What's with the NHL? I've always thought that hockey, more than all other professional sports, was filled with people that played because they enjoyed the game and would play hockey anyway, even if there was no money in it. In part, that has proved true with NHL players playing in Europe and Russia for a fraction of the money now that the NHL strike has already taken half the season.
The NHL owners demand a salary cap because they cannot control their spending on their own. Really. Who ever heard of a business owner who "had" to spend millions of dollars? They carp about losing money when they only have to stop offering to pay average players phenomenal salaries. Good business sense would dictate that they simply say "No" to outrageous salary demands.
The NHL players offered a 24% reduction in salaries across the board, but no salary cap. 24%? That is unheard of in this age of sports greed. Was that enough for the NHL owners? No.
What we have is a high-stakes game of chicken between the NHL owners and NHL players. Both sides have a lot of money. Whatever one side really gains by the power struggle is more than offset by the impact the strike has had and will have on the fans, who are the true losers. I guess the NHL owners are dumber than I thought. They did not learn anything from the baseball strike and the loss of fans for many years afterward. The big difference between baseball and hockey is that baseball has a much larger following and much larger fan base (not to mention many fat, fat television contracts) than does the NHL.
The NHL owners have a website that is very informative. They have done a poll and most Canadians side with the owners. The owners are banking on the fans blaming the players for the strike, which is justifying their hard-line approach to the negotiations. Well, "negotiations" is not the right word. The players are negotiating, the owners are not.
Can I work up even a small feeling of sadness or sorrow for the players or owners? I think not. The owners are just bad businessmen. The players are big kids getting paid megabucks for playing a kid's game. I'd play a full season of hockey for a lot less than they would. I'd still manage to make more in a year than in 10 years of my job and I wouldn't have to go to the office each day. Instead I would have to spend some of my time in practices and games. I bet that would take almost 4 hours per day for eight or nine months! It's amazing any player lives through such an ordeal!
Both sides suck. The owners suck more than the players, because they are not willing to move from their demands. The only sure bet is that hockey fans are the big losers.
Blawgerman
1 comment:
Why not find another use for the NHL ice rinks? Let frustrated NHL fans skate around shooting pucks at dummies of the dummies that are not on the ice shooting pucks, and also at dummies of the dummies that hire the dummies to skate around the ice for a lot of bucks to shoot pucks. There is always another use for something that is misused, or not used at all. Hockey Jocks, for instance, that are now not being used, can be made into jogging bras (it takes two jocks to make one bra). There is actually a "jogging bra" of like manner on display in the Smithsonian. In fact, the sale of "jogbras" went over $65,ooo,ooo in 1997, which, by the way, might pay the salaries of two or three NHL dummies in one year. That's enough from me....I'm going jogging. See you on the rink!
Rabbitman
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