Fact is, neither Vaclav is even in the country anymore. They're both at home in the Czech Republic, playing for Ceské Budejovice and Liberec, respectively, until NHL commish Gary Bettman and the NHL owners and the NHL players' union can get over their differences and get back to playing a game that's reportedly beloved in snowshoe country and obviously ignored everywhere else. For now, the assorted combatants are all cooling their skates in the penalty box. Glowering. Sulking. Holding their ground like a goalie before the net. Hell will be a hockey rink before these mules come to terms.
Meanwhile, as the eminent economist Marcus Camby pointed out last week, hockey's current woes could prove an unforeseen boost for another indoor/outdoor sport that fewer and fewer people around the country pay attention to. You know the one: Big brown ball. Tall guys. Sneakers that cost 200 bucks. Denver Nuggets coach Jeff Bzdelik recently allowed that he'd personally love to see the NHL lockout end soon because he's a devoted hockey fan, too. But don't you believe it. With hockey on ice -- no, wait a minute, that would be off ice -- action-starved sports fans here and in other NHL/NBA cities will just naturally gravitate to the only dead-of-winter game in town, which is hoops. Actually, the timing couldn't be better for the Nuggets -- aside from the inconvenient fact that the Avalanche and the Nuggets happen to be owned by the same guy, Stan Kroenke. With rising young star Carmelo Anthony and glamorous free agent Kenyon Martin on the roster, the once-hopeless Nuggets promise to be an authentic contender this year, and the more fan adoration and media coverage they get, the better for them. Sans pucks, the struggling NBA is in for a huge bonus -- especially at the Pepsi Center. Not only that, but the players are bound to be physically happier, too. As veteran center Camby points out, an arena floor that has no sheet of ice underneath it is a warmer, softer, more traction-friendly floor.
As they enjoy their sudden (but not unexpected) winter-sport monopoly, NBA types will also be paying close attention to the NHL's labor troubles: Hockey owners claim they lost $273 million on revenues of $2 billion in 2002-03, and TV fees trail player salaries by untold millions. The owners want a salary cap, like football and basketball have. Naturally, the players want to preserve the current market-value system. Hoopsters will be watching, because the NBA's own labor agreement expires July 1, 2005, and it, too, could face a work stoppage -- the first since the 1998-99 season was trimmed to fifty games.
While the wrangle continues -- there's even been rumbling about drafting the best player of all time,Wayne Gretzky, as a replacement for Bettman -- NHL players have fled the mess in droves. You already know that Avalanche star Peter Forsberg is playing this season for MoDo in his native Sweden and that Avalanche goalie David Aebischer is with Lugano, in Switzerland, as is Alex Tanguay. From what we hear, that milk-chocolate puck the Swiss use doesn't hurt as much when you catch one in the face. But that's just the start of the defections. At last count, a total of 209 NHL players are now playing in Europe: 52 in the Czech Republic, 42 in Sweden, 38 in Russia. They're being pretty paid well, too. Does that mean the NHL is about to crumble? Through the years, the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators have all threatened to follow the lead of the Quebec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets by leaving hockey's beloved Canadian homeland for more lucrative markets in the big, bad, Budweiser-swilling United States. Must they now consider Prague or Hamburg?
While we wait for the answer to that question, hockey is still being played in certain un-Manitoban places -- even here. The minor-league Colorado Eagles were a smash hit in their first season up in Loveland, and they should draw even better as sophomores for GM Ralph Backstrom. The University of Denver Pioneers are off to a shaky start (freshman goalie), but the defending NCAA national champs always play an exciting brand of pucks in the Ritchie Center. And if you've got an unquenchable, deathless urge for Avalanche hockey in this barren season, you can satisfy that, too. If you're willing to travel. And if you wear very warm clothes. The Quebec Avalanche Hockey Club, aka Avalanche du Quebec, is in the middle of its fourth season of play in eastern Canada. The leading scorers for those Avs? Center Caroline Proulx and forward Stephanie Lambert. The unflappable goaltender? One Kim St.-Pierre. At last look, the Avalanche was just 2-7 in the National Women's Hockey League standings, but that included a pair of tough, one-goal losses this month to the Ottawa Raiders.
Otherwise, confirmed puckheads must, during this drought, use their vivid imaginations to find suitable entertainment. Actually, there are plenty of alternatives out there, most of them readily available on the boob tube. For one thing, figure skating. Give Tonya Harding her billy club back, put her out there with five or six guys in powder-blue sparkle outfits, and it will look just like the third period of an Avs-Red Wings game. Live from Dresden, you've got the international ice-dancing championships. And let's not forget that other thing. You know, that deal with the little steel sled the guy slips under his butt. Luge. With Peter Forsberg in Sweden and Niklas Sundstrom in Milan and the Zamboni in dry dock, you might even settle into your easy chair with The Brothers Karamazov or the collected poems of Emily Dickinson. No? Those reruns of The Love Boat come on at 7:30.
We'll live, all of us. In the meantime: Go, Nuggets. Go, Pioneers. Go, Avalanche du Quebec. For that matter, Go, Ceské Budejovice.
For a while there, it looked as though we would get a Bush-Kerry World Series -- Texas vs. Massachusetts -- with all the attendant clashes of social style that implies. Instead, the Houston Astros went the way of previous Houston teams, and we have gotten a reprise of the 1967 Fall Classic.
But not everyone was thinking about baseball back then. For those who've forgotten or weren't on the planet yet, 1967 was a contentious and angry year in America: The Vietnam War (which the present presidential candidates seem determined to fight all over again) was in full flame and growing more divisive by the day; Lyndon Johnson was president and ever more embattled by his critics; and as hippies and hardhats clashed in the streets, the ability of Americans to converse with each other -- if not the future of the republic itself -- seemed at risk.
Sound familiar? Maybe Boston and St. Louis are destined to clash every time the country splits into warring camps. In any event, manager Terry Francona's scruffy Boston bunch has prevailed so far in this Series (a good omen for Kerry voters?) against the swift Cardinals. The vision of gritty Boston starter Curt Schilling hobbling out to the mound for Game 2, the tendons in his screaming ankle sutured to his skin like the stitches in a baseball, will live forever in local legend (the Boston Blood Sox, maybe?). Even if unlucky Boston fails again, the sweetness of those four comeback playoff victories against the hated New York Yankees might be enough to cure the blues in Beantown. Certainly, Red Sox Nation must have savored the morning-after headline in the tabloid New York Daily News: "RUTH-LESS! Uh, Babe? About that Curse..."