As far as I can remember, hockey has always been a constant in my life. Growing up in a small village in Siberia, I can remember playing hockey in the streets after school with my best friends Vlad, Petr and Sergei. With a collapsing infrastructure and sagging economy, things were pretty bad back then. We had so few Rubles that we weren’t even poor, we were po’ (we couldn’t afford the -or). Anyway, hockey provided the ultimate escape for me and my comrades, as we would forget about our misfortune by running through the street with broomsticks trying to shoot tennis balls into garbage cans. Because we did not have pads or masks, we would always come home with lots of bruises and marks.

Things done changed. Now I am at an affluent American university but my passion for hockey is just as strong. Too bad for me, there’s no hockey this year. But, I have found a few ways (well, 10 to be exact) to beat the NHL lockout and if you are one of the 16 or 17 hockey fans at Wash U, I trust this list will keep you busy for at least the five minutes it takes you to read it.

10) Watch the History Channel; yeah, maybe it’s a little academic compared to NHL action, but, where else could you learn how many bayonets were used in the Civil War? Definitely not while watching National Hockey Night on ESPN. By the way, the answer is eight, eight bayonets.

9) Play poker. Everyone else is doing it. You don’t want to be different, do you?

8) Read a book; sure it’s clich‚, but, it’s a damn good suggestion too. Since the lockout, I’ve been able to read a slew of page-turners like Principles of Marketing, Bearings and Intermediate Spanish. With classics of literature like these, I might never need hockey again!

7) Minor league, college or high school hockey teams are still playing. These games are very fun and intense, but sometimes I can’t get past the fact that these guys aren’t playing for millions of dollars, and that’s enough to turn anyone off, no?

6) Watch a hockey movie like Mighty Ducks, 1 or 2. Don’t touch Mighty Ducks 3, though; let’s face it, a Ducks movie without coach Gordon Bombay is scarcely a Ducks movie at all. What about SlapShot or Miracle? You could even see Sudden Death, which stars Jean-Claude Van Damme who….ok, maybe you shouldn’t see Sudden Death.

5) Check out a Cleveland Cavaliers game on TV. It’s not hockey, but LeBron James is the future of the NBA and is way more entertaining than Allie Wieczorek’s joke of an article defending the NCAA last week. Zing!

4) Start a new fashion trend. This is more of a plea than a suggestion. I’m tired of this whole “whenever wearing polo shirts, guys must pop the collar” crap. If you take one thing from this article, remember that real men are chauvinistic and leave their collars alone.

3) Watch Ultimate Fighting; just pretend it’s two half-naked hockey players with their gloves still on, and not on ice, and they’re in an octagon, and they’re allowed to kill each other, etc.

2) Take up a new sport. I would personally pick bowling or fishing as they require the least amount of energy and you can drink beer while doing them. However, don’t use these criteria as reasons to take up golf. Everyone knows golf isn’t a sport; it’s a game, like Guess Who? or Battleship.

1) Play street hockey in my Russian Village, they’re always looking for new players and, since the wall went down, my friends have Putin a lot of Rubles to buy some real equipment. What are you Stalin for? Book a flight!

Well, I hope these suggestions have been helpful. If they’re not, stop you’re whining and find something to do.

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