Nobody seems to miss the old NHL? Why is this. I am not a sports fan, so please explain the pig-headed attitude of the players. I mean it, half the season is gone now, and people don’t seem to care! The local arena (in Boston, Fleet Center) is now arranging booking alernate events, and the fans have given up.
How long before:
-advertisers yank their hockey contracts
-endorsements for players start to be withdrawn
-John Q Public starts getting interested in NASVCAR
Face it, hockey is a regional draw-Canada, the NE, NW , and parts of other major cities arejust about it. Those stupid sun-belt expansion franchises are just about worthless now…so is it time to say “goodnight” to the NHL? :eek:
I wish they’d settle it - I don’t like basketball.
The most irritating part is that they’re not even negotiating! If they don’t talk, how can they expect to settle their differences and return to their joint goal: extracting dollars from the pockets of their fans?
Well, I for one miss it. Without the NHL, there’s really not much to look forward to sports-wise for me. I’m not a big NBA fan, and I don’t watch collegiate sports. So I’m sort of stuck.
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Well, if there’s no hockey, there’s no reason to yank contracts. They just aren’t paying. But you act like it’s never going to be back, which isn’t true.
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This might happen soon, but I’m not aware that many NHL players have huge endorsement contracts. If this extended into a second season, perhaps, but not until then.
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Good Lord. :rolleyes: NHL and NASCAR are like oil and water. They generally don’t attract the same type of fans. Besides, are you suggesting that the NHL was **holding people back ** from enjoying NASCAR?
It is significantly more popular in Canada, true, but what you’re suggesting is contraction of the smaller market teams. I should probably remind you that our current NHL champions play in Tampa Bay. :rolleyes:
If you’re talking about teams like the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Atlanta Thrashers…well, it’s true that they’re pretty new, but the Thrashers competed fairly well last year, despite their final-season record.
I think it’s too early to call off the NHL. You strike me as the kind of guy that was trumpeting the end of Major League Baseball back in 1994. And just like baseball needed Ripken to usher the fans back to the stadium, so will NHL need its own special event to bring the fans back in droves. But they’ll find it.
And on an end note, let’s not chalk all this up to stubborn players. I think the owners of the franchises have just as much to do with the lockout as the players, and maybe more. There’s plenty of blame to share on this entire debacle.
They both enjoy the support of beer-swilling mullet-wearing white guys.
I don’t give a SHIT about hockey being on strike.
I think the Bud Shootout is one week after the Superbowl this year, and Daytona 500 is one week after that.
I got all my weekends covered, unless the NFL has a 2 week wait between the conference championships and the Superbowl. I might have to talk to my wife on a Sunday.
I do; there’s a charity game at UofM tonight with a number of Red Wings playing (dammit that I can’t go!) and the article in the paper this morning reminded me how much I miss it.
It’s disingenuous to put the blame soley on the players. It takes two to negotiate, and the owners don’t exactly have their hands extended in friendship. A lot of them are shooting themselves in the foot by not insisting on negotiations for the very reasons you mention; people are losing interest, and if the season is cancelled, there WILL be franchises that will cease to exist. If it were me, and I was about to watch a multimillion-dollar investment get flushed down the toilet, you can be damned sure I’d be doing something about it. But all these guys are too concerned with their little dick-waving contest and are willing to let it happen. They haven’t even TRIED to set up a meeting with the NHLPA. I have no sympathy.
If there’s not a resolution in the next couple of weeks, the season will be cancelled. After that, who knows? There are a lot of guys who will retire if they can’t play this year. Steve Yzerman will be on the ice tonight, wearing a visor; the terrible eye injury that ended his season last year is healed, but if there’s no hockey this year he’s not guaranteeing that he’ll be able to return next year. What a shame it would be to see a career like his end like that.
Eschew hockey in favor of NASCAR? Bite your tongue.
I agree here. First, it is, at least technically, a LOCKOUT and not a strike. The owners giving away too much money and not doing a good job of negotiating a US television deal got them in their current mess. Now, it’s not going to end unless the players see that the league just can’t afford their current salary structure. Coming off our victory it’s a tough year to sit on the sidelines with nothing but NASCAR to watch.
I miss it. I shouldn’t have to find something to do on Saturday nights, I should just be able to turn on the TV, watch a half-decent game and hear Don Cherry go on some nationalist rant. I don’t even care if the Leafs turn back into the team they were in the Ballard years, i.e. crap, I miss the NHL.
I miss the NHL and you would have to stick toothpicks in my eyes Clockwork Orange style to get me to watch NASCAR. This season may be lost but it will be back. There are a lot of great young players out there that are capable of bringing the fans back. The playoffs last year were one of the best in recent memories. The finals, especially game 6, were amazing featuring 2 smaller market teams. 1 traditional Canadian team and and upstart Tampa Bay team. Hockey IMO is by far the most action packed sort. Hard hitting plus finesse. Doesn’t get any better. 
Forget owners attitudes, player’s greed, lack of negotiation, strike vs. lockout, whatever. Those things aren’t the CAUSE. They’re the RESULT – the result of the fact that no one in the USA watches hockey on TV.
The NHL gets horribly shitty ratings.
If they had a good TV deal, all these problems would be healed. BUT, you can’t just get the owners or the league to negotiate a good TV deal because NO ONE out there wants to watch. The networks won’t pay the NHL money to carry their games as they do with football, NASCAR, baseball.
Even though hockey is a good sport – speed, skills, violence – there’s some reason why people just don’t watch it in the US. Until THAT is addressed, hockey will remain in the doldrums.
How do you address it? I don’t know and I don’t care, because I don’t care about hockey (and I grew up in Maine and used to play a little).
