The NHL has been missing since Sunday.  ESPN wants to know why.

The self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports launched an investigation Friday into why the NHL seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth.  The search is the pet project of ESPN anchor Jonathan Coachman.

“It all started during one of our production meetings the other day,” Coachman explained.  “Someone said ‘Hey, remember hockey?  Whatever happened to it?’ and it got me thinking.”

So Coachman looked deeper into the situation.  The last known NHL games were played on Sunday, February 14th – nearly a week ago.  Since then, nothing.

“We thought maybe the season was over,” said Coachman.  “So we looked through our windows in the meeting room.  Snow on the ground – snow usually means cold, and cold usually means hockey’s being played somewhere.  Then we looked at our calendars.  They said December.  That didn’t seem right because I remember the Super Bowl happening not too long ago.  That’s when we discovered no one had bought new calendars because of budget cuts.”

With the correct season and month eventually verified, the investigation was officially launched.  ESPN employees have been working various leads on the status of the NHL, and opinions on the fate of the hockey league are varied.

“I think it was just a matter of natural selection,” said ESPN anchor Linda Cohn.  “Big fish eat the little ones – in this case, I’m pretty sure the NHL was eaten by football in general.”

“I think one of two things happened,” suggested SportsCenter anchor Trey Wingo.  “Either A) They ran out of money and shut down overnight without telling anyone, or B) Disney green lit The Tooth Fairy 2: Armed to the Tooth and they wanted every team involved.  Either one.”

ESPN hockey analyst Barry Melrose offered no explanations as to what may have happened to the league, just regret that he was not made aware of the leagues plans.  “I can’t believe the left me,” said the mulleted anchor.  “They didn’t even say where they were going.  Just up and left.  I can’t believe it.  I guess I have to learn about something useful now, like who Tiger Woods slept with this week.”

While hope appears slim of ever finding out what happened to the NHL, Coachman remains determined to find an answer to this mystery.  “We got a tip this morning that there was a large contingent of hockey players in a town in western Canada called Vancouver.  I don’t know, I’ve never heard of it either,” said Coachman.

“But why would so many hockey players congregate in a place where absolutely nothing is going on when the league they play in is missing?  I’ve booked a flight for next week, I should arrive out there on March 1st.  I’ll get to the bottom of this then, I’m sure of it.”