TORONTO – On the red carpet before the Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremony Monday night, Walter Gretzky walked up to a friend, poked him in the gut playfully and said, “So when are we going to start playing again?”

If he doesn’t know, who does? He’s the father of Wayne Gretzky – the Great One, managing partner of the Phoenix Coyotes – a pretty influential person in the NHL.

The friend, Los Angeles Kings Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Miller, poked him back and said with a smile, “Tell your son to get em going!”

This is the 56th day of the NHL lockout.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has given no doomsday deadline, saying the league wants to reach a collective bargaining agreement with the NHL Players’ Association and then see if there’s time for any semblance of a season. But we may be nearing the point of no return.

The league is canceling games 45 days in advance. So as of today, the schedule is wiped out through Dec. 24. As of Thursday, it will be wiped out through Dec. 25. And so on.

League executives have said no player will take the ice for so much as a practice until a labor agreement has been signed – and it could take lawyers a month or more to complete things after the sides shake hands on principle.

The general feeling is that games must begin no later than January to save the season.

The clock is ticking loudly – really, the alarm is about to go off – and this is the 62nd straight day the league and union haven’t talked. Asked if he had at least bumped into union executive director Bob Goodenow on Monday night, Bettman said, “Is he here?” Goodenow was not.

The All-Star Game, scheduled for Feb. 13 in Atlanta, has been canceled.

“I have no reason for optimism,” said Jimmy Devellano, the Red Wings’ senior vice president.

Among some there is great frustration.

“It absolutely sucks,” said Hall of Fame player Lanny MacDonald. “They’ve got to find a way to get back to the table, and I’m not talking about one side or the other. I’m talking about both sides. Not only do we have to protect the game, we have to improve the product. You can’t do it on the sidelines. Get back in the game.”

Molson is running a beer ad in Canada that shows clips of guys singing like Boy George. “Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?” A black screen comes up with a plea in simple white words: “Hockey, please come back.”

“It’s really tough on the Canadian people,” said Ottawa Senators general manager John Muckler. “Hockey’s religion in Canada, and it’s treated in a different manner than it is in the United States, except maybe in Detroit, a border town.”

Among others there is resignation.

The lockout had been looming for years, and nothing got done. So no one was surprised when it came, and no one is surprised that both sides have dug in deep. Ask either side why there have been no talks, and the response is the same: There is nothing to talk about.

The owners want what they call “cost certainty” – to link players’ salaries to a percentage of league revenue. The players say they will never accept a salary cap.

European teams have welcomed about 250 NHL players and counting.

Asked about the prospects of a season, Muckler said, “It’s not going to happen.”

People who love hockey so much that they’ve dedicated their lives to it tend to think the game will be fine.

“Hockey fans are hockey fans,” said New York Rangers general manager Glen Sather. “There’s a serious section of them that will do anything they can to watch hockey.”

Sather alluded to the 1994 lockout, which ended in time to open a 48-game season in January.

“Been through it before,” he said. “The game is better than all of us – better than the players, better than the owners, better than the management. It will solve itself sooner or later.”

Said Hall of Famer Borje Salming, a former Red Wing: “It can’t hurt too much, I think. It’s going to be back.”

Confidence? Or hubris?

“Anyone that has ever been involved in the game should be worried if it does last the whole year,” MacDonald said.

“That would be a tragedy. They keep on talking about it being a $2-billion business right now. Well, if they’re out for a year, it’s certainly not going to be a $2-billion business. So strike the best possible deal you can do at this point and get it back on the ice where it belongs.”