St. Paul - The first state government shutdown in Minnesota, "The State of Hockey," history is over, thanks to the ending of the NHL lockout. The 8,883 state employees who were locked out of their jobs since July 1 started returning to work at the end of last month, and closed state services were reopening.

That means, among other things, barricades were coming down at highway rest stops, to the delight of the state's gay community. Steve "Gay Train" Lane, a gay-community leader, said "oh thank God, the glory hole at my office building is not nearly seedy enough to be exciting, I just have to have filthy dirty way-side rest bathroom glory hole action to be happy in life."

Incontinent truckers also were excited. "I was running out of clean pants," one incontinent truck said.

In addition, new drivers will be able to get licenses and car buyers will start receiving the titles to their new vehicles.

The government shutdown was able to end because the NHL owners and players came to an agreement and ended their lockout. "'The State of Hockey'" relies so much on the $60,000 a year that the NHL brings to the city of St. Paul in tax revenue that we just couldn't operate another year without the Minnesota Wild," Minnesota Governor Tim "T-Paw" Pawlenty said.

In announcing the early-morning agreement, Pawlenty said, "It's a good thing that this deal's been done. It's not a good thing that it's six weeks late." The governor said he felt like a parent of errant teenagers who came home late. "I'm glad that they're here safe, but I'm mad it's late, and Sviggum is probably knocked up," he said.

The biggest winners in the agreement, aside from the homosexuals, hockey fans, and the truckers, were Minnesota K-12 schools and their students. They will get an additional $800 million over two years, mostly through 4 percent annual increases in basic school-aid payments. It will be their first increase in state funding in three years.

Smokers will lose under the deal. It calls for a 75 cents-a-pack "health impact fee" to pay for the health benefits. That may cost Pawlenty, who proposed the fee, some political support. Critics call it a tax and say it violates his pledge not to increase taxes.

As for the NHL side of the deal, "At the end of the day, everybody lost," said Wayne Gretzky, the NHL's career scoring leader also known as the "hockey Jesus", "except for the State of Minnesota workers, the gays, and the truckers, we almost crippled our industry, it was very disappointing what happened."