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NHL dies on vine
By Tom Zulewski February 16, 2005 |
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You knew it was coming. All the posturing, all the ultimatums, and all the threats have come to this. The National Hockey League will not have a season, truncated or otherwise, and will not award the greatest unreproduced trophy in all of professional sports - Lord Stanley's Cup - for the first time since 1919. It's time to pass the blame pie around with equal helpings for all involved. Back on Sept. 15 - a mere 154 days ago - NHL commissioner (and that term should be used very loosely here) Gary Bettman stood on the podium and announced the players would be locked out. Words like "cost certainty" and "salary cap" were tossed around more than a Caesar salad. Over time, and with the salad of the season slowly starting to wither away, there was enough silence between the parties to make even a deaf person wonder. Did anyone care what was happening? Did anyone have any idea what the ramifications would be in the short and long term? We know now, don't we? Bettman returned to the podium in New York on Wednesday and, as he did in September, apologized to the fans and the business partners around the league for the travesty of the loss of the season. Shakespeare couldn't have written this script any better. His tragedies have characters who died and the NHL as we once knew it has done the same thing. Bettman blamed the union for a lack of trust during the negotiating process. The players had their own fragmented reaction. Matthew Barnaby of the Chicago Blackhawks asked why the salary cap idea wasn't accepted seven months ago. Calgary Flames star Jarome Iginla stated the union was out for the long haul. Like it or not, the NHL owners will be getting what they want. Funny, but the NFL seems to function with a cap just fine. The NBA has teams that overspend on the cap, but it may be heading the way of the NHL next season when that league's collective bargaining agreement expires. Then again, the NFL gets a huge pile of money from its network television deal. The NHL's new TV deal with NBC required no money up front, but NBC has probably saved money with the absence of a hockey season. Even when the last potential sliver of hope broke Monday night as the players and the NHL bargained over what the salary cap figure should be, Bettman denied the parties were anywhere close to a deal at the season-ending press conference. For 12 years, Gary Bettman has led the NHL. On Wednesday, Bettman led the NHL firmly into a burial plot. Too bad there won't be many fans attending the funeral. When the watch of Bettman began a dozen years ago, there were 22 teams in the league. Now, there are 30. With more players clamoring for less money, as Bettman claims the league is making, it's no wonder we're in the situation we are now. Look at where the league has expanded. Of the eight new teams, six aren't exactly in hockey hotbeds. Sure, Florida and Anaheim reached Stanley Cup finals (1996 and 2003), but fans haven't returned to the buildings since then. Atlanta lost the NHL once in the early 1980s and hasn't shown much to gain anyone's respect as a competitive team in its current form. With no collective bargaining agreement in place, for now and the foreseeable future, there won't be an NHL draft over the summer, either. When Ron McLean, studio host of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, is relegated to hosting a tripleheader of movies on Saturday nights where hockey once proudly existed for all its fans, you know the apocalypse is officially upon us. But this isn't just about money. It's about the game on the ice, one where the stars can't flourish and defense rules the day. That's one big thing to fix on the agenda, even as the league and the players trudge uphill on the road to an agreement. When asked about the relationship between the NHL and its players union, Bettman vehemently denied any animosity between the parties. With the death of the NHL season official, the fans shouldn't come back until the game becomes something that matters again to the sporting public on both sides of the border. Until the leaders on both sides leave office, the NHL will continue to be nothing but a bad cocktail party joke. |
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