I’ll get along fine without the NHL. For those that know me, it’s really difficult to believe. Sadly, it’s true. Thinking selfishly, I still have the Engineers and the River Rats to get me by, but the average sports fan will probably get along fine, too.
Hockey, by far, is the finest sport on the planet. It’s fast, flashy, exciting, and the egos are tempered compared to the other major pro sports. But the NHL as a whole has screwed up, and now it’s got a long road ahead.
The entire point of contention in the lockout is this: the owners want some sort of a salary cap, and the players refuse to accept that.
With the type of puny revenues that the league generates, the owners can’t afford to keep paying the players the outrageous salaries that they are currently getting paid, especially in a league where Martin Lapointe makes over $5 million a year and Brian Savage nets over $3 million.
But before you flip out at the outrageous sums of money being paid to mediocre players, remember who authorized these deals: the owners.
The ever-inflating price of mediocrity in the league is part of a larger problem: expansion. With Commissioner Gary Bettman’s absurdly ambitious expansion plan in recent years, increasing the NHL’s franchise total to 30, the talent dilution has had a profound effect on the league. Offense drops, simply because there aren’t enough talented offensive players to put the puck in the net.
As a result, attendance and interest drops. Suddenly, a mediocre player breaks out with a 25-goal season, and he gets rewarded with a multi-million dollar annual contract. Then, other mediocre players cite the first mediocre player’s contract, and get cushy arbitration deals.
Meanwhile, with dwindling fan interest, a dangerous downward spiral begins to form, as the owners can’t afford to pay players, and then, two-thirds of the league’s teams take an operating loss for the 2003-2004 season.
How can a league expect to thrive when more than half of its teams are losing money? How can a league expect to thrive when any of its teams are losing money?!
Of course, the players are getting fat off the money they’ve already earned from their bloated contracts, so they’re settled in for the long haul. And the stingy, deep-pocketed owners show no signs of budging either. There won’t be a season this year, and the Stanley Cup will not be awarded, for the first time since 1919.
But, in a twisted way, I know the NHL deserves this fate for a long series of poor management and horrible business decisions on both sides. And once I trade