The National Hockey league is locking out again, the first time to do so since the cancelled 2005 season. And during that 2005 season, a strange request was made by an investment firm to buy out the league, assume its debt, and intend to make it profitable again. That investment firm - was Bain Capital, operated by none other than Mitt Romney.

Since its founding in 1984, Bain Capital had been swooping down on struggling businesses, buying them out with cheap debt, and using austere management to make them profitable—for the private equity firm and for Mitt Romney, the former partner whose 10-year retirement agreement would continue to pay out profits through 2009. What the businesses were hardly mattered. Bain's holdings have included AMC Theaters, The Weather Channel, Toys "R" Us, Burlington Coat Factory, and Burger King, companies with nothing in common beyond the potential profits Bain saw in running them its own way.

And now, Bain saw a chance to buy low on professional hockey. The Toronto Star reported that on March 1, 2005, Bain Capital managing partner (and Boston Celtics co-owner) Steve Pagliuca, accompanied by Bob Caporale of Game Plan LLC (which specializes in facilitating sales of sports franchises), made a presentation at an owners meeting in New York. They had been invited specifically by Bettman. Bill Daly, the NHL's chief legal officer, said afterward that "when someone's offering over $3 billion, we felt we had an obligation to the board to have them, at least, hear it from the proposed purchaser."

Bizzare. Just seven years later, Mitt Romney is right in the thick of it in the race for the oval office.