Shelving Stanley

Had an FB exchange with a friend and fellow hockey fan the other day, and it got me thinking how much the NHL is channeling Bluto from "Animal House" these days. At least that's whose voice I hear when some league suit starts talking about restarting the season in North Dakota or Uzbekistan or wherever the hell it is they're talking about restarting it.

Over? Over? Nothing's over until WE say it's over!

You know the scene.

And, yeah, it wasn't over when the Germans (Germans?) bombed Pearl Harbor, but forget it, they're rolling. Let the season start up again in July, after using a good chunk of June letting the players get in playing shape again. Start the Stanley Cup playoffs in August. And because they can't run for two months the way they usually do (because that would jam you right up against next season) let's make 'em a round robin or single elimination or like the old high school football Jamborees, with different teams playing each other for one period of a standard game.

Tonight, it's the Blues vs. Winnipeg in the first period, Edmonton vs. Calgary in period two and the Bruins vs. the Leafs in period three. Three, three, three mints in one!

The Blob has a better suggestion: Yank the plug.

Give it up, boys. You may say the season's not over, but that doesn't mean it's not over.

That's because the alternative at this late date is an utter farce that pushes players who've lost their ice legs during these idle months into high-stakes games before they're ready. Which is fairly begging for guys to get hurt. And which doesn't even take into consideration the logistics of shielding them from the Bastard Plague.

Nope. Sorry. Lord Stanley doesn't -- or shouldn't -- do half-assed.  And whatever cobbled-together summer-league mess the suits come up with at this point is going to be half-assed squared.

And, yeah, I get it, there are TV contracts and lost revenue and blah-blah-blah. But sometimes you have to be practical. And it wouldn't be the first time no one hoisted Stanley; in 1919, Bastard Plague 1.0 ended the season in the middle of the playoffs, and in 2005 the lockout killed the season.

So there's precedent.

Time to let it proceed.