Takin' a T/O With BT: Ten Gifts You Wouldn't Want to get from the NHL

So if you didn't take the hint from my last article, it's Christmas.

It's dark until 8:00am, bright until 6:00pm, there are long shifts for those of us who work jobs in retail, and the ever-lingering threat of your car being buried under a mound of snow by the time you get off of work, which result to sleeping at work.

Makes me wish I lived in Bermuda, or at least worked at Chucky Cheese—the ball pit seems pretty comfortable.

But what gets us through the day is when we come home to our family's smiling faces and cautiously peer over their shoulders as we get that "welcome home hug" to see if any more presents have slid their way under the tree.

Then when everyone's asleep you rediscover that talent you had when you were eight—and while you burp the alphabet you carefully peel back the corner of the paper on one of the presents, just for an early peek.

Alright, so I'm twenty and I've never done any of this before. I could never burp the alphabet, we can't put presents under the tree before Christmas morning or else the dog will eat them, and my "welcome home hug" involves reheated leftovers at 2:00am in the morning.

But still, you can't have Christmas without the presents—presents that even mult-million dollar athletes give and receive on the morning of December 25th.

However, while I'm sure that their families always love what they get each other (if not that's what boxing day is for), there are a few players who I may not like to get something from on Christmas day for one reason or another.

Sidenote: If you read Ken Armer's comment on the "NHL's Dreads of Christmas" article, he's apparently unhappy with me picking on Avery. So as a fellow NHL Community Leader, I politely left Avery off this list to give our resident Stars freak a break. After all it is Christmas.

Besides, I'd be wary of accepting anything from Avery at any time of year. Don't want to be accused of "sloppy seconds" now do I.

10. From the fans: A vote to be on the Starting Lineup for the Eastern Conference at this year's All Star game

Don't get me wrong—if by some miracle I somehow received a single vote on the NHL All Star ballot I wouldn't turn it down, but I have to ask what the point is?

As Alan Bass has already pointed out, it's all going to be Pittsburgh Penguins—that is if it's not all Montreal Canadiens.

The top five forward vote-getters? Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Alex Kovalev, Saku Koivu, and Alex Tanguay—all with over 660,000. Poor Alexander Ovechkin hasn't even gotten to 400,000 yet.

Andrei Markov, Mike Komisarek, Sergei Gonchar, and Ryan Whitney lead the defensemen (followed by yet another non-400 club Zdeno Chara), while Carey Price and Marc-Andre Fleury are running away with the votes between the pipes.

Then again Whitney and Gonchar haven't played a game this season so maybe it's worth a shot.

9. A trip to Las Vegas with Alexander Radulov and/or Dan Lacouture

Now don't get me wrong: Vegas would be a killer time, especially with two NHL stars, but we have to get two things straight here:

1. Neither of these guys are NHL stars and

2. They've both quit on NHL contracts to go and play in the KHL.

To be honest, this seems like the kind of scenario that you'd go, run up a huge tab at all these bars and casinos, trust Radulov and Lacouture that they'd take care of their end of everything as well as a bit of yours (after all it is your present), and then waking up on the floor of your hotel room with neither of the room keys, while all of their stuff gone with them on a plane back to Russia, leaving you to foot the bill.

Skip out on one little contract and all of the sudden people don't want to go vacationing with you—who knew?

8. A visor from Don Cherry

Now, while the idea that Don is caring about your eyesight and being cautious with your health is comforting, let's think about this logically: He's probably giving you this gift just so he can make fun of you later, calling you shy, cheap, and french, when all I want is to be cheap.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

7. A Hockey Helmet (along with skating lessons) from Brett and Eric Lindros

872 points (All but seven Eric's), 15 NHL seasons (13 of them Eric's), and one Hart trophy (Eric's as well) later and all these brother's got were injury-shortened, brain-shaking careers. Well now you can learn to skate with your head down as well!

And upon graduation, receive a free helmet with a mirror on the chin strap—perfect for reflecting the hit that's about to end your career as you stare at your skates!

6. Something from Russia from Ray Emery

After listening to an interview he did on HockeyCentral at noon here in Canada, Emery seemed to make it fairly clear that he liked it over in Russia and that the only people he was truly concerned with were his friends on his former team, so why bother the man if he's happy?

Besides, it's not so much about Emery—besides Vodka, what would I want from Russia anyways?

5. A gift certificate from Mats Sundin

So six months later you finally decide to sign somewhere eh Mats? Makes it seem really fair to everyone to hold them hostage and turn this NHL season from a story about "Sloppy Seconds" and All Star Game conspiracy theories to something that's all about you.

Well whether you intended it to or not, that's what happened, and now? Your gifts are tainted.

Knowing you, you'll probably take forever to decide where to get the gift certificate from, but by the time you decide it'll be too late and you'll end up getting it from somewhere you like. Then you'll "mail" it to me, but it'll get here three weeks after Christmas, and (with your "luck") it'll have expired by the time I received it.

Next year I'm just going to Ikea.

4. Christmas Baking from Marian Gaborik

You know what? I think that it'd be really cool to receive some Slovakian-style Christmas baking for the Holidays—you know, get a real multi-cultural feel going.

What I don't think is cool is waiting in emerg for seven hours so that the injury-prone star of the Minnesota Wild can have third degree burns and a strained groin treated.

The burns because he forgot the oven was on and the groin, well seriously, it's Marian Gaborik.

He probably sneezed.

3. Christmas Carols from the Roy's

You know a Christmas card would do, but for Patrick, Jonathan, Frederick, and Jana that's simply not enough—they have to go out into public and "brighten people's day.

The unfortunate part is that you have to wait until the Roys decide they're done. I mean if you don't, Frederick will cross-check the door down, Jonathan may (or may not, but probably will) mug you, and Patrick would just take care of tearing down the house.

As for Jana, I have no clue. I did find this though, so anyone willing to translate is greatly appreciated.

2. A Stocking Stuffer from Marty McSorely

I have no idea what McSorely's going to get you, but if you don't like it this may happen...

Or this...

Or even this, this, or definitely this.

I figured I should warn you (Ps. My Christmas present to you: the Batman Music playing in the background of the McSorely/Hunter fight...simply epic).

1. A Picture of Ken Daneyko

When I was a little kid, I had a picture of an Orangutan on my wall and late at night, I thought I could see it's lips moving—that freaked me out to no end.

If you put a picture like this on my wall now, let alone a little kid's, I don't think there's any way that anyone on my block sleeps for three months at least.

And with that, we've got our Christmas list from the NHL, of our least favorite gifts and the people who'd give them to use—all without Sean Avery!

Don't worry though Sean, I'm sure there'll be people thinking about you over the Holiday season, and I'm sure they're far more considerate than to get you something off of this list at least.

Bryan Thiel is a Senior Writer and an NHL Community Leader for Bleacher Report. If you want to get in contact with Bryan, you can do so through his profile. You can also check out all of his previous work in his archives.