Today, in the spirit of Christmas (aka 'Celebration of Consumerism'), we have a guest entry/Christmas poem from Mr. Childhood Trauma.

Before we get into that, I just want to point out that my pal Michael has put together a list of Christmas gift ideas for the hockey fan in your life.

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'Twas the Week Before Christmas

'Twas the week before Christmas, when out on the ice
Not a player was skating, not even Steven Rice;
Their pads were all hung in the locker room air,
In hopes that St. Buttman soon would show care;

The fans were restless all bored on their couches,
While masticating on slugs from 'big league chew' pouches;
And mamma in her uniform, and I with my cards,
Had just watched Goodenow...hoisted by his own petards,

When out in the media there arose such a clatter,
I surfed to espn.com to see what was the matter.
Away to the 'puter I flew in a blink,
Flipped on the monitor and clicked on the link.

Adware suggested I buy me some pills
Designed, they say, to give my wife extra thrills,
When, what should my scanning eyes fall home?
But a article on the lockout written by Rome,

With a lot of punctuation, and wit not so quick,
Jim called all the players a rather large @#$@.
More rapid and angry his words they came,
And he ranted, and shouted, and called them more names;

"Now, Moron! now, Idiot! now, Greedy and Evil!
Oh, Jerkwad! oh selfish! oh, overpaid boll weevil!
Off to your top of the line Porsche! Drive into the night!
Without all yours skill, owners would be alright!"

Ah the owners, if ours had any a clue,
seems to me he would have had known what to do,
Not Weight and KT for 16 million point two
With the a bag of used pucks, and Roman Turek too.

And then with no insight, and each extra loss.
He'd fire us a player or perhaps the on ice boss.
As I washed my hands and was wearing a frown,
the owner decided gave up since he wasn't NBA bound.

He was dressed all in money, from his wife's family,
and he was only smart to wed her family tree;
A bundle of stock options was doweried,
And he certainly made more than all our salaries.

His eyes -- how they dimmed! his smile how sweet!
His wife held his wallet, his daughter could cheat!
His payroll he dried up like a week old turd,
Until our signings became a theatre absurd;

But 'twas Buttman who held the season at bay,
And the smoke he blew went on and on for days;
He had a broad face and a bald little head,
That glistened, when he told the union 'drop dead!'

He was chubby and plump, and from the NBA,
in charge of making hockey problems go away;
A dullness of his eye and a rattling head,
Soon gave me to know I had everything to dread;

the two sides spoke not a word nor did they work,
they emptied all rinks; treated fans like a jerk,
And using a finger most of us hold dear,
they gave us a signal whose meaning was clear;

the fans were apathetic almost to a man,
the few not in stupor do all that we can.
more fighting in hockey, that message we sent
"but grown up you guys this is NOT what we meant!"