No NHL This Year

It was only a few minutes after the L.A. Kings hoisted the Stanley Cup back in June that I started hearing real talk about a possible lookout before next season.  I never thought it would come to this.

Summer 2012: "Even the NHL is not that stupid," I said.  I just couldn't believe that a league, finally back in the national spotlight, would jeopardize all the popularity it regained since the last lookout in 2005.  The NHL was finally getting some ratings for big events like the Stanley Cup and the Winter Classic and fans like me were just getting over the betrayal of 2005.

Fall 2012: "Bettman can't screw this up and lose the opening of the season for a 3rd time," I said.  The owners claim they don't make any money as is, they surely couldn't manage to lose all that revenue and the players don't want to go play in Russia.  Once again I was too optimistic.



Winter 2012; "Screw this league."  And I may actually mean it this time.  Probably not.  I just love the sport of hockey too much to give it up but I'm going to need to be wooed back.  I surely won't recognize any team as a Stanley Cup winner if they play this season, even if it is my beloved Penguins. At this point it would be like the NFL playing a 3 game regular season schedule.

While both sides deserve some blame for this mess, the owners should get the majority it.  They claimed poor and then gave out some of the richest contracts in the off-season.  They claimed players were manipulating the salary cap with their long term contracts all while cosigning the contracts.  But it was both sides who waited until the last minute to negotiate forcing another season without hockey.

This truly is a garage league.