Oh Pete Carroll, you ol' horn dog.

Last week, due to the NHL lockout, the league canceled its best regular season event of the season, as it pulled the plug on the Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, which would have been played in freezing temperatures in front of 100,000 people at the University of Michigan. That should have been one of the coolest – literally and figuratively – sporting events of our lifetimes, and instead it’s just a memory rattling around like a BB in the tin can that is Gary Bettman’s head.

Today at 3:30 PM ET, the owners and players union will resume talks, and people seem to be buzzing about the possibility of the NHL saving half of its season, much like the NBA did last year. But for a reminder, let’s turn to TIME’s Keeping Score for a recap of what it will take to get these guys back on the ice.

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The NHL lockout is dragging on, and everyone is feeling the crunch. The Florida Panthers laid off Stanley C. Panther, players are heading overseas to find work and the poor Ice Girls are … well, actually, the Ice Girls are totally fine. Forget I mentioned them.

By way of Jimmy Traina and the Thursday edition of Hot Clicks comes this clip of the Dallas Stars Ice Girls saying nuts to ‘Gangnam Style’ and ‘Call Me Maybe’ parodies in favor of emulating Little Big Town’s country hit ‘Pontoon,’ which mostly requires them to hang out on the ocean and play on slides. It’s a good decision, especially for anyone watching, but they should probably let that redhead go in before she burns.

This video is more or less the opposite of any time Danica Patrick decides she’s a country star.

Random question, though … is anyone else like me? I’m not a huge fan of cheerleaders, but I LOVE Ice Girls. At the same time, I like Ice Girls less when they’re wearing bikinis or whatever than I do when they’re on the ice. I can’t figure out why, but I’ve narrowed it down to “hockey is happening around them” and “yoga pants”.

One of the biggest lessons that we learned as fans during last year’s NFL and NBA lockouts, as well as this year’s NFL referee lockout and now the NHL lockout, is that we don’t matter worth a squat. Sure, we’re the people who provide the money, but the owners, players, agents, players’ reps, and everyone else involved in labor negotiations know that we’re never going to realize the power that we have and just walk away from sports to prove a point. After all, if we gave up on sports, we’d have to deal with reality and not one of us wants to do that.

Take the Seattle Seahawks-Green Bay Packers “Fail Mary” game, for instance. It wasn’t just Packers fans, as NFL fans in general were calling for boycotts of the following week’s games if Roger Goodell and the owners didn’t get their sh*t together and reach a deal with the regular refs. If the NFL hadn’t come to terms on a new 8-year deal with the refs’ union that same week, would people have tuned out? Absolutely not. It wouldn’t have made a difference, because we’re moths drawn to the bright light.

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