Hey, remember hockey?

The NHL eliminated 16 more days from the regular-season schedule Monday, and if a deal with the players’ association isn’t reached soon the whole season could be lost.

The league wiped out all games through Dec. 30 in its latest round of cancellations. (via BostonHerald.com)

That’s … basically the saddest thing, and no amount of me editorializing on it can make it better. I’m not Barry Melrose over here, the best I can muster is, “enghhhhh give me hockey back you stupid assholes.” It’s looking more and more like the 2012-13 NHL season won’t exist, so I might as well get comfortable reporting about the Swedish Winter Classic, wherein somebody made international hockey better by adding a bunch of fire to it.

Via Greg at Puck Father:

This year marked the 100th birthday for [Swedish Elitserien hockey team] Brynäs [IF], and the franchise celebrated the moment with Canadiens-esque hyperbolic grandeur: An outdoor game in front of 15,000 fans at Glaveboken Arena vs. Timrå IK, in minus-12 degrees weather — so cold that the players’ water bottles kept freezing during the match.

To deal with the cold, they played some techno music and LIT EVERYTHING ON FIRE.

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Taiwan Animation covered Europe’s unlikely Ryder Cup comeback in their usual way — with afros, morphsuits and people from the United States dressing like Uncle Sam at all times. The actual story:

Europe won a remarkable 8.5 points of 12 available against the US in the final day’s singles to snatch a remarkable comeback win in the 39th Ryder Cup held at Medinah Country Club in Chicago, Illinois.

Taiwan’s version includes ghosts and suits of armor. Sometimes I wish real life was just Taiwan Animation. Then I remember how many people get slaughtered in them.

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Finally, something less constructive than Air Sex!

Welcome to Britain’s National Shin-Kicking Championships, a test of European might wherein guys stuff hay into their tube socks and kick each other in the shins until one falls down. It’s the centerpiece of the Cotswold Olimpick Games, a 400-year tradition that also includes potato sack races and tug-of-war. I don’t know exactly why this happens, but my working theory is that a bunch of 8-year olds in 1600s Great Britain f**ked around on Field Day and didn’t stop for four centuries. That, or England bases its athletic exhibitions on episodes of ‘The Brady Bunch’.

Our very own Christmas Ape wrote about the sport in 2008 and Burnsy’s hero is the Thunder Shin Man, but this is my first chance to share two guys kicking the sh*t out of each others’ shins for sport and I’m taking it. But hey, don’t think shin-kicking is just about kicking another guy in the shins — that would royally piss off judge James Wiseman.

“I kind of get quite annoyed when people think shin-kicking is literally two guys just facing each other and kicking each other as hard as possible in the shins.”

“It’s like they didn’t even SEE us stuffing hay into our socks.”

Maybe this just started off as a way for British guys to ruin their opponents for the sack race. I don’t know, I’m going to spend the rest of the day coming up with explanations.

Back in May, I introduced the world of With Leather to the latest Swedish sport to win our hearts – Kaninhop. In case you don’t remember this Pulitzer Prize-winning post, Kaninhop is competitive rabbit hopping. That’s right, people train their rabbits to jump over obstacles. And before we could even finish trying to reach through our screens and rub those fuzzy widdle bunny wabbits, something remarkable happened – someone organized a world championship.

Last Sunday, the inaugural European Rabbit Hopping Championships were held in Wollerau, Switzerland, and mad bunny hops enthusiasts from across the motherland gathered to prove that their long-eared fluff balls were the best. In the end, the big winner was Lada Sipova-Krecova of the Czech Republic, marking the first time that someone from the Czech has won, well, anything. At least I’m guessing that. Maybe they won independence or something like that, but come on… rabbits.

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On October 1, a group of 25 adventure-loving maniacs from Switzerland set out to accomplish their most death-defying feat to date. They wanted to descend upon the Gueuroz Bridge, a 613-foot-high construction that was once the highest in all of Europe, and create a spinning jacuzzi to hang from it. That’s it, that’s their dream adventure. The Swiss are weird, man.

So what the hell goes into dangling a hot tub built for two dozen people 450-feet over a river?

Several teams had different task. Some were pre-heating the water on top of the bridge using the 3 gas burners we had used for the jaccuzzi on top of Mont Banc); others lowered all the parts necessary to built the platform 130 feet below the bridge; others still were hanging low down and assembling the platform and setting up the hot tub with its gas burner to keep the water at 100°F; while others prepared the rappelling lines for all participants; in short, everybody helped so that 4.5 hours later the first person could jump in the water with a breath taking view. Six hours later the last person came out of the water and at 6:00 pm everything was back on the trailers to get back to Lausanne where we enjoyed a fantastic raclette at Jan’s place.

(Via)

Raclette at Jan’s place and I didn’t even get a call? I thought we were cool, Swiss adventurers.

This group has actually been organizing extreme hot tub adventures for the better part of a decade, with their ultimate feat having taken place on the summit of Mont Blanc. In related news, I once jumped off my friend’s roof into his swimming pool and it was totally righteous, dude.

Check out the glorious details of this latest adventure in pictures after the jump. WARNING: Not conducive for people with fears of extreme heights or effort.

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In case you’re the type who needs a screenprinted message on an oversized foam finger to be convinced of anything and believes the NBA Lockout is ending soon, here’s your finger: pending the ability of the team owner to actually get the money to make it happen, Kobe Bryant has agreed to play basketball in Italy.

From The Associated Press:

Italian club Virtus Bologna has reached a verbal agreement with Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant to play in Italy during the NBA lockout. The sides have settled on a $3 million contract for the opening 40 days of the Italian league season, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press on Friday.

Bryant, who spent much of his childhood in Italy, was in the country for sponsor appearances over the past two days but was flying back to the U.S. for labor talks with the NBA on Friday.

Bryant will get a work visa and return to Italy next week, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal has still not been signed. Virtus had been due to open the season Oct. 9 against Roma, but schedules now need to be reworked after Venezia was added to the league as a 17th team.

I’m guessing “Virtus Bologna” makes the most righteous sandwiches ever.

Three million dollars for 40 days of work comes out to roughly $75,000 a day for basketball. However, Bryant was set to make $25.244 million for the 2011-12 NBA season, so the deal in Italy gives him about a $233,000 a game pay-cut. With the lockout still on with no end in sight, it beats getting a real job, or going on Twitter and joking about having to get a real job, or whatever it is players are doing now. Not sure whether or not it beats what Roy Hibbert had going at Entertainment 7wenty, but Kobe knows what he’s doing, and “actually getting paid to play basketball somewhere” is absolutely what he should be doing.