It just seems that in today’s sports climates, merchandising and ticket sales are not enough to keep a sport going. You need big local and national TV deals.
It’s not on-ice performance but low attendance that’s the problem here. Here’s an almost-comprehensive historical attendance record (missing only last year) for all NHL teams. Some, but not all, of the “southern” teams have historically had low attendances. In 2002-03, the two lowest teams were Nashville and Phoenix; Anaheim was fourth-lowest. (The third-lowest was Buffalo–I live near there and I know that was a blip because of the Sabres’ ownership troubles that year.) All the “southern” teams except Dallas, San Jose and Carolina (the last by less than a hundred a game) were below the NHL average in attendance in 2002-03. The argument that “hockey needs to a few years establish itself in the southern US before it will gain acceptance” doesn’t seem to be holding water: Atlanta’s, Nashville’s, and Phoenix’s attendance fell significantly between 2000 and 2003. (LA almost doesn’t count as a “southern city”…)
On the other hand, the expansion and transfer franchises in areas where hockey has historically has a foothold have done extremely well. Minnesota had attendances 2,000 above average in 2002-03; Ottawa was 500 above (in one of the NHL’s smallest markets!). Colorado sells out almost every game.
I foresee the NHL eventually coming to the same decision as the CFL back in the mid-90’s. Although it’s almost completely forgotten now, the CFL expanded into the US back then. Some of the teams did well on the field–Baltimore won the Grey Cup. Financially, though, it was a real problem. I was living in Canada at the time and almost a day wouldn’t go by without worried articles appearing in the paper expressing serious concerns about the CFL’s future. Eventually the CFL pulled the plug on the American franchises, and, as a direct result, the league is much stronger today. They’ve even been able to support an expansion franchise…in Ottawa.
That’s only because the Avalanche have been an excellent team from the moment they moved here. Historically, except for football, Coloradoans are fair-weather fans of the highest order. There’s a reason our first team is now the New Jersey Devils.
The players are LOCKED OUT.
This is not a strike.
Ownership’s proposals were lowball offers designed solely to satisfy the simple legal definition of “good faith” bargaining.
The ownership is also dissembling when it describes its own revenue- taking into account just the gate and not concessions, parking, merchandise and liscencing deals it may have in place. Teams are making more than they say they are.
That said, the players should recognize that the league as it currently exists cannot support the salary structure it currently has. Arguing that teams are hiding revenue only goes so far when a fan like me can walk to the Continental Arena’s box office a week before the Conference Finals and get his hands on tickets. Arguing that there is plenty to go around doesn’t fly when TV viewership is so low that Disney can play hardball with the league on ESPN2 rights.
IIRC, about half of the NBA’s team revenue goes to salary. The NHL’s number (expressed as a percentage) is in the 70’s. The owners want a hard cap to bring this number down. The players are willing to accept lower minimum salaries for entering players and maybe a luxury tax, but not much else.
I am firmly on the players’ side. But even an English major can tell that there’s got to be some give on both sides of this one. Owners need to stop hiding what they actually make and players have to accept a smaller slice of whatever that is.
But I tell you this: as a player, there’s no way under the sun I’d listen to you asking me for a pay cut when I knew for a fact you were hiding money from me.
Be honest, owners. Be honest. And give me my game back.
I, for one, agree with you Happy. I think the solution lies in some kind of salary cap and revenue sharing. Now, if we only can get the two sides to negotiate in good faith (riiiiiiight 
).
I’m kind of bummed. I usually like taking a family trip during my kids’ winter vacation (first week of February, this session) and attending a sporting event in the city we travel to. We’re hoping to do Florida, and no hockey limits our options. Luckily, the Heat are home that week.
On the plus side, while trying to explore my sports options for the trip, I discovered minor league hockey, and I have fallen in love with the COOLEST team name ever - the Florida Everblades! If they were playing any home games that week, I’d be there for certain!
I don’t care so much, but I’m very annoyed over the whole situation by both sides. It’s obvious to anybody that what’s going on now is just bad for everyone involved with the NHL, but both sides are too stubborn to even consider setting up some form of negotiation. The worst thing isn’t that most hockey fans are pissed off, but that most hockey fans are indifferent to the whole mess.
I’m annoyed because I loathe the NBA, except maybe the last two minutes of a good game, and as far as the NFL goes, I’m admittedly a fair-weather 49er fan, so there ain’t much there for me this year. I was starting to get into hockey a bit last year, watching the Sharks make it to the postseason, and I probably would’ve been a new NHL fan this year had they played. While I’m sure that’ll happen anyway, it might take a while. And if the Sharks were good again this year, I probably would’ve plopped down some money.
And San Jose does?
I’m bummed too cmkeller. I not only miss watching a game for pleasure, I coach peewee hockey and I often get my players to watch a particular NHLer or a team for technique etc.
I certainly care about the lockout. I care because I can’t stand hockey (or, for that matter, any sport in which 1-0 is a valid final score).
No hockey means no hockey talk on sports talk radio. Which leaves more time for football talk. 
Well, LA is a strange place. I know, I used to live there. OK, mebbe San Jose doesn’t count either…not that it’s weird.
This Year’s Model: I agree that Colorado’s success in drawing fans had a lot to do with its on-ice success. But Minnesota also was successful even when the Wild were a very bad team. I know the Denver area is nuts about college hockey, even more so than around here, where we’ve got two Division I teams and active high-school leagues. I think both teams’ attendance success can be considered partly due to hockey “awareness” (FWIW) in the areas.
Bite your tongue Briston. Hockey is the only sport. Everything else is just prancing around.