It looks like the lockout imposed by National Hockey League owners will end as they and the players agreed to a deal in principle on a new collective bargaining agreement. The impasse cost the 2004-2005 season, thus becoming the first time in history a North American sport had thrown away an entire season over a labor dispute.
Basically, the owners got what they wanted. Most notably, they got a salary cap that will prevent them from having to show self-discipline; they've been notoriously poor at this in the past, which is the primary cause of the league's financial woes. But the players agreed to this, even though it wasn't much different than an offer they rejected in February. So be it.
I'm sure that the head of players' union chief Bob Goodenow will roll after this fiasco. Even though he secured a sweetheart deal in 1995 that helped allow the players great rich in the first place. He has the public relations skill of malarial mosquitoes. Fans generally blamed the players for this impasse, even though the lockout was imposed by the owners.
But I agree with Yahoo Sports' columnist Dan Wetzel: Commissionner Gary Bettman should go too.
Wetzel writes: In the meantime, don't be fooled by anyone associated with this that anything was won. Don't let the NHL claim it won anything here, that it broke the union's spirit and wallet to get what it wanted. The damage that commissioner Gary Bettman has done to this league may be impossible to repair.
That he was willing to risk the entire league so teams in small, non-hockey markets can limp along remains an unfathomable business choice. You pick your battles, for sure. Hockey in Atlanta is a strange one to choose.
But now that the mutual suicide pact is over, the real danger for the NHL's shaky future is not fan anger. The NHL will probably institute a few gimmicks like Major League Baseball did following the cancelled 1994 World Series. The anger of the most hardcore fans will subside over time. They will come back. The danger for the NHL's future is that the average fan might simply not care. The danger is that the average fan learned that they could live quite fine without the NHL.
Bettman should fall on his sword. If not, he should be pushed... like his adversary Goodenow almost certainly will.
1 comment:
Somewhere I'll dig up my list of gimics that might get me to tune in at least a few games again. From memory I think these would be a good start:
1. More outdoor games. The Heritage Classic was one of the best ideas to come out of the NHL in a long time and there is no reason that there should not be more outdoor games. Pond hockey is the real legacy of the sport and not the NHL.
2. Shorten the season. Too long by a factor of two. Make every game actually mean something.
2. Contraction. Too long a season means too many games in half empty rinks in Nashville and Carolina.
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