NHL is going to them, not you.

Good day.

Thats not to say this kind of talk is a good thing, but its not the end of the world either.

First of all, he wasn’t making a comparison between hockey and Nascar. Read before you write.

Second, I absolutely do not believe that players and owners care one bit about what I think. Unfortunately, not caring about the fans is what has done some of the most irreparable damage during this lockout.