First, acknowledge that the ill-advised plan to place footprints in the American west and southeast spectacularly failed. Talent was stretched, so the game was diluted, so everyone got bored. Go the opposite way -- create scarcity of opportunity to see top-flight hockey, and you'll fill your buildings and make your local TV money.

Second, decentralize. If fans in Boston and Philadelphia don't want to see the Ottawa Senators, don't make them. Restore Canada's place as the anchor of pro hockey by beefing up top-flight pro team representation there and insulating it. Similarly, isolate the U.S. teams.

Move the bankrupt Buffalo Sabres (the team I grew up rooting for, by the way) to Hamilton and Carolina to Winnipeg. (These sorts of details -- which two teams are folded and moved to Canadian cities -- are unimportant.)

Have an eight-team Canadian Professional Hockey League, with rights to the name and initials NHL, and let them play seven times against one another, for 49 games a year.

Have a ten-team U.S. Professional Hockey League consisting of the most stable and/or storied franchises. Include Minnesota and Columbus because those areas have invested heavily in the NHL and have not yet managed to disaffect the locals, unlike, say, Nashville and Atlanta, and they have the right geography. (Frankly, it doesn't matter what the ninth and tenth teams are, if you'd rather they were, say, Washington and Pittsburgh, neither of which attracts any fannies in their seats anymore.)

Each U.S. team plays each other six times, for 54 games.

Have the Canadians and U.S. teams play each other home and home, totaling 69 games for the Canadians and 70 for the U.S. Have each team schedule three (Canadian) or two (U.S.) teams from among the other professional teams in North America, their choice, their arrangements. If the Blackhawks want to play the Blues an extra time, and the Blues agree, let them. If the Bruins want to play the Worcester IceCats or whatever, great. Seventy two games apiece.

Have four lesser, satellite leagues. You might call them the Western Pro League, Midwest Pro League, Atlantic Pro League and New England Pro League. Make then 7-9 teams each. They would be populated by current AHL franchises and NHL teams that don't make the Canadian or U.S. Pro leagues.

Your Canadian Pro League (NHL) is:

Calgary Flames
Edmonton Oilers
Hamilton [Sabres]
Montreal Canadiens
Ottawa Senators
Toronto Maple Leafs
Vancouver Canucks
Winnipeg [Hurricanes]

Your U.S. League is:

Boston Bruins
Chicago Blackhawks
Colorado Avalanches
Columbus Blue Jackets
Dallas Stars
Detroit Red Wings
Minnesota Wild
N.Y. Rangers
Philadelphia Flyers
St. Louis Blues

We would also pass a rule banning singular names like "Avalanche."

Your satellite leagues, whose teams would operate independently and could play whatever "regular season" schedule their little hearts desired, would be made up as I say of AHL teams and viable teams from among:

Los Angeles (13)
San Jose (14)
Tampa Bay (17)
Washington (19)
Florida (20)
New Jersey (21)
Pittsburgh (24)
Atlanta (25)
Nashville (26)
Phoenix (28)
Anaheim (29)
N.Y. Islanders (30)

The number in parentheses is the team's rank in attendance from 2000-2004; data available here. This, at least initially, is going to be a ticket sale driven revenue model, and an area that has demonstrated it won't support a team at the gate is apt to lose its place in the leaner, more elite league, even with geography on its side.

But here's the thing. There's nothing preventing -- or, to be more precise, under this plan there would be nothing preventing -- the U.S. Pro league from accepting new members, up to 12, and booting old, if they don't pan out. I personally would give a 20 or so year exemption to this for the Original Six (er, Four, in the U.S.), but business is business, so whatever.

There are no more farm systems. Whether there were a draft could be hashed out, but if so, I think you would limit it to a couple rounds, and let everyone else sign wherever they want.

What prevents some sick puppy rich guy from buying the Hershey Bears and luring all the top players to a B-pool league? Scarcity, as I alluded to above. Give the Canadian Pro league three bids to the Stanley Cup tournament each spring. Give the U.S. league two. Invite three other teams from among the satellite leagues -- say, three of their four own tournament winners -- with a caveat that if there are a couple duds that make the cut, you can invite one additional U.S. Pro league team instead. In the meantime, there's nothing artificial preventing sick puppy rich guy from stacking the Bears -- it might even get them an invitation to the U.S. Pro league, if they're successful.

Canadian teams, on the whole, may bring in less revenue, but players will have a better chance of winning the Stanley Cup there. The U.S. Pro team includes the biggest revenue markets, but doesn't offer as great a chance to win. The satellite leagues are B leagues, and will pay and make money as such, barring sick puppy rich guy.

When you cancel a season and are working on canceling another, a free market approach is just crazy enough to work. The difficulty dealing with players with multiyear contracts to play for the teams that don't make it to the two big leagues is probably insurmountable, not to mention owners and fans of those teams.

But something along these lines would restore vigor to the games themselves, which have turned almost universally into 2-1 snoozefests. And it would restore excitement and a following to the season itself, promoting regional rivalries (no more Edmonton-Nashville epics), giving the most passionate fans the best shot at the Cup (by the way, to decide your three or two Stanley seeds, you would of course have your own tournament from among the top XX teams), and spare casual watchers the startling incongruity of a Calgary-Tampa Bay final.

And of course, you'd have a final. There's that.