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NHL won't announce drop-dead date for season
By Amaury Pi Gonzalez February 2, 2005 |
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SAN JOSE - National Hockey League owners have not announced a deadline for settlement to save the season in the 2004-05 lockout. At this moment, the glass is half empty and half full. When you put a deadline on, you put pressure on some people, but here is an open-ended deal. I wonder if these people know they're playing with the future of their sport. I don't think the NHL will survive and a few teams are going to go under. If people haven't forgotten hockey in a week or so, they will when everybody reports for baseball's spring trainning. The media is going to cover spring training, leading to less minutes and seconds of hockey on television. Calling up players from Russia and Europe if there is a settlement: It's going to take time to get everybody together if they settle and get a cohesive unit. Some of those guys are ready to play - they don't have to go to training, but they have to go with their teammates and see what's happening. Short of a miracle, I don't see how this season can be saved. If they solve it today, and they probably won't, they won't start until the middle of February. A lot of people are angry about this and a lot of season-ticket holders said forget it. Even the hard core hockey fans are going to say forget about it, this year is done. It's a very tough proposition for both sides, but the interesting thing is that there is no deadline. During other strikes or lockouts, usually one side or the other says its going to be a certain date when the deal is dead, but the only NHL deadline was in September when the lockout was imposed last year. It might not play well in the Midwest, but in San Jose I think the Sharks are okay if they save the season. The Sharks have some great fans and they will be there, but I have my doubts about other cities in this country and Canada. How can hockey coming back be in the top of the news? It'll be in the front page if they cancel or they start the season, but this is going to hurt the NHL big-time - maybe from two to four years before they really get all their fans back. Amaury Pi Gonzalez writes features for Sports Radio and hosts Sportstalk on KVVN 1430 San Jose and KLIB 1110 Sacramento, does play by play on Giants and Mariners Spainish radio. |
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