Thursday Morning Cupcheck - An Open Letter to the NHL Owners

Or just go ahead with the lockout, football's on anyways.

Good morning, hockey fans! Last week we detailed the finer points of the NHLPA's offer. This week, instead of talking about the lockout, we're going to talk about the lockout. Here is an open letter to the NHL owners, which I think truly speaks for each and every hockey fan in the country. That country being the US of Kicking A, of course.

When the players threaten to take over the system, there's only one man who can stop them.

Hey,

Dudes. DUDES. I hope this letter reaches you sometime before September 15th, the Day You Have Circled To Go Ahead And Do Something Very Stupid. I have mailed this to every soup kitchen, bath salts lab and refrigerator box under the overpass I could find.

Please take the time to read this letter: stealing stamps ain't cheap, and if I had known before how many refrigerator box cities there are in New Jersey, I probably would've just emailed your official team websites or something. So like an awkward first-timer at a nudist camp, you're just going to have to bare with me.

First, a couple of pointers. Remember. NHL Owners: you are not alone. We've ALL been in your half-eaten shoes. Some pro tips: eat the noodle square by itself first, then suck the MSG packet three days later... that officially counts as two square meals. Science. Also, head over to the public hospital's ER waiting room if you want a good, solid two-to-five hour sleep. No one will bother you, trust me, especially not Joey Two Sips and his gang. Finally —move to Canada. You need to get those open sores on your gooch checked out before they get even more infected. You and I both know that's where the smell is coming from. If you won't do it for you, do it for your legions of undying fans.

There, put your minds a little more at ease, right? See? The day-to-day troubles of owning and operating an NHL team aren't so bad when you really put your mind to it! Turn that frown upside down! Turn your pockets inside out! Did a few crumpled million-dollar bills fall out? Of course they did!

Choking on money leads to over zero player deaths a year. Don't let it happen on your watch!

That's because —well, you may want to sit down for this. Trust me, it's quite a revelation. You can stack those empty pizza boxes together, or maybe wipe the hooker blood off that pile of milk crates and stac—what's that? Er, yeah, I guess you could use your $5000 Interstuhl Silver Swivel Armchair 362S. Me? Oh, no, I'm fine with sitting on the basketball-sized boil protruding from this dead hobo's as—wait, what? The office chair is for me? And you get to sit on, uh, that? Well, that's very kind of you, but let's not get distracted by temporary flashes of wealth...

(pause)

You know, for a guy with no money, you sure do have a lot of naked multimillionaires serving you grapes.

Hey, who am I to judge? I'm just here to dissuade you from making the biggest mistake of your financial life. I mean, other than signing that one guy to that insane contract, and then repeating that four or five or twenty-seven times. Those were big mistakes, sure... but this will be different. At least you were buying something with that money. Even if it was just a pair of secondary assists and four game misconducts.

No, this time —oh, thank you, these satanic burgers do indeed look quite delicious— where was I? Oh, yes. The Lockout. Listen, with annual growth rates of 7% a year despite a half-decade of ongoing recession and troubled housing markets in more than...

Wh-why are you laughing?

Ah! Ha ha ha. No doubt, I must have said something funny. Ha. Ha ha, indeed. Yes, well, anyways, getting back to my point: while you must realize that even missing a handful of games could be financially crushing to 80% of the teams out there, the players have shown a willingness to work with you to—uggh!

Oh god that is disgusting.

Did you really have to do that? That was, like, $45,000 worth of hamburger right there. Hold on...

(throws up in mouth a little)

You know... you know they make perfectly serviceable toilet paper for that, right?

W-why are you...

Wait --You don't care, do you?

Recently all 30 owners got totally wasted and woke up the next morning with one of these babies.

I mean, about your fans, like myself? You know, the people who willingly, lovingly handed over more than they could afford so that you could buy that $30,000 accordion you've always wanted? Oh, you bought a hundred of them? And they're all sitting in an unopened crate in an unmarked warehouse in inner-city Detroit?

And Jeff Finger is locked in the crate next to it?

Well, far be it for me, a fan who lives and breathes hockey, to tell you how to spend your money, but—what's that?

You want me to... to do what? For how much?

(ponders future, how life got to this point)

In cash, right? No checks?

(thinks of all the 'BETTMAN SUX' authentic team jerseys he could buy with that amount of scrub)

Ok, let's do this. But wipe those burger juices off first.