Look at all this ice ... wasn't there a sport that played on ice?

The recent end to the NFL regular season and the constant chatter over the past few days about ice storms got me thinking about it.

Then slipping on the ice on my way into the office earlier today and almost falling on my posterior really got my mind spinning.

I miss hockey.

I know that I am in the minority. Most sports fans around the country have not even noticed its absence.

I don't know what is worse for the NHL, the work-stoppage or the realization that nobody outside Detroit cares.

Even Hockeytown has the Pistons to clamor about. After all, they are the defending NBA champs.

Not that I care.

You know what would make professional basketball more interesting? Put them on roller skates, give them sticks and make them hit the ball into a net.

Sounds like another sport I used to watch ... which one was it again?

Even if the NHL were in season, the NBA may have surpassed it as the league most likely to feature a fight during the game.

But I miss the checking and the pushing and the unbelievable skill required to make three consecutive passes of a 3-inch, 6-ounce piece of rubber using mainly a piece of wood that is two inches wide while ice skating as fast as you can. Not to mention there are guys bigger than the Webb City offensive line trying to take your head off in the process.

I know that I will get my fill of checking and pushing when the Nevada girls take on Carthage in basketball, but it just isn't the same.

I've never understood how so many sports fans could give hockey such a bad rap, saying the sport is too slow and boring.

"There isn't enough scoring," many people have told me when I ask them why they don't like hockey.

Many of them are the same people who will sit for four hours and watch a baseball game with Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens pitching. Yeah, as if there is any more scoring going on there.

Don't get me wrong, for many reasons I think baseball is a great sport. But so is hockey.

For one, there is excitement on almost every play. You get anywhere from 50 to 70 shots on goal in an average game, and most of those will get your adrenaline going if you are really paying attention.

To use a baseball analogy, imagine how you feel when you see Barry Bonds hit the ball to the outfield. You watch the outfielder turn toward the fence and see them edge closer to the warning track.

Even if the outfielder catches the ball, there is a second there where the blood starts pumping and excitement is in the air. Now try having that happen 60 times in a two-hour span.

That's what you get in hockey when guys like Peter Forsberg get the puck.

Then you also get to see people get planted like when Ray Lewis took the head off of poor Laveranues Coles when he came across the middle in their game.

That is what hockey fans see dozens of times a night. Imagine a football field that was enclosed and Lewis hitting people into the glass.

Some people just don't get hockey. Maybe they refuse to get it because it is Canada's sport.

Maybe they think the NBA is more entertaining.

I say it's their loss. Unfortunately when there is a lockout going on and the NHL is not being played at all, it is my loss too.