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If you can tear yourself away from this frigid, interminable winter, come back with me to the steamy summer of 2005.

For the last two weeks of July, Montreal was playing host to the World Aquatics Championships on Île Notre Dame. I was there every day, covering swimming and diving and marvelling at the strength, toughness and endurance of the athletes playing water polo.

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Hockey was the last thing on my mind. As much as possible, I try not to think about January in July. But there was some hockey business in progress. The Gary Bettman lockout that had killed the 2004-05 season had ended. Given that the 2004 playoffs were more than a year in the rear-view mirror, the NHL held a lottery to determine the order of the entire draft, rather than the top picks.

The lottery was held on July 22, midway through the aquatics championships. Bitterness toward the NHL over the lockout was at its high point. Fans were universally swearing they would never come back. Reporters took that stance with a grain of salt, but we were also feeling pretty disgusted with the league.