Face it: 2012 has been a suck-ass year in Cleveland professional sports. But we’re used to it by now, aren’t we? Pleasant surprises were admittedly few and far between—which made it even worse for optimists like me.

One year ago, we posed “12 Questions for 2012” and speculated on their answers. Every December, we like to revisit the year and see how fate answered the questions.

Here are last year’s 12 questions, my predictions, and the eventual truth. As this has become somewhat of an annual chore, you can look for “13 Questions for 2013” in the next week or two.

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I hate the holidays.

Yeah, I said it. You think it too, don’t you? Most of us don’t have the balls to say it out loud. Thanksgiving ends, you’re stuffed full of turkey and all that football-soaked tryptophan-induced bliss goes straight to horror, knowing the next day you get to climb the rickety ladder into the attic and carry heavy boxes down it risking paralysis or death so your house can look like Santa had explosive festive diarrhea all over it. If OSHA had any jurisdiction over your home, that operation would have been fined and shut down long ago.

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Bowl season totals can be one of the most profitable bets of the college football season. Generally speaking, the over/under number is set by taking the average offensive and defensive output for each team. If the two teams score 22.8 and 31.6 points per game, respectively, while allowing 17.6 and 29.5 points per game, respectively, the total will be somewhere in the ballpark of 50-51 points.

However, these numbers have to be taken in context during bowl season. A team that struggled in conference play against quality SEC defenses may now be playing a bad Big Ten defense or a marginal ACC defense. A SEC team that averages 21.8 points per game could be playing a slower, less talented Big Ten defense. That should increase their scoring output, possibly causing the total to be lower than it should be. Similarly, a team averaging 35.2 points per game might be playing the best defense they’ve seen all season and that will slow down their offense.

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Wednesday marked the 20th anniversary of Gary Bettman as Commissioner of the National Hockey League. Bettman has had a lot of ups, a lot of downs, has been praised and vilified, perhaps more than any commissioner in professional sports, during those 20 years. Twenty years that include three lockouts, a labor stoppage with referees, and the proliferation of hockey to non-traditional U.S. markets like Phoenix, Tampa Bay, San Jose, Nashville, Atlanta, and Columbus. Bettman is not responsible for everything that has happened during his tenure, both the good and the bad, but right now, all he is known for is the lockout that threatens the entire 2012-13 season.

Earlier this week, the league announced the cancellation of games through December 30. The next round of cancellations could very well include the rest of the schedule. Negotiations, even those held with a federal mediator, seem to be at a standstill. Talks continue, possibly as a token gesture to fans, because the two sides still appear to be very far apart.

Commissioners in every sport are booed relentlessly whenever the fans are given the opportunity to voice their opinions. Bettman is no different. His reputation will probably be irreparably broken by this lockout, as two good Olympic tournaments and growing distaste for the NBA was taking the NHL to new heights. Rule changes that benefitted the fans, including the institution of shootouts, a tougher stance on obstruction penalties, and other measures to enhance goal scoring, now seem like a distant memory with NHL arenas dark into the holidays.

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