Ice Ice Baby

There are two, and only two, hard-and-fast "Don't Bother Daddy" moments in my house.

The first comes every weekday morning, amidst the organized bedlam that is waking, dressing, and feeding two young children. Between the five-year-old on his way to kindergarten, the two-year-old systematically plotting the overthrow of Western civilization, and the brain-damaged Chocolate Lab begging for a potty break and the leftover microwave pancakes, Daddy gets one small treat - reading the Sports section of the local paper.

In truth, I scan it for news that might be important to my job (headline: "Chris Leak's Circuitry Blows; UF Engineers Called In For Repairs"). I search for columns that reference Sun Sports, bizarre tangents from my buddy Mike Bianchi, results for Trinity Prep athletics, and other items of interest. Fifteen minutes every morning, and that's it. The rest of my homework can be done at the office.

The second "Don't Bother Daddy" moment comes when Sports Illustrated arrives at my house - again, job-related. Generally, I read it cover to cover at one sitting.

So anyway, I opened Sports Illustrated today and started to read their NHL preview, when a strange thought occurred to me. Hockey is back, and I'm actually mildly interested. This bears further investigation.

As an Orlando native, my hockey education was earned in four years as a student (and season ticket holder) at Cornell University, where the environment around home hockey games is the Ivy League equivalent of Duke basketball, right down to sleeping out for tickets. We chanted obscene things about Boston University; we mocked Harvard with all due passion. I figure I saw about two dozen future NHL players on the ice at Lynah Rink over those four years, and many more guys who are probably selling tires somewhere right now, but the point is, I was there. And it was good.

As an adult, my hockey interest has been purely professional. One of my first-ever appearances on "SportsCenter" was marred by an Anglized reference to former Los Angeles King Michael Petit, whose name I butchered on national television as, well, "Michael Petit," instead of "Michelle Pettee." That little glitch earned me an angry and well-deserved phone message from a hockey fan who abused me for being an idiot. From that moment forward, I made it my mission in life to get the names right, if nothing else. And that was pretty much the extent of it.

That is, of course, until the Tampa Bay Lightning won the freaking Stanley Cup. Never mind that Sun Sports has carried the Lightning games since the days of Sunshine Network - this was a professional team in Florida, in a city other than Miami, winning a world championship. I was there for Game Seven. I hosted the Lightning victory parade in June of 2004 on Sun Sports, and saw the fans lined five-deep throughout downtown Tampa, and met the players and heard the speeches. I was hooked. It didn't arouse the personal connection of my classmates battling Union College on choppy ice on a frigid Saturday night in Ithaca, but I was hooked. I even have photos of my children sitting in the Cup, one of which I still use to this day as the wallpaper on my laptop.

Then came the lockout. A season wasted, a sport battered. Sun Sports scrambled to fill empty programming slots, players bolted for Europe, and college baseball started to generate higher ratings on ESPN2 than the NHL ever did. Hockey faded once again, stuffed behind college football and the Chevy Florida Fishing Report. My golf game improved, and my kids went back to school. Life went on.

So I open the magazine, and there it is. Hockey. Smaller pads on the goalies, a nearly meaningless red line, no more ties, and a salary cap, but hockey nonetheless. I started reading.

Wow. Did you know that Scott Niedermayer now plays for Anaheim? That Michael Peca is an Oiler? Jeremy Roenick a King, with Pavol Demitra and Valerie Bure? Paul Kariya plays for Nashville, for Pete's sake. Brian Leetch is in Boston. My man Joe Nieuwendyk - Cornell Joe, whose name must be spelled correctly by all undergrads as a condition of graduation - Cornell Joe plays for the Panthers! Right here in Florida!

Nikolai Khabibulin went to Chicago, and Cory Stillman to Carolina, but the Lightning, thankfully, are largely untouched. New additions Sean Burke and Rob DiMaio will soon be chatting with Paul Kennedy between periods. Hockey is back, and I'm still reading. What does it mean?

For us, of course, it means programming, and lots of it. The NHL's new national television deal with OLN and NBC leaves plenty of room for regional telecasts like ours - 76 Lightning games on Sun Sports this season, ten of those in HD. For the first time in franchise history, every regular season Lightning game will be televised. It was nice talking with you, Paul. See you in June.

For hockey, it means a second chance, and I make that point about Sun Sports' Lightning schedule for a reason. In my view, hockey's drive to become a "national" sport on the lines of an NFL or NBA is, partially, what doomed the game. Hockey does well on a regional basis, but for whatever reason you choose, it has struggled as a nationally televised sport - but they kept trying. Glowing pucks, "NHL2Night," All-Star games pitting American players versus the rest of the world. Try as they might, they couldn't sell it nationally. In the new NHL, you'll see a renewed focus on local coverage, and I think that's a good thing. Hockey fans are among the most passionate and loyal in all of sports. These franchises belong to them. So screw trying to compete with "Survivor" or "Entourage." Forget even trying to compete with the NFL or Major League Baseball. Give the game back to the puckheads, and let it be.

So I'm back in. Sports Illustrated picked Calgary to win the Cup this year, with Tampa Bay listed as the fourth-best team in the league. Philadelphia will be good. Chicago will be dramatically better. Many of your perennial playoff teams will not. Jaromir Jagr plays for the Rangers, and Eric Lindros is now a Maple Leaf. Hockey is back, and I'll be watching.

Game on.