The World Juniors take over center stage, the biggest stage theyv'e ever been on thanks to the NHL lockout. Team previews can help you track Ranger prospects on the various teams -- Nigel Dawes (Canada), Al Montoya and Ryan Callahan (USA), Lauri Korpikoski (Finland), Ivan Baranka (Slovakia), and Jakub Petruzalek and Zdenek Bahensky (Czech Republic).

For those more inclined to looking back than looking forward, CNN/SI.com has taken a page out of Blueshirt Bulletin in providing a recommended reading list. Money Players by Bruce Dowbiggin was on our list and is on this one too. We're in the middle of reading the third book on CNN/SI's list, Ballad of the Whiskey Bandit, the story of a Hungarian third-string hockey goalie who became the country's best known bank robber (a true story, and a good one too).

SportsLine.com provides the requisite parody of A Night Before Christmas, wondering what will happen to the grand old men of hockey due to this lockout. The home page photo is of our own grand old man, Mark Messier, praying. Whether he is praying for a proper send-off, as the caption suggests, or for one last long-term Ranger contract, as Ranger fans fear, is hard to tell.

It has been suggested that it is not in the interest of the NHL's plan to declare impasse for the NHL to formally cancel this season. Yet that is what everyone believes will happen January 14th when the Board of Governors convenes with Commissioner Gary Bettman. Sherry Ross at the News puts in her two cents on the story.

Charlotte again the only prospect action in Rangerstan -- Lee Falardeau scored another goal in a winning cause, his tenth of the season. Maybe there's more pulse in the guy's game than we ever imagined. Maybe it's just the ECHL.

The old cup is half empty, cup is half full cliche takes on a whole new twist at Canada.com where someone wrote a retrospective titled "A look back: year in hockey not all bad" -- the issue here is not whether the cup is half empty or half full, but what exactly is in the cup he's drinking out of.