Well, the long-predicted bankruptcy of major league hockey has come to pass. The owners have said enough, and have locked the players out!
So what happens next? Will the overpaid players take a pay cut?
Or will we just have to watch MORE figure skating on TV this year? 
I don’t care enough to throw a fit about it, and judging by the TV ratings hockey gets not many people care much at all, but all the same it can be a fun sport to watch.
This will end when the players realize that they don’t have a leg to stand on. The owners are in complete control, and the sooner that the players acknowledge that the sooner they can get on with fixing things. If they still can.
I couldn’t care less, but I don’t to say that too loud around my mostly Canadian coworkers.
Pissed as hell. Thanks for asking. :mad: Nothing like not being able to watch hockey to really boil my blood.
I’m kind of on the players side on this. At least they have been making offers as opposed to just screaming “SALARY CAP SALARY CAP SALARY CAP.” Of course, I also find it interesting that a fair amount of players have been taking lower salaries when they signed this season, but they still want room for high salaries.
I don’t know if I’ll care. I don’t follow hockey until after the NFL season is over. I doubt I’ll miss it too much. Watching the Blue Jackets over the past few years has been less than interesting.
If I said I didn’t, I would be lying. However, as I have little hope for a season this year and am somewhat skeptical on the following one, I plan on taking in some midget and junior hockey. I have coached several players that are now at the ‘AAA’ level and the lockout should give me some more incentive to go watch.
I am cancelling my satellite sports package as well has my Hockey News. The information is just going to be about the lockout anyway.
My personal view is that I don’t care how long the league is shut down as long as when they come back to play there is an economic system in place that allows cities like Edmonton and Calgary to consistently ice competitive hockey teams.
I guess I am on the side of the owners :shrug:
They could all agree to everything tomorrow and it still wouldn’t bring more fans to hockey. The only thing that will work is: increase the size of the rink (or decrease the number of players on ice) combined with eliminating the fights. Hockey ‘purists’ may disagree, but that’s the only way to bring mainstream Americans into the fan base.
El_Kabong, don’t worry about it. I’m Canadian and I don’t care about the NHL lockout either.
It’s hard to sympathize with guys getting paid in the millions, but then who’s paying them? The owners made all those salary offers voluntarily, under no duress, and have no good basis to blame the players for being willing to accept them. The owners want and need fiscal sanity, but they want it imposed from outside because they implicitly admit they can’t or won’t govern themselves. Screw 'em.
The owners have been making money for years just by authorizing new franchises and pocketing the entrance fees, but the size of the league became ridiculous long ago because of that. Nashville? Raleigh? A team called Mighty Ducks? The Stanley Cup is in St. Petersburg? If the NHL emerges from this with a feasible size and a new sense of responsibility on the part of the owners, then maybe it’ll be worth it. But they’ll have to go through a period like baseball did after the 1994 strike, when they realize how little of their fan base still gives a damn. That’s a problem already even in some traditional markets, i.e. Boston where ownership has for too many years refused to pay for the players necessary to win the Cup, and now sees tons of empty seats.
Elvis nailed it. For years the NHL has swept its salary problems under the rug by funding its operations through expansion fees. Now even they see that that cow has been milked dry. As a result of this plus an unbalanced schedule, the Red Wings for example host the Canadiens usually ONCE per year. We’ve got way too many teams in places that hockey does not belong. Looks like a long time before the NHL drops the puck again. How am I supposed to get my Saturday fix of Don Cherry now?
I thought that was something to be thankful for. Anyway, although I have no sympathy for the owners, I have even less sympathy for the players. Anyone making millions for playing a sport has absolutely ZERO to complain about and as far as I’m concerned they can all rot.
What vexes me, in truth, is that the players don’t seem to recognize that hockey is not on par with NFL, MLB or NBA in stature. As much as I wish it were otherwise, I really don’t think they have legitimate comparison there. Yes the league makes a lot of money, but attempts to pull the players’ salaries in line with the other sports have left the league with a 75-25 division of revenue in favour of the players. That just won’t work, and I can’t blame the owners for forcing the issue. I simply won’t go to games anymore unless I get a ticket for free. They need to realize that stopping the season is just going to result in more people being turned off the whole affair, like me, and turning on something else.
So what you’re saying, Sunspace, is that in order to make up for your lack of care, I, as another Canadian, will have to care twice as much? 
Seriously, I don’t know what will happen. Just doesn’t seem like fall without a hockey season coming up. I hope that we don’t get more figure skating, as the OP suggests, but I have a feeling that my local sports bar will try to fill in the gap with pro wrestling. Not sure I want that either.