If the WHA was a person, he'd have had ample opportunities by this point to quip, "The reports of my resurrection are greatly exaggerated," Mark Twain-style. Nevertheless, the rumours have resurfaced. Investors Ricky Smith and Mark McKelvie are optimistic that a minimum of 10 teams could be scrambled by the time they started a season, which probably wouldn't be until 2006. The two have stated that starting this October would be their goal, but that seems extremely unrealistic, given that more investors must be found to begin their own clubs, players must be scouted, the identities of the teams themselves - and not to mention the league - must be established, and more...all in a matter of months.

They are also outlining plans for an invitational tournament held in the late spring of this year, which will see games played in Vancouver and Hamilton; the ever-vocal Jeremy Roenick has already started recruiting players to put together his own team, and it will be interesting to see if any other NHLers start phoning up their buddies. The money involved is not to be forgotten - each player will receive $20 000 for the tournament, which probably looks pretty good to a lot of those guys right now.

Am I going soft? Have I forgotten that the players' greed is a major part of what is facilitating the continuation of the lockout? Do my English professors tell me that asking rhetorical questions in essays is a compelling writing tactic? Maybe, No, and You Betcha. While I would love to see some NHL-calibre hockey right now, I always find it quite easy to grimace at pictures of Trevor Linden, who I admire as a player, but despise as the union president. If I could hop a bus to the Corel Centre and see the likes of Mats Sundin, Tie Domi, Vincent Lecavalier and - oh, please - Doug Gilmour, as long as I didn't have to pay an arm and a leg, I'd be happy. I don't care if they're playing for the Stanley Cup or the "If Today Was A Fish, I'd Throw It Back" Mug, but some top-quality hockey would be spectacular.

I suppose that at this point, I'm becoming numb to this whole lockout; it could be a phase, or it could be that I'm just too tired of this seemingly permanent impasse. I'm sure that people who accidentally stumble into meetings between the union and the league have to struggle with a healthy dose of confusion and mistaken identity at first: "Look! Over at the debating table! Is it Israel and Palestine? Is it India and Pakistan? No! It's the NHL and the NHLPA!" Would I pay to watch replacement players? No, unless the price was right - say, the same as a minor-league game. I believe it was Jerry Seinfeld who commented on the fact that people only cheer for the laundry and not the players, and I would have a hard time arguing that, were I to attend a game with replacements. There's something to be said for team loyalty, but if your team is essentially dismantled and repopulated by unrecognizables and nobodies, it's not "your team" anymore, anyway...but that's an issue for a whole other post.

Would you watch the WHA? Or is the NHL the way to go for you? Can you cheer for your favourite player in a new North American league, or are you going to hate him unless he plays for an NHL team? Don't forget that the last time the WHA saw some actual business before folding, it gave the NHL three more Canadian clubs, along with a certain "Great One"...so can it be seen as a potential usurper? Or is this the natural evolution of hockey on this continent?