This column originally ran in The Standard-Times on Oct. 14, 2005.

By Nick Tavares

By the end of the month, the baseball gloves will be packed away until spring, the dog days of the NFL season will be in full swing and the NBA will return to camp.

And none of it will matter because the NHL is back.

When Teppo Numminen lit the first lamp of the season with his goal for Buffalo, everything was official. Pucks were flying around the red-line free ice, bodies were flying into Plexiglas and all was right in the world again.

The fact that I was genuinely excited for last week's opening night hurts me a bit. What Gary Bettman and company have done to the league in the last ten years — expansion, dumb rules, more expansion, more dumb rules — is inexcusable. What the players were demanding — never take a salary cap, never give in ... well, maybe we will give in — was maddening. They wouldn't win everyone back who loved the sport, at least not right away.

I really thought that would be me. I was dead wrong.

No, I was in front of the TV for the Bruins/Canadiens opener. The new rules -- save for Boston's insane 7-6 overtime win over Pittsburgh last week -- seem to have had more of an effect on speed than scoreboards, but otherwise aren't taking away from the game. At least not yet.

There's still no need for the shootout. The reason the penalty shot was "the most exciting play in sports" was because it happened once a month. Having a half dozen after every tie game will get really old really soon. As old as having a three-point contest after tie NBA games would get, or home-run derbies after 10 innings of baseball.

But so far, these are all minor nicks in the ice. Having time to fully focus on Hockey East and the AHL last season was refreshing in a way, but it was obvious that these were fill-ins to what many fans were looking for.

Watching the Bruins actually make an effort to win a Stanley Cup, for starters, is one element of that. I'm not convinced they'll do it — one look at their defense, even with Nick Boynton under contract, is enough to sway a skeptic — but they will be interesting and should finally make some noise in the playoffs.

There's a slew of players to enjoy this season. Joe Thornton's back would be an issue late in the season, but assume that he's at full health and he has a chance to be great this year. Patrice Bergeron is a great young talent and could become the backbone of the team sooner than you think. Sergei Samsonov is healthy and wheeling, Brian Leetch is defying old age and Duxbury native Pat Leahy is making his case to stay with the big club.

In net, Andrew Raycroft looks to have not missed a beat, and behind him lurks Hannu Toivonen, a player who has the potential to become one of the league's best someday.

It's all early, though. The Bruins could crash, the clutching and grabbing that have slowed the game down could return and another Canadian team could move south.

But for now, everything's rosy.

So, when I go out for lunch and inevitably get asked the question, it's an easy call for me.

"Yes, very."

Nick Tavares is a columnist for The Standard-Times. E-mail him at ntavares@s-t.com

This story appeared on Page C2 of The Standard-Times on October 14, 2005.