Show Me A Sign!

These are the dog days of summer. For hockey fans dreaming of cold ice and blue lines - the NHL season seems very far away.

The playoffs are long gone - the draft is forgotten (who was our 3rd round pick again?) and next year seems like it will never get here.

Looking at the weather forecast, standing in the heat, watching baseball - it starts to feel like there never was a hockey season and there never will be one again. Pictures of Sean Avery only make it worse - is that dapper guy in the expensive suits really a hockey player? Do they really have an ice surface at MSG? Is Al Troutwig an actual person - or just some kind of deluded hallucination? And Stan Fishler, didn't that guy pass away in the late 1980s?

It's days like this where the folks at Blueshirt Brothers look for a sign. We pray for the Hockey Gods (Howe, Ratelle, and Makita) to intervene - to send a signal - to throw us a frickin' bone for goodness sake - and let us know that, somehow, someway, there will be hockey again.

And then suddenly - with signs and wonders - there it is.

Head on over to ESPN hockey page - look at the Scoreboard link - and you'll see it: Rangers - Bruins on September 19th. The puck drops at 4pm. And the New York Rangers - with Gaborik, Lundqvist, Drury, Higgins, Callahan and more will start their pre-season.

The announcement just glows there like a beacon telling the faithful: yes, brothers and sisters, there will be a hockey season again. Lundqvist will slide between the pipes again. Torts will start yelling his head off again. Avery will "interact" with opponents and referees again.

We're talking 8 weeks from tomorrow. It's coming, people. We just have to keep the faith.