So ML and I have been fairly enthusiastic hockey fans in our past. For me, however, the 2003 playoffs were the straw that finally broke the camels back. Without going into too much detail, the Washington Capitals choked away a big playoff lead en-route to a typical choke. This, in and of itsself, is not enough reason to drive me away. But the failure of the team in that season, and the absolute collapse the following season were predictable, and a result of many wrong decisions, and it just got old seeing the crash comming every season, knowing why it happened and watching the team do nothing about it. It really is ashame in this case, because the Caps have a great owner… or rather, I think he SHOULD be a great owner.
But now Hockey is locked out. The operative question as voiced on ESPN radio this morning is “Does anyone care?” Or even “Will anyone notice?”.
Personally, I don’t care at this point. The league is a nightmare, and the product on the ice stinks. I doubt that they’ll actually fix anything in this lockout though. My prediction is that negotiations will resume at a fevor pitch around Christmas or New Year, and the league will resume in a trunkated fashion in January/February. Unf. Fans will NOT return as they did in ‘96, and the league will be playing to even more empty arenas than it’s used to.
Or maybe not. The owners really have to get a Salary Cap imposed. There can’t be revenue sharing, because there is no revenue to share. The NHL is practically paying TV stations to air its games now. Ratings and attendance are abysmal. So the only way to generate any savings is to cut salaries.
Who is to blame for the high salaries? See the New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Detroit edWings, Toronto Maple Leafs and maybe two or three other high dollar franchises, who can actually afford the money. Any other franchise who wants to compete pretty much has to match those salaries. So what you are essentially seeing is a war between big market teams and small market teams. And the Big Market teams will win regardless. They can afford the lockout, and they can afford the salaries now, and they won’t mind if a salary cap is imposed because they can probably figure out ways around it.
I think the League will get its Salary Cap. Look at the NBA and the NFL. Both have proven that there are ways around a Cap. The Naive Idealist in me always takes pause for a second when an announcer sayd “the Skins have the highest payroll ever.” I think “Wait a second, shouldn’t everyone be maxed out if they are using their resources efficiently?” Then I remember that the Cap, in reality, isn’t a hard fixed number but is a complicated thing, and there are ways around it.
So the big market teams will find loopholes to exploit and the small market teams will say “We can’t sign him… you know… the cap.”
What if they held a victory parade and the only guy who came was the big fat guy with the pins all over his Catsup stained retro jersey?
