The pre-season is drawing to a close and I'm constantly reminded that, in order to save money now that I'm living on my own, I decided to forego cable TV and just sign up for really, really jacked internet.

But now that hockey's back on, even if it's just the pre-season, I find myself wondering at how I'm going to make it through the next 82 games (even CBC's offlimits; I don't have a line that connects my TV to the cable outlet, and no antenna since, well, it's 2009).  Is this even possible?  I've never not had cable before, and all of a sudden I'm without CBC, TSN, SNet... holy slapshot, what the hell have I done?

I'm not going to cave.  Paying an insane amount of money to essentially watch 3 channels goes against my belief of Good God Stop Wasting Your Money.  So this is the year of my tentatively-titled Suck This, Shaw experiment.

There must be other people in this boat, so for all of you who are cable-less, and I'm sure that there must be more than one hockey fan out there who is, a preliminary list of ways to survive the hockey season.

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So according to Vigneault the thought of Schneider and Samuelsson's Stanley Cup rings joining our Stanley Cup-less team gives him the shivers (well, he didn't say it in so many words but the intention was there, I assure you).

That brings to mind the question: Is there really anything you can do to bring yourself closer to Lord Stanley? Or is this simply blind, blind, blind, hope?

In one corner there's the thought that you really can't go wrong with this selection. Schneider, for his price and not for his previous tag of 5+mil/season, is a solid pick-up, and even Samuelsson is a my-milkshake-brings-all-the-boys-to-the-yard kind of signing. The pick we stole from Detroit  seems to have worked out quite nicely for the team, so I don't see anything wrong with picking up guys from the Detroit system, either. I mean, the next logical step is to just steal their draft network and call it a day.

But in the other corner, there's always the thought—to me—that hockey is a maddeningly arbitrary sport, and that a bounce of a puck can either make you or break you. After all, when the Canucks tried this crazy theory of Player with Stanley Cup Ring = Stanley Cup Finals, we ended up with MARK MESSIER. Because he was a “great leader” and “the ultimate captain” and wasn't at all a deeply idiotic pick-up who we chose over WAYNE GRETZKY. And this was back when Pavel Bure still had two knees. So once bitten, twice shy it can be.

Is it better to pick up the player or the experience? Vancouver's tried both, with varying degrees of success. When a team gels, a team gels, and unfortunately hockey isn't the kind of sport where one player can win a championship. More than anything, it's a Right Place, Right Time kind of sport.

If you had to pick: Skill and experience or intangibles? Would you sign a Stanley Cup winner knowing he might completely agitate the locker room, or sign a guy with less skill who can get along with the rest of the team?