REJOICE! The National Hockey League is back! All it took was a lost season, a lost TV contract with ESPN, a lost draft, God knows how much lost revenue, untold numbers of lost fans--but, fear not, pro hockey is ready to go for 2005-06. And who among us isn't brimming with anticipation?

Actually, I suspect most Americans probably don't give a fig about the NHL. There was a brief window in the mid 1990s when hockey look poised to join the Big Three--football, basketball, and baseball--at the head table of American sports. But the league overreached with hyperactive expansion. Teams responded to the talent shortage by adopting boring defensive postures such as the neutral-zone "trap," the worst thing to happen to hockey since the Philadelphia Flyers. (Just kidding, just kidding.) Meanwhile, referees and league execs did little to crack down on the clutch-and-grab style of play that choked high-octane offenses and kept NHL superstars off the scoresheets.

But anyway, the NHL lockout, which cost the league its 2004-05 campaign, officially ended last weekend, as players and owners ratified their collective bargaining agreement of July 13. From the look of things, the players got the worst of it. There will be a salary cap. There will be a 24 percent rollback of existing player contracts. And NHL clubs will now be able to "buy out" those contracts. On the other hand, the owners gave up a bundle, too, particularly on free agency and the league's minimum player salary, which will increase to $450,000 per

Now, as a longtime fan, I want hockey to succeed. It's a wonderful sport (and one I've played since age 8). I sincerely hope the NHL gets its act together. I want the league's popularity to spread in the Sunbelt and elsewhere. I want fans to rush back through the turnstiles and forget all about this wretched lockout. I'd also like to play beach volleyball with Scarlett Johansson.

Truth is, I think the league screwed the pooch with its work stoppage--big time. I get the strong sense--from sportswriters, personal conversations, and the email I've received from fellow hockey junkies--that large swaths of NHL fans said "To hell with 'em" sometime this past spring. Bringing back the diehards will be tricky enough, to say nothing of wooing the league's more casual followers.

As far as Jeremy Roenick is concerned, apparently, that's just fine. In late June, before the deal was done, the Flyers center delivered a micro-rant worthy of its own "Roenick to Angry Fans: Drop Dead" headline. "We're trying to get this thing back on the ice and make it better for the fans," Roenick said. "If you don't realize that, then don't come. We don't want you in the rink, we don't want you in the stadium, we don't want you to watch hockey." To which many fans might reply: "Don't worry."

On the bright side, NHL honchos recently unveiled a fresh batch of rule changes that will be implemented for the 2005-06 season. Here are some of the key ones: