On the Wings

I had to give myself some time to think after I heard that the NHL season had been cancelled. I knew from the beginning that they wouldn’t be able to come to an agreement, but Tuesday night I felt like there was hope. They were only $6.5 million apart in the salary cap and I just thought that they would be able to meet somewhere in the middle. But the fact is they didn’t even talk, email, or negotiate Wednesday morning. Both sides were too stubborn and just trying to save face. A lot of polls have been done with one primary question: who do you blame? The owners, players, or both? While I most definately can recognize that both sides got us to this point, I place the most blame on one man- Gary Bettman.

In the press conference yesterday at 1pm, Bettman started off by saying this:

“Every professional sports League owes its very existence to its fans. Everyone associated with the National Hockey League owes our fans an apology for being unable to accomplish what is necessary for our game and our fans. We are truly sorry.”

Well Mr. Bettman, I don’t and I won’t accept your apology. Look at the league before Bettman came in and compare it to now. Bettman came into the NHL back on December 11, 1992. In 12 years, there are 9 new franchises including ones in Florida, Arizona, and Texas. During this lockout, Bettman is focused on finding an economic system that will benefit all 30 clubs. There shouldn’t be 30 clubs. He expanded too much and too fast so now he’s trying to figure out how to economically support all 30 of them. Bettman also dealt with a big increase in revenues (some of it from the money of the creation of new franchises) from around $400 million to $1.6 billion. While revenues may be up, expenses have also gone up. Wall Street Journal reported that over 2/3 of the NHL clubs had losses in 2002-03.

Under Bettman’s 12 year “reign,” the NHL has locked out its players twice in ‘94-95 (104 days) and in 2004-05 (entire season). The referees even went on strike in 2001. Who knows when the NHL and NHLPA will come to an agreement now that the NHL took back their most recent offer.

Bettman: “That offer is off the table. By necessity we have to be back at linkage … Nobody knows what the damage to the sport will be, nobody knows what revenues we can count on or predict on … We’re going to have to look at a different economic model and it’s going to have to have linkage. The best deal that was on the table is now gone…”

They were fairly close Tuesday night, but now the owners want revenue linkage and the players don’t want the salary cap. We were so close but now we could very well go into the next season before the two sides come together on a deal. And what do the fans get? Absolutely nothing. Jason Kirk at Predator’s Den said:

“In the end, of course, what I got was absolutely nothing - which was exactly 82 regular-season games of hockey less than the old, broken system would have gotten me. That’s a funny way to fix a system.”

NHL hockey is a broken system and in a previous entry, I suggested ways to improve the NHL. Since there will have been no NHL, fans will have lost interest and the fair-weather fans will have lost any interest for the sport. Whenever the two sides figure out the economic stuff, the game needs to be changed for the better and the NHL needs to market like crazy to get the fans back for the next season. According to an ESPN poll, 48.1% said they “couldn’t care less” that the NHL season was cancelled. This league needs CPR to come back to life and be able to even compete with baseball, basketball, and football. I totally agree with what Eric at Off Wing said:

“In a lot of ways, the NHL is like a patient that has just been diagnosed with a critical illlness. Without drastic treatment, we know the patient is going to die. But instead of plowing ahead, and working together to find a cure, NHL fans are saddled with a medical staff that would rather argue with each other than come up with a plan of action.”

I could most definately go on, but I should stop for today. RIP NHL.