Someone stick a fork in this year's NHL season. It's done. The NHL released a press statement today announcing the cancelation of all games through January 14th. Pretty much, that means that the next step will probably be axing the entire 2012-2013 season totally. 

The National Hockey League announced today the cancelation of the 2012-13 regular-season schedule through January 14. The cancelations are necessary due to the absence of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL Players’ Association and the NHL.

Wait, so there's not a CBA? Tell me more, Mr. Bettman. 

The players and owners probably have a month or so to get this stuff worked out, which is easier said than done considering that the league won't even meet with the players right now.

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Nail Yakupov, Russia

The World Juniors are almost upon us, or what Canadians refer to as the best time of the year. Even in a year with games being played every night, Canadians wait for the next generation of stars to don the maple leaf and represent the nation over the holidays. 

But this year is a little different. Not only is the tournament being played in Ufa, Russia, but there's no concern about players being blocked by the parent club and not being able to play in the tournament. A half dozen players on Team Canada, and a handful from other nations would be playing in the NHL if not for the lockout. 

Thanks in large part to the league-ready players suiting up for their respective nations, the level of competition should be at an all-time high in this tournament. With that, let's take a look at the Top 10 players to watch in the tournament set to begin on Dec. 26th.

There's nothing more entertaining for an American hockey fan than getting into a "will the Stanley Cup return to Canada?" fight with a Canadian. Personally, I really don't care where it winds up if it doesn't end in St. Louis (which it hasn't, and probably won't this year either), but I do understand why the Cup is such a part of Canadian identity and national pride, and I fully get why Canadians are upset that no team north of the border has won it since 1993. Heck, the last Canadian team to win it, the Canadiens, are a Francophone team that the rest of the provinces aren't necessarily huge fans of.

You can take the NHL away but you can't take the sport of hockey away from those who love it. That's the message from Nike in this fantastic spot that features cameos from Steven Stamkos, P.K. Subban and even a somewhat surprising appearance from Alex Ovechkin.

The lockout has nearly claimed the entire 2012-13 season. The owners and players are continually complaining that the other side isn't offering a fair deal and that they are losing a ton of revenue. For a moment, you might even feel a bit of sympathy for one of the sides. That sympathy vanishes when a player like Evander Kane (or Derek Roy and his car) puts everything back in perspective. 

Listen, I know that the NHL's desperate to get the upper hand on the players. Their filing in federal court on Friday seeking to have the lockout deemed legal shows as much. One part of that filing that seemed to fly under the radar this weekend was the portion that asked that if the NHLPA vote to decertify, then the players -- all of them -- would be unrestricted free agents as their contracts would be dissolved.

With no player contracts, that means that every team in the league could go after whatever player that they wanted. Granted, this depends on what the new salary cap would be as well as how much money a particular team rakes in. It's pretty much a given that the Columbus Blue Jackets won't snag the Sedin twins, or that the New York Islanders won't add Ilya Kovalchuk to their ranks, but larger teams that rake in the dough would take this chance to become stacked

Image courtesy From the Point

Over the next few days, the membership of the NHL players union will vote to see if they would like to move forward with a disclaimer of interest. While there were lengthy talks of a possible decertification, union boss Donald Fehr went a different route, mostly because a disclaimer of interest takes a lot less time and keeps the possibility of a season in place. 

We talked about decertification on this site, but never discussed a disclaimer of interest. What happens in this instance is that instead of the players walking away from the union when decertification occurs, the union basically walks away from the players and ends its right to represent and negotiate for the players. 

You might recall at the end of October when President Obama commented on the NHL lockout during an interview with Jay Leno. His statement was simple: The two sides only make money because of fan support. The two sides should be able to "figure this out". 

Now, almost two months later, Obama is again offering his opinion on the NHL lockout. Spoiler alert: He still blames both sides. 

It hasn't been easy for Ilya Bryzgalov in the KHL. He's been cut from Russia's Channel One Cup roster, and he hasn't been exactly blowing the goaltending thing out of the water either. In a league where goalies aren't known for being the best in the world, Bryz has a .907 SV% and a 2.41 GAA. That isn't tremendous, but the CSKA Moscow goaltender hasn't brought Semyon Varlamov's NHL sparkle to his job.

Image courtsey of GoalieStore.com

Happy Holidays, NHL fans! What better way to celebrate the Holiday season than by watching two greedy groups of people squabble over how to reach common ground over our favorite sport? 

Darren Dreger announced through Twitter that the NHL will cancel all games through December 30th, officially making Gary Bettman our Scrooge and Donald Fehr our Grinch of the 2012 Holiday season.