Hockey Lockout

I'm not really sure what was going through Gary Bettman's mind when he insisted on a hard salary cap and refused to budge one scintilla off of it. In Bettman's mind, the profitability of lower-tiered, small market teams was/is more important than those in large markets. Essentially, Bettman thinks the financial viability of, say, Carolina is more important than the financial viability of Boston. This amounts to socialism, plain and simple, which would be fine provided all the thirty franchises in the NHL pool all their assets, divvy them out equally, then asked for players to accept a salary cap based on this equal asset allocation. Of course, this would never happen. I've always maintained that markets that are too small to support professional franchises should make do with a minor league franchise, no matter the sport. For the last fifteen years, hockey has added nine teams in such markets as Carolina (originally Hartford), Phoenix, San Jose, Anaheim, and Columbus. Needless to say, all these clubs are having financial problems. Is it the players' fault that the NHL were too greedy and too lacking in foresight to see that these markets couldn't support professional hockey? I think not. But that is what the NHL is doing, making the players pay for the league's poor management by insisting on a drastic salary reduction across the board and for the forseeable future. (Or until the next Collective Bargaining Agreement.) Dispicable.

Another thing Bettman has failed to understand (in my opinion) is that hockey isn't baseball, it isn't basketball, it certainly isn't football...and it probably doesn't even rival NASCAR at this point in terms of fan base and revenue generation. Hockey is a cult sport in the US, and while it may be religion in Canada, it really matters very little to the bottom line, because the bulk of the NHL revenues derive from the States, not Canada. I'm not sure that the casual hockey fan will come back to the sport in any meaningful way. The long-term ramifications of this lock-out could conceivably result in the demise of the league itself. If there are any pirate leagues out there looking to capitalize on this (a la World Hockey League in the 70's), now would certainly be the time for them to step up to the plate.

The last time the Stanley Cup finals were canceled was in 1919. They had a pretty good excuse for that one...there was a flu epidemic raging. (It eventually claimed the life of Montreal Canadien and Hall of Famer Joe Hall.) This cancellation is inexcusable. But that's what you get when you put an American lawyer from Queens who never played the game in charge of running it.