New NHL and new David

When the NHL came back, I was a bit skeptical that it would succeed. I mean who would have thought that the removal of the red line, smaller goalie equipment, lower salaries and a year off would have been so successful with fans.

Almost instantly, the fans came back and were all excited about the product on the ice. I was. A perpetual fan of my hometown team, the Edmonton Oilers, I was excited about our new acquisitions: Chris Pronger and Mike Peca. Pronger has turned out to be a force to be reckoned with. Peca, despite his early difficulties has been solid defensively.

I would never have called myself a huge hockey fan but I always liked to be in the know when it came to hockey so I would read the sports section. I was the only one in the house who ever read the section. It was always fresh for me to read. Then when the lockout hit the NHL, my reading of the sports section dropped off almost immediately. It was never touched and in fact would go straight to the recycle.

With the new NHL, it created a new David. I have become a much bigger fan than I ever was. The sports section is read as religiously as the op/ed section of the journal. When the Oilers are on tv, I always try to watch them. If they are on pay per view I listen to the radio and look up the stats on nhl.com. It got so bad last night that when I went to Dents Gone Wild at Bar Wild as a fundraiser for our class, I had to ask every person who came in whether or not the Oilers were winning since they didn't have any tvs showing the game upstairs. Furthermore, I even know how other teams are doing in relation to the oilers and who is playing who when. If only I was this enthusiastic about learning about the kidney!