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Sept 21, 2004 I love hockey. I love the sound of skate blades gliding along a fresh sheet of ice. I love the fights. I love the rattle of players crashing the boards, and the euphoria that engulfs an arena after a great player lights the lamp. I love the tournament of attrition that is the Stanley Cup playoffs and the passing among happy teammates of the sports world’s greatest trophy when they are over. And most of all, I love the humility of hockey players relative to their compatriots in other sports. As a journalist, they have been among my most gracious interview subjects. Of course, like most hockey fans--the few and the proud--my love was replaced by a sense of loss last week when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced that the league’s 30 team owners had voted to lockout the players and delay the start of the 2004-2005 season. At issue: the owners claim they have sustained losses of more than $1.7 billion over the past 10 years and that "cost certainty" in the form of a cap on player salaries is vital for franchise survival. Not surprisingly, the players have no faith in the owners’ numbers, and want no such limit on salaries. With both sides refusing to budge, hopes of even an abbreviated season in the coming year remain slim. But hope isn’t lost for hockey in general. Unlike most puck pundits, I think this could be the best thing to ever happen to the game and the NHL in particular. Why? 1. Cancellation could mean termination for Bettman. No 2004-2005 regular season would put hockey out of sight and out of mind (at least for most of the US) for more than a year. Will fans with little allegiance to the game to begin with come back? The answer to that question could and should determine Bettman’s future as commissioner. During his tenure, NHL revenues have reached new heights. But so have expenses, whether you believe the owners’ numbers or not. Bettman’s emphasis on growing the game through TV in the US has failed to do just that, while alienating the game’s hardcore fans in Canada and the northern US. The numbers don’t lie: attendance in many of the game’s core markets (New York, Boston and Chicago, among them) is down and American TV ratings, low to begin with, are actually plumbing new depths. Plus, two lockouts in 10 years? Not even the owners most loyal to Bettman could justify that. 2. The sun could set on the Sunbelt teams. Some teams, particularly those in non-traditional markets, might not survive the lockout. Fewer teams would only improve the quality and flow of regular-season hockey games, many of which have had the excitement of amateur curling matches in recent years thanks to the diluted talent pool and the sluggish ice in arenas in warm-weather cities. Will fans in cities like Atlanta, Nashville and Miami even miss hockey, what with NASCAR and football in full swing? Doubt it. Take teams out of those markets--and Anaheim, Calif., Carolina and, yes, Tampa Bay (let last year’s Stanley Cup run serve as their hockey swan song)--and return in 2005-2006 with a leaner, meaner 24-team league. 3. Going north could keep the league from going south. The lockout will only serve to highlight that hockey won’t be missed in most US markets. So, when it returns, the league should look to markets where its absence may have actually made hearts grow fonder--in Canada. Bettman robbed cities like Winnipeg and Quebec (where fans generally flocked to games) of their teams and moved them to US cities in his aforementioned fruitless pursuit of US TV viewers. These two cities would make excellent relocation options in the new NHL, which ideally will finally tune out TV and return to a model that best serves its core, ticket-buying fan base. Washington and Phoenix, with their seemingly dispassionate fans might make good choices. 4. The owners might finally call on the Great One. With Bettman gone, and his Phoenix Coyotes reincarnated in the Great White North, NHL owners could take a page out of baseball’s book hire one of their own--Coyotes’ minority owner Wayne Gretzky--as commissioner. The Great One is hockey’s greatest ambassador, and his appeal transcends the US/Canadian border and cuts across fans young and old. Based on his work with Canada’s national team in recent years, he’d be a great choice. 5. Aging stars such as Mario Lemiuex, Jaromir Jagr, Mike Modano, Joe Sakic, Brian Leetch and others could probably use the year of rest anyway. And the new NHL will need them to carry the torch when the league returns. The Baltimore Orioles’ ironman Cal Ripken, Jr. helped baseball win back fans after its last labor stoppage in 1995. Hockey’s stars will need to do the same. 6. A cable sports network will fill the hockey breach with college and minor-league hockey until the lockout is over. As usual, it’s the fans who pay the freight, and it’s they, and not the owners or the players, who will suffer through this hockey-less winter. Why rob them of the game entirely? And besides, what would be more appealing than watching players play the game for free, or for the sports equivalent of minimum wage, while the NHL owners and players bicker over millions? As a hockey fan, I have to have hope for the future. It can’t be any worse than the present. ------------ About the author: Without hockey, Brian P. Dunleavy is skating on thin ice as a freelance sportswriter in New York City. He can be reached via email at: bpdunleavy@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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