A life gone to NHL

This month was supposed to be my 26th anniversary. That’s a long time for any relationship; some might say too long. But I

didn’t think so -- right up until the day I was dumped.

Of course, you could see the end coming. You know the signs: mild grumbling, followed by the silent treatment, flashes of hostility and threats to leave. Eventually, the threats become reality, and you’re left hurt, inconsolable and watching the lawyers duke it out over your future.

Only this time, for once, it wasn’t a woman walking over me with stiletto heels. It was the National Hockey League stomping on me with rusty skates.

Though it’s been 2 1/2 months since the NHL became the first major North American sports league to cancel its season because of a nasty, rhetoric-filled labor dispute -- exactly two days after Valentine’s Day, no less -- the wounds have opened up again.

Most people probably have no idea, but this weekend was supposed to have been the midpoint of the Stanley Cup playoffs. A big deal for a guy who fell in love with the NHL at nearly first sight during the 1979 playoffs.

For me and the one-half of 1% of all U.S. households with a TV set who tuned in religiously to the NHL last season, there’s nothing left but to think of what might have been. Right now, the quest for the cup would be at a fevered pitch. And maybe, just maybe, ESPN would be showing highlights of game-winning goals and bone-crushing body checks instead of the Pig Olympics from Shanghai.

So what is a jilted hockey fan to do?

Some have resorted to cyberstalking. Figuring that fans would be unable to live without the real thing, the Canadian Press -- the Great White North’s version of Associated Press -- teamed with video game maker Electronic Arts to simulate an NHL season. (That’s right, the season was played out on a computer.) The CP has been writing detailed stories based on the virtual games, including scoring, injuries and penalties. There has been enough demand that respectable newspapers and websites have been publishing the results. (Long-suffering L.A. King fans might be happy to know that the team “finished� third in the Western Conference, while the Anaheim Mighty Ducks were just as pathetic in cyberspace as in real life.)

Not to be outdone, the NHL has been running a series of computer-generated tournaments on the Internet, pitting the all-time greats against each other. Friday’s matchup will feature a 1920s team with Sprague Cleghorn and Newsy Lalonde versus a 1970s team sprinkled with a few players once known as the Broad Street Bullies. Care to wager on who will win?

Judging from the blaring headlines on the NHL website, these tournaments are much bigger news than the failure to end the lockout -- a situation that is threatening next season as well.

Considering that most of the privately run fantasy leagues canceled their contests when the NHL pulled the plug on the real season, this parallel universe seems particularly perverse. If the people who ordinarily embrace fantasy leagues aren’t bothering to run computer simulations, you really have to wonder what the point of the Canadian Press and NHL adventures is.

You could ask the same question about the endless repeats of “classic� games on the all-sports networks. It’s a lot like flipping through that old photo album of you and your ex -- it might offer some fun memories, but you don’t really want to be reminded of them. At least not when the sting of the breakup is so fresh.

A few people have been watching minor league hockey teams, such as the Long Beach Ice Dogs, who were eliminated from the playoffs on Monday.

But I couldn’t bring myself to watch them, because once you’ve seen the best, would you settle for less?

That’s why I, for one, have chosen to move on with my life. Pick up a new hobby. Get out more. See other sports.

To think of all the Saturday nights I sacrificed watching double-headers of “Hockey Night in Canada� via satellite, and for what? Now, I don’t want to even see hockey on TV: no repeats, no college Frozen Four earlier this month, no World Championships (which start this weekend -- be strong!). It is dead to me.

To help fill the void, I enrolled in a self-improvement class -- Mandarin Chinese -- at Pasadena City College. If there’s one thing that can get my mind off the NHL, it is learning 50,000 characters one stick ... er, stroke ... at a time.

And after a quarter-century of spectator-sport monogamy, I’ve even started to flirt with watching basketball and Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments. Baseball? I’m not quite that desperate yet.

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Scott Sandell can be reached at [email protected].