NHL Hockey Is Back!

MARK BLINCH/REUTERS

With the NHL lockout finally over, I can say one thing for sure. I will be coming back to cheer on my favorite team, wish bad luck upon my non-favorite teams and cheer just as loud as before the lockout occurred. I won't be one of those fans not returning to the game, or trying to teach the NHL and the so-called greedy players a lesson.

After all, the NHL is running a business. I believe when you are doing that you have full control on how you choose to run it. They decided a lockout was best for their business, so be it. Time will tell if they made the right choice but no matter what happens down the road we, as fans, need to deal with it now.

The players were doing what they needed to do. Sure, they make a lot of money. A heck of a lot more than many of us do, but they deserve it. They have a unique skill that allows them to play hockey at an extremally high level.

Pavel Bure: The Rocket Has Landed

I got to see him play once, my childhood idol.

Pavel Bure was playing with the Florida Panthers at the time and they were visiting the Air Canada Center in Toronto. This is the only game I remember going to that did not involve the Leafs playing the Chicago Blackhawks. 

Bure was the reason why.

No other player in the league has ever excited me the same way Bure did. Every time I stepped out on my backyard rink I suddenly transformed myself into "The Russian Rocket". Constantly practicing his toe-to stick-to the back of the net deke (see video).