Hockey's Back -- Yawn

The NHL returned last night, having spent its gap year backpacking through Europe. (Even though it's American, it was rumored to have a Canadian flag on its pack.) I was a die-hard fan in, like, 7th grade, but I really couldn't care less about it these days.

ESPN -- which no longer loses money on the league: that's the job of OLN -- ran an Opening Night Blog last night (it's more of a group running-diary thing, really) that only reinforces just how dead the sport is. Here's an excerpt:

Johnson (8:35 p.m. ET): Former Hobey Baker winner Jordan Leopold has switched to No. 6 this season. As fate would have it, U.S.-born ex-Flame Phil Housley, who used to wear No. 6, is in the house this evening. ... Flame coach Darryl Sutter is using rookie Dion Phaneuf as Roman Hamrlik's power-play point partner ... First penalty: Pascal Dupuis of the Wild at 5:53 for high sticking. The queue to the sin bin might be longer than for Stones tickets.

Maybe it's that I don't care about the sport, or maybe it's that this blog is vapid and universally irrelevant, but these ESPN writers captured none of what was supposed to be an opening night of unprecedented excitement. Oh, and even if I wanted to watch, like millions of Americans I don't get OLN. (I also don't get NASCAR, but that's for a different post.)

Clarification: By "this blog," I could admittedly be referring to either to To the People or to ESPN's hockey blog.