The thought of spending October through April not watching Penguins hockey is about as appealing as shaving with sandpaper. By the time Christmas would come around, you’d be having Happy Gilmore-like dreams where you take a skate off and try to stab Gary Bettman. Don’t let it get to that. You can survive without hockey. The human race has done it for millennia. Heck, even Canadians did it! What else is there to do? Well I’m glad you asked.
1. Drink Heavily.
This is probably the worst option. It costs a ton of money, and may damage your relationships/internal organs. However, it’s probably pretty effective if you feel like forgetting an entire eight-month period.
2. Watch football/baseball/basketball/curling/whatever.
There are a lot of other sports in the world. Most of them don’t completely suck. Plus, ESPN has like a billion channels now, and some of them aren’t 100 percent dedicated to Tim Tebow.
3. Get a second job.
Seriously, if you can’t watch hockey, you might as well make some money at it.
4. Go to all-you-can-eat buffets
Awesome way to spend three hours, three days a week. There are lots of Chinese buffets out there, and this will afford you the opportunity to figure out which ones serve actual meat. You’ll probably gain 150 pounds by summer, but then you can go on a Subway diet, lose the 150 pounds and make tons of money by acting in their commercials. Come to think of it, this is a much better idea than the whole second job thing.
5. Take your girlfriend/wife out.
Come on fellas, rack up some brownie points. It won’t kill you to take in a musical sometime.
6. Watch replays of every Penguin game from last season.
This is the most cathartic option, and you’ve probably forgotten what happened anyways. Don’t watch the Philadelphia series though, save yourself some trouble. Otherwise you might start doing No. 1 on this list.
7. Watch YouTube videos of hockey fights.
I do this all the time anyways. No sport regulates itself like hockey. Enforcers forever!
8. Go outside.
As Bill Watterson, the creator of the iconic Calvin and Hobbes comic strip once proclaimed, “If your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.”
9. Ask DirectTV if they’re going to offer some Center Ice package for the KHL
If the person that answers the phone at DirectTV calls you a communist for wanting to watch Russian hockey, switch to Comcast.
10. Watch people go crazy over anything hockey on Twitter.
I love Twitter, but it’s definitely a haven for total and complete overreaction. “OMG did you hear @Malkin_71’s cat died??? Totally crying right now ☹ ☹ #ripdixie”. That seriously dominated my Twitter feed for an hour. As someone who has loved and lost a pet, I understand how awful Malkin must have felt, but I’m not sure 100,000 people on Twitter mourning an animal they never met made him feel better.
In related news, I definitely sent him an empathetic tweet. Hypocrite much?
So don’t fret too much. Things may look bleak now, and maybe they really are, but armed with this Boy Scout-esque Lockout Survival pamphlet, you’ll be ready to handle anything life throws at you.
(Disclaimer: If the NHL avoids a lockout, please keep this handy for the next time a major sport decides to restructure or redo their CBA. It probably won’t be long.)
Photo Credits: Life of Ryan
