Well it hasn’t been the merriest of Christmas seasons this year has it? Instead of squeezing present shopping around Hockey Night in Canada or Battles of Alberta, we’ve had to put up with histrionic lawyers at press conferences, game cancellation announcements and endless debates about which side of the labor argument is more reprehensible.

Not gonna lie, it’s been a tough slog here at the Nations. Trying to make a three month lock-out interesting on a day-to-day basis is kinda like analyzing the same bad Kevin Costner film over and over and over, each time looking for new and exciting ways to explain why it sucks.

Nevertheless, I want to take some time to thank all of our writers who have hung on tough through this seemingly endless dry spell and continue to put up worthwhile material. In addition, I’d especially like to thank all of our readers and commenters who come by day-in and day-out to challenge, cajole, laugh with, laugh at or share our stuff.

None of the teams we cover have played hockey since April (an 8 month gap), yet we still have heated comment strings and active debates. It speaks to the vibrancy and the passion of the hockey community which we have been able to tap into to a modest degree around here.

I know the NHL hasn’t treated all of you well recently and it deserves your anger and contempt, but nevertheless we want to thank you for continuing to make this a place worth writing for (and reading).

As some of you may know, we used some of our free time recently to build shiny new facebook pages for most of the Nations sites (sorry Jets Nation. You’ll have to wait). Canucks Army are keeners so they’ve been ahead of the curve on this one, but now FlamesNation, OilersNation, LeafsNation and NHLNumbers can all be liked and shared and, uh, commented on and whatever else it is people do on facebook. 

As the pages grow and when there is actually hockey being played, we’ll figure out other things to do with the pages. For now, we’re feeding some article links through there and making albums of some favorite pics/photoshops. We have also heard from very eager sounding marketer types who tell us they can help us drive "user engagement" and " social interaction" and "other marketing buzzwords" for only tens of thousands of dollars, so maybe we’ll do that stuff down the road too. 

Anyways, check them out if you’re a facebook kind of person. BTW as a Flames fan, I’m glad to say FlamesNation’s page currently has more likes than OilersNation.

I was recently contacted by a couple of professors out of the Ben-Gurion and Carnegie Mellon Universities who are studying people’s perceptions of labor disputes. They asked if we could post a link to their survey and in exchange would share some of their results with us when they are published in February.

So here it is. I took the survey myself yesterday and it only took about five minutes.

Make sure to read each question carefully though.

The NHLPA will probably announce that the players have voted in favor of their disclaimer of interest today. That means we’ll have more thrilling, edge of your seat legal filings and lawyer pissing matches in the media over the holidays and into the New Year. Yay.

Don’t let that ruin your holidays though. Take solace in your friends and family and the World Junior Hockey Championships (which we will try to cover when we aren’t drunk on rummy eggnog or asleep from a turkey gorge).

Merry Christmas Nations Network. Here’s hoping we can start writing about actual hockey again real soon.