BRINGING BACK THE CHILLS

So none of the players seem to be on the same team where we left them. But then again, the entire league isn't on the same television network. Instead, you'll see the games after "Survivor" reruns on a cable station that is supposed to feature things from the outdoors.
Mark Messier and a bunch of other stars are gone, but Wayne Gretzky is back, only as a coach. Everyone is claiming this Sidney Crosby kid, who has finally arrived in Pittsburgh, is the next Great One if not the next Mario, who is somehow still playing.
Miami still has a team, as does Atlanta, although I am not sure many people in either town are aware of this.
Winnipeg and Quebec still don't have teams (and their citizens are acutely aware), although the league now has an economic system that would have saved them if only Gary Bettman (who, sadly, is still here) hadn't gotten conned so badly back in the early 1990s that the ice had to melt for 16 long months.
The red line is gone, too.
The Stanley Cup � the real Chase for the Cup � is back, however.
Shootouts are in, as is more space behind the bench, more room in the net (thanks to smaller goalie pads) and less room in the penalty box because the refs are calling clutch and grabs like they are going out of style. (Which hopefully they are.)
All of this has made the hockey world dizzy but, perhaps surprisingly, not disillusioned.
Maybe it's because the NHL fan base was so small before the owners and the players tried to kill the sport that all of us had to be considered diehards. But after all of that mess, we are almost all back.
The NHL returns Wednesday with 15 games featuring all 30 teams. A rerun of a poker match somewhere may wind up getting higher ratings, fewer hockey stories will be in the papers and on the highlight shows, plenty of people will still mock the sport and the league's leadership is still a collection of empty suits, but it hardly matters now.

Because it's Game On.

And at this point does anything else really matter?
The ice promises to be fresh and crisp. The sweaters will be as colorful as ever. The speed and skill will be there, as will the hits and misses, the slap shots and daring passes.
With any luck, there will be a good, old-fashioned hockey fight or three.
The great sport of hockey will again be played at its highest level and if you don't understand what a charge that can be � how nothing in sports can be more exciting than overtime playoff hockey � then we are tired of trying to explain it to you. It was a desire to get new fans and a blind push to get bigger that dang near killed the league and made it smaller.
All that is left is us, the ones who understand the game, who know the tradition and who love the hits and history of a sport where the athletes walk, literally, on water.
And so we have forgiven. Maybe not all, but many.
We will trek back to the arenas, find our familiar seats, greet old friends, grab a spot on the couch with dad or mom or the kids, hit the local sports bar and actually get excited to see Don Cherry's suits and Barry Melrose's hair.
And we will watch. And cheer. And roar. We will even find the Outdoor Life Network on the cable system, as humiliating of a place as that is for a proud sport.
Maybe we'll do it out of habit because of the old memories, or maybe because of curiosity for the new stuff. Or maybe it'll be because we didn't know how much we could miss it.
Maybe Sidney Crosby, this LeBron James on skates who's just 18 years old and straight out of Nova Scotia, can save the league and save the fans to reward our faith.
If the NHL knew what it was doing, of course, he would be opening the season in Madison Square Garden, his Pittsburgh Penguins taking on the New York Rangers in the world's most famous arena to send off a flare deep into the nation's media capital that hockey is back.
But with the NHL being what it is, Crosby is playing over in Jersey.
That part will never change. Not with this league.
But at this point we are too tired, too desperate to complain. At this point, anything is good enough. New rosters, new network, new rules. It's OK. We'll deal.
Just let those steel blades hit the fresh ice. Just bring back the chills.

-Dan Wetzel

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