How would you like to be Joffrey Lupul today? Almost exactly a year ago, he scored his first NHL goal. He wound up with 34 points in his first year as an Anaheim Mighty Duck, second best for a rookie in team history.

Lupul should be living large. Instead, he's living here. A Cincinnati Mighty Duck, playing in the American Hockey League, his lifelong desire a hostage to greed.

"I've dreamed my whole life of playing in the NHL," he said Wednesday. "I played one year and now we're in this position."

Enjoy your Ferrari, Mr. Lupul. The engine should be here soon.

The NHL lockout is in its 36th day with no end in sight, rich people rattling jewelry at 10 paces.

"Both sides make good points," Lupul, 22, said. Maybe. But to fans, it sounds like the same old cash and trash. It doesn't matter if it's baseball, hockey or hide-and-seek, fans don't care about the war between seven-figure wage earners and the gilded rich who pay them.

Even in hockey. Maybe especially in hockey, where the players retain a smidgen of blue-collar appeal. They might be millionaires. But they put their dentures in one plate at a time, just like the rest of us. This feels like betrayal.

What's different about this lockout is, nobody seems to care. An entire sport is going poof, and the sound you hear is ... nothing. No sound at all. Oh, probably in Edmonton or Winnipeg or Detroit, or some equally tundra-ed place, they're gnashing their chattering teeth. But where else?

They're not storming the transoms in Nashville. They're not skating off their frustrations on the icy farm ponds of Fort Lauderdale. Raleigh's not losing sleep. Raleigh?

As Cincinnati coach Brad Shaw put it, "They're not screaming about it in the non-traditional markets."

You could forgive Lupul for clearing his throat. He grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. He has played in Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw, to say nothing of Kamloops. He has saddle sores from riding the Greyhounds. A very big chunk of his heart (literally and romantically) belongs to Big Boy.

He got his first stick when he was born, his first skates before he could remember. "My parents had me on the ice 'bout the time I could walk," Lupul said. He played in his first hockey game at age 4.

This is what they do in Canada. They also preempt regular TV shows to broadcast live the press conference announcing Wayne Gretzky's trade from Edmonton to Los Angeles. "A bad day in Edmonton," Lupul said, needlessly.

Lupul has had a taste of honey, which is worse than none at all. At least the other young guys don't know what they're missing. It's like being named Wine Drinker of the Year, then developing a grape allergy.

Lupul's not complaining. He says he's fortunate to be playing. "A lot of guys are doing nothing," Lupul said. But talk about having the ice pulled out from under you. The difference between Cincinnati and Anaheim in hockey is the difference between Louisville and Cincinnati in baseball.

Congrats on your cosmetology degree, Trixie. We're shutting down the beauty parlor.

The silver lining is, hockey in Cincinnati has never been better. Shaw said "as many as six or seven" of his players should be in Anaheim right now. The coach said every team in the AHL could say the same. Hockey fans here will get near-NHL shows at Triple-A prices.

That doesn't help Joffrey Lupul.

"It's unthinkable there wouldn't be an NHL season," Lupul says. "There's got to be some kind of NHL."

Until there is, Lupul will bide his time in the small time. Nothing against our town. But nobody rides buses to Kamloops dreaming of playing in Cincinnati. Mr. Gretzky is waiting for you, Mr. Lupul. Somewhere.

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com