The End of the World is Near! The End of the Lockout is Not.

Citizens of Pond Scum Sports, I have a confession to make. I, The Joan, two-time Podcast champion, am a Doomsdayer. I am fully convinced the world will end this December. Whether it’s a natural disaster, the Earth implodes, or zombie apocalypse, we will not make it to 2013. No matter how many “end of the world” events I survive, Y2J, the Rapture, I’m convinced the next will be my last. This means I will never again get to experience the excitement of NHL hockey.  

Raise your hand if you were surprised the NHL announced they are canceling two weeks of the 2012-2013 season (I hope none of you raised your hand). The cancellation is only the beginning of a slow progression that could eventually wipe out the entire year. The NHL and the NHLPA are stalemated in their negotiations. Unable to come to terms on how to distribute 3.3 billion dollars of revenue.  In the previous collective bargaining agreement the players received a 57% split. As you can expect this time around the owners want a bigger slice of the revenue pie. Rumors are that they want to cut the players part close to 10%.

When the September 15^th deadline approached, you could sense the hockey air getting tense. The players were willing to play under the old CBA until a new agreement was met. Commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t like this idea. Instead he decided he would rather lose money and lockout the players. Why does someone decide that they would rather make zero money in the present, so that they can possibly get more money in the future? If Bettman would have let the NHL season start as planned, he and the owners could have collected money while they bargained a way to get even more revenue. Earn money and work out a way to collect additional money. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. A profitable business plan you may say. But no, the league would rather lose money, not to mention fans, in order to make a point.

Since the 04-05 lock out, the NHL recently has been seeing signs of a bounce back. In 2011, NBC struck a ten year deal with the NHL because more people were watching hockey. The Los Angeles Kings, a team with no notable following, won the Stanley Cup in the second largest media market in the U.S. All signs were pointing towards 2012-2013 being one of the most exciting and cared about by fans in recent memory. All the momentum built by last season is being flushed down the toilet. The new hockey fans that got hooked by the playoffs last season, thanks to teams like the Kings, Coyotes, and Predators, are going to forget the hockey magic because they have nothing to reignite the excitement.

The most disheartening part of this entire lockout is that both sides seem like they are in no hurry to reach a new agreement. Instead of pestering their negotiator, Donald Fehr, to work tirelessly to get a deal done, players are shipping off in masses to play hockey abroad. The fans and hockey communities are already suffering. New Jersey senators have sent requests to the NHL and NHLPA urging them to reconcile because the loss of the Devils in Newark is a startling stab at the cities already dismal economy. Several clubs have already laid off employees. This isn’t even factoring in how the loss of games will affect the workers at the arenas.

These frequent lock outs do nothing to help the NHL’s case in becoming a formidable sports industry in the United States. Hockey has been forever labeled “the fourth sport.” It’s always NFL, MLB, NBA, then oh yeah don’t forget the NHL. Bettman and the owners are idiots for not riding the wave of success the 2012 season brought in. The prospect of having a NHL season this year is looking grim. With doomsday approaching, I truly feel the world will end before I will ever see another NHL game.