Three of Four Americans Don’t Care The Forgotten Lockout
Call me when the insanity ends: Time for Bettman to shut it down for year
Stop the insanity. We’ve all had way too much of this. The NHL and the NHL Players’ Association went through another exercise in negotiating futility yesterday in New York. For those hoping this season would finally be put out of its misery…no such luck.
-Bruce Garrioch
Can we just put an end to this silliness and be done with it? Two-thirds of the season has been lost to greed and intransigence, and still players and owners are pretending that there is hope for some sort of settlement. It’s a pretty simple equation, actually. Owners want “cost certainty”. Players define this as a salary cap (which in fact it is), and they are adamant that they will never accept it. So there you have it; the immovable object meets the irresistible force. Put the two together and you have no hockey.
While NHL players ply their trade in beer leagues, minor leagues, and European leagues, hockey fans in North America are left to wonder what might have been. The NHL is on the verge of becoming the first North American professional sports league to lose an entire season to greed, avarice, and intransigence…and most Americans could care less. In Canada, it’s a different story, but many Canadians are also growing increasingly tired of the madness.
If the NHL pulls the plug on the 2004-05 season, the question then becomes if we can reasonably expect that there will be a 2005-06 season. Will cancelling the season constitute killing the golden goose? Perhaps it will take something this drastic for the NHL to recognize that it may well have to modify it’s business model in order to survive. There is something to be said for living within one’s means; it’s a lesson most NHL owners have yet to learn.
Whatever has to happen, can someone PLEASE just pull the plug already and be done with it? Stop the charade….
