We Should Be Used To This

Written by: Jon Bolarinho

This is a familiar image to many NHL fans, we saw it just seven seasons ago

Seven years later. It’s taken seven years for the NHL to lock itself out again, it’s taken seven years for the NHL to shoot itself in the foot yet again.

I’m going to start by saying I’m a hockey fan...no that won’t do it justice; I’m a hockey homer. I watch NHL Classic games on the NHL network, games that I already know the final score to for no reason at all. I’m typing this as I watch the Phoenix Coyotes take on the Los Angeles Kings in Game 4 of the Western Conference Final from this past season. The lockout isn’t affecting the fans who care about hockey during the months of April to June, the lockout is affecting the fans who are watching a Conference Final game in September at 2pm on a Thursday.

The facts about this lockout and past lockouts have been written and explained over and over the past few months, but I’m going to reiterate once more. Gary Bettman has been the commissioner of the NHL since February 1, 1993 and since that time there have been three lockouts. The first lockout under Bettman took place on October 1st, 1994 and ended January 11th, 1995. It took three months for the NHL and NHLPA to come to an agreement; three months.

On September 16, 2004, the NHL enforced another lockout, this lockout however wasn’t going to be a three month affair. The 2004-2005 lockout canceled what would have been the 88th season of the NHL. The 2004-2005 lockout was the first time since 1919 that the Stanley Cup wasn’t awarded to a team (That was because of a Spanish Flu epidemic that caused one player to die). The 2004-2005 was the first and since then only time that a North American sports organization lost an entire season to a labor war.

The latest lockout started on September 15th, 2012, almost eight years to the day of the last lockout. I do not blame Gary Bettman for the lockout, he is only a face and voice for the 29 team owners. I do however blame both the NHL and NHLPA taking as long as they did to submit proposals to each other. Both parties had time before the last CBA expired to meet and negotiate, the NHL was willing but Donald Fehr, the head of the NHLPA, decided against it, wanting time to get to know the players and their mindset towards the expiring CBA. I can understand that, but it does not take 33 months for you to get acclimated with the players.

Even before the lockout, we’ve heard from both sides about how the people who suffer the most are the fans. I agree, of course the fans lose out, we don’t care how much money Sidney Crosby is making, we don’t care about how the owners and players split the record revenue that is streaming into the NHL. What the fans care about is seeing a Zdeno Chara slapshot screaming into the top corner of the net. What the fans care about is seeing a huge open ice hit. The fans have such a passion for the game, a passion that we’ll take to other corners of the hockey universe until the NHL comes back.

I’m not mad about the NHL being locked out, there isn’t a point to be mad because there is nothing I can do in this situation, I’m just disappointed. I spend hundreds of dollars a year on tickets to see games live, I spend countless hours reading every hockey blog on the internet. I understand that no one in the NHL knows who I am or what my name is, and understandably they shouldn’t care about me as an individual. What everyone in the NHL should care about is the everyone else like me, the others who scream till their voices are hoarse while they are watching the game at home. The NHL should care about people like me who take time off from work to make sure I can catch the Winter Classic, they should care about the people who make sure that they watch or record 24/7 because it gives us another look at the NHL that we never were able to see before.

I am mostly disappointed at the hypocrisy from both sides. The owners want to limit player deals to nothing longer than five years, but only hours before the lockout the Bruins and Jets sign Tyler Seguin and Evander Kane to six year deals. The players say that the fans lose out the most, yet Alexander Ovechkin tells the Washington Post that if the NHL slashes player salaries he might stay in the KHL (the Russian NHL). To me, that sounds like someone who cares more about his $9m salary more than he does about playing for the fans or even playing for the name on the front of his sweater.

I understand that the players have mouths to feed and lifestyles to  live, but I’m sorry if you’re crying about your $9m salary being slashed to say $6m, you’ll get no sympathy from me. I’d be glad to play in the NHL for .01% of your salary.

I don’t believe that this lockout is going to cancel out the entire season, there are too many things in play this time around for that to happen. The Winter Classic has become something that maybe even the NHL didn’t think was possible, it brings in a large sum of money for the league and a ton of exposure due to it being on national television. Speaking of television, the league just signed a 10yr/$2b deal with NBC, a testament to how the league has grown since the last lockout.

If the NHL does lose this season to another lockout, it’s a slap in the face to everyone who has put their faith back into the league after 2004-2005. The momentum that the NHL has gained goes right out the window, the credibility that it’s regained with the public is lost.

The one part about this lockout that hit home the most is this quote from Gary Bettman:

“"We recovered last time because we have the world's greatest fans."

Bettman is right, the league did recover because the fans came back after the lockout and the sad thing is that the fans will come back once again. You can sit there and scream till your blue about how you’re never going to watch another NHL game again, but you’ll be lying to yourself. 

I know that I’ll be back, and I hope for the sake of the NHL that it comes back sooner rather than later.