With seven consecutive Yankees-Red Sox games unfolding like Russian novels, with the entire baseball postseason springing compelling new protagonists all over the sports landscape, with Big Ben Roethlisberger riding the raging rapids of NFL rookiedom in a manner that's putting Dan Marino's name on lips coast to coast, and even with college football's twisted bowl politics and with Phil Jackson exposing the self-possessed legend that is Kobe Bryant, I know what you're really thinking this morning.

Too bad there aren't 40 to 50 meaningless NHL games to sprinkle into the mix this week. Even as Curt Schilling teetered on one bloodied leg to pump 93 mph fastballs into the black forest of Steinbrenner's holdings, you were aware that you wouldn't mind hearing a partial score from the Coyotes-Thrashers game, right?

C'mon, you miss the NHL right now. You miss the grit, whatever that is. You miss the clutching and grabbing, and especially the complaining about the clutching and grabbing. You miss the regular reminders that Mario Lemieux is in the best shape of his life, even when they are not accompanied by the ready advice that he can remain in that condition so long as he doesn't do anything stupid, like play hockey.

But there's a huge problem. Most people don't miss hockey, especially on television. A poker strike would be a more compelling issue. Of course, technically, the absence of hockey is not a strike, but rather a lockout by owners seeking "cost certainty." You can identify with the owners on cost certainty, because you've noticed that in their arenas, a beer is certain to cost $6.50 or more.

The players have a one-word response to cost certainty, and even when it's taken out of context, it bespeaks a certain finality that seems to preclude the game from coming back in January or February, the way it did the last time both sides put the game on ice figuratively rather than literally.

Never.

"At some point," Players Association president Trevor Linden has said for the record, "the owners have to realize the players will never accept a salary cap or a system linking payroll to league revenues."

Never?

That casts a different light on a lot of things does it not?

Take for example the case of Mike Danton, the St. Louis Blues forward who tried to have his agent killed in a knuckleheaded plot that snagged itself on the nettlesome detail that the would-be hitman was a police informant.

D'oh!

While this partially explains why many casual hockey fans thought Would-Be Hitmen was the nickname of the New Jersey franchise, it raises a pertinent question regarding Danton's sentencing. In that forthcoming Nov. 8 proceeding, Danton faces 7 to 10 years in prison, and so many of the interested parties will have to be thinking: "Will he be out for the next NHL game?"

Games are already canceled through Dec. 3, but it might as well be Dec. 3, 2011, if the current bargaining conditions are a good indicator of future trends. The sides haven't talked since Sept. 9, and just about all that's become clear since is that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has begun to hallucinate.

In a chat room on the league's official Web site this week, Bettman said, "My hope is that, after a period of reflection, the union will seek to join us at the bargaining table."

Is it me or is Gary Bettman more likely to be maimed in a stick-swinging incident involving the Moose Jaw Gospel Choir and Snowmobile Repair Club than the hockey players are to be deep into a "period of reflection." To these guys, a period of reflection means the few minutes after the Zamboni goes by and they can see themselves on the ice surface. They're not too reflective, Gary.

Hockey's grim financial realities are entangled in all manner of economic, technological and culture models. You can build one case that its impending doom is most like a severe meteorological charley horse related to the decision to expand the NHL into areas where ice does not occur naturally, like Phoenix. To measure the desperation of the thousands of innocent club employees and associates of businesses linked directly to other NHL synergies -- regional TV networks, media, bars, hotels, merchandisers, restaurants, etc. -- you need note only the preposterous ideas for filling the NHL "void."

In Nashville, Fox Sports Net South is running "Predators Classics," an oxymoron worthy in stature to "Congressional ethics." But there is good news. Veteran tough guy Chris Chelios is reported to be training to earn a spot on the Greek bobsled team in the 2006 Olympics.

Wake me if you get a partial NHL score sometime before that.