No, it was not all just a dream. No, you are not about to wake up. Yes, the CBC really does think that showing The Princess Diaries at 7:00pm this coming Saturday is a sensible alternative to the Leafs at Montreal. Yes, there really still is a hockey lockout. Yes, you are still trying to make your peace with that.

Here is something to cheer you up. NHL 2005 is the second great hockey game of the season. Last week in this space you read great heaps of fawning praise for the first great hockey game of the season, ESPN NHL 2K5. All that still stands. ESPN is an outstanding game, bursting with fun and excitement, blissfully free of labour strife. Yet for all its brilliance, for all the cheer it has brought you since Oct. 13, you still find yourself tearing up whenever you get a quiet moment. You still long for the day, oft-delayed but surely imminent, when Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow end the charade and fall into a ravenous animal embrace, ripping off each other's clothing and kissing fiercely and never mind all the rolling cameras.

That is a lot of anticipation. Maybe staving it off is too heavy a burden for one video game to bear. The good news is that NHL 2005 is here, and it is eager to help.

The game is better looking than ESPN. Its players still have that creepy dead-eyed zombie look you have come to expect from sports titles, but they are a little less creepy and a little less dead-eyed than the norm. There are even flashes of brilliance: In the close-up shot after he scores, Virtual Richard Zednik looks positively alive. Score NHL 2005 one for art direction. But the play is the thing, and whether you cotton to this variety will really depend on how you like your hockey.

NHL 2005 is a festival of defence, see. It is also a festival of hits. The moment you leave your own zone with the puck, the defenders begin crowding you. When you cross the centre line, you begin to feel claustrophobic. Skate over your opponent's blue line, and eight times out of ten you find yourself flattened by an unforgiving open-ice check.

Right now, just for fun, try making the noise eight-year-old boys make when they are simulating explosions. Start with a sort of wet aspirated "K," or something like a Scotsman might say at the end of the syllable "och." Next, keep your tongue right where it is, and keep that hissy breath moving, and use your lips to say "peeee-eeew." "Kccchhpppccchheeeeeccheew." Say it a few times fast. Got it?

That is the sound of bodychecking in NHL 2005. You will hear it a lot as you play. You will dish it out a lot, too. You will find defensive checking easy to master to and immensely satisfying, especially because it will make Virtual Jim Hughson and Virtual Craig Simpson chatter about what a tough physical game your team plays. You will take possession of the puck, you will get into the offensive zone, you will take a big kccchhpppccchheeeeeccheew, and then there will be a turnover. Moments later, in your end, you will offer a countering kccchhpppccchheeeeeccheew of your own. Things will go on like this until you learn that the most sensible offensive strategy is repeated slapshots from the point. Then you will start winning.

It does not lend itself to gorgeous playmaking, but it does give NHL 2005 a bone-rattling edge that is missing from ESPN. Whether it is to your taste is another matter. If you are a Tie Domi sort of person it will be right up your alley. If you are a Don Cherry sort of person it will be too. Ditto if you are eight and you like explosions.