Who Says Hockey Is Lacking Class?

Ah, future visions of ex-NHL players, sitting around the Christmas tree, and answering this question from curious children, perhaps even grandchildren: What did you do during the NHL lockout?

The answers will be all over the map. Literally.

New Jersey Devil center Scott Gomez is returning home, signing a $500-a-week deal with the Alaska Aces. He told a local TV station: “It was a no-brainer. Money’s not everything.”

Other hockey-starved individuals are finding a way to fill the void. A University of Victoria (Canada) professor will be offering a course called, “Hockey Literature and the Canadian Psyche.”

“There is a national emptiness in the country,” the professor, Doug Bearsdley, told Associated Press.

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Trivia time: Name the mascot at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

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Planet La Russa: On the way to analyzing Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa’s dismal World Series record, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ray Ratto took a brief detour:

“So Boston wins the World Series, eh? What next, Cal in the Rose Bowl?

“Oh, never mind, then. Anything is possible, including the Earth snapping off its axis and hurtling into the sun. Wouldn’t that just annoy Cal fans -- the Rose Bowl, trumped by the planet melting.”

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Hollywood ending: Lucky and good.

It all turned out perfectly for director Peter Farrelly, who re-shot the end of his baseball movie, “Fever Pitch,” at Busch Stadium when the Red Sox clinched the World Series on Wednesday night.

“We’ve got them celebrating on the field,” he told the Boston Herald. “It’s the end of the movie. And what an ending it was.

“This is like the aliens made contact. It’s something we’ve thought about for a long time, but never thought was possible.”

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Add Pitch: “Fever Pitch,” is a baseball/love story with the central figure an avid and, of course, long-suffering Red Sox fan, and stars Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore.

There already have been two other “Fever Pitch” movies. One was a soccer/love story -- based on Nick Hornby’s autobiographical book published in 1992 and made into a movie in 1997, starring Colin Firth as a long-suffering Arsenal fan.

Then there’s the hilarious, though probably not intended to be, offering of “Fever Pitch,” in 1985, starring Ryan O’Neal as a sportswriter who develops a gambling problem, featuring many of L.A.’s finest sports reporters.

The scene where O’Neal gets a substantial cash advance from his sports editor to pursue the gambling story is especially rich fiction.

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Trivia answer: The Kangaroo. And the Kangaroo has a first name, Kasey. The idea was hatched in 1936 when the Kansas City Zoo purchased two baby kangaroos.

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And finally: St. Louis Post Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz, on the losing team in the World Series:

“On the national stage, the Cardinals turned into Ashlee Simpson.”