Where do they go from here? The owners want a cap, and the only cap the NHLPA is interested in is one that they can toss on their melon’s after practice. The players want money, the owners say they’re losing money. The situation just seems far too ironic for me though. I’m sure somewhere Mr. Oxford and Mr. Webster and conjuring up a new revised definition of the word “irony” that goes something like this: The last 15 or so years of the NHL.

It seems ironic to me because most of the problems stem from Gary Bettman and the other league official’s expansion greediness over the past decade or two. I mean, I’m not expert, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Most rocket scientists probably don’t even watch hockey. But when you have teams in cities that can’t support clubs not due to the lack of money or population, but just on the sheer lack of interest in the sport, you’re going to lose money, and it all goes downhill from there.

This is how it works: the new expansion GM’s have to find a way to draw some fan support, so they go looking for a big name player to sign. Not necessarily a superstar, just a big name. So mediocre players become big name signings on their new teams and see the opportunity to ask for heaps of money, which they get. GM’s hope that this draws in fans and that all goes well, but a month into the season when no one cares anymore, they won’t ever fill the rink up again unless the team flukes out and makes the playoffs. That’s how she goes.

This is the sick spiral of stupidity that the NHL’s greediness has led to. If the league was five or ten teams smaller the problems wouldn’t be so big because average players wouldn’t be signing four or five million-dollar contracts. There wouldn’t be as many jobs out there, but it would do a lot for the minor leagues, junior leagues probably right down to minor hockey as far as competition goes. Even throwing in a salary cap wouldn’t be all that hard in a league like that, because salaries wouldn’t have gotten this ridiculous, and if they did, it would be because of increased television revenues and things like that.

I couldn’t tell you what’s going to happen in the next month or two, after all I’m in a different hemisphere so I’ll be living off of Rock ‘em Sock ‘em tapes and roller hockey with my buddy Darrin until I get back to home soil in like a year. I do hope it gets resolved nice and quick though so that Stevie Y and the Wings can snatch another Stanley Cup for the sake of myself and the folks back home. I’m sure my dad would even watch in my honor if that was to happen. It would be good times for everyone, it would even give my mom another excuse to send me a couple “care packages” of game tapes and such to keep me occupied down here.

You know, I hope a couple of players and a couple of owners read this and realize that I’m the best thing to happen to literature since the invention of paper (these were the first Kerrzy Reports I’ve done manually with pen and paper haha), and more importantly I hope they realize what they’ll be depriving so many people of with this lockout.

Moral of the story: I’ll play in the NHL for free, just tell me where to sign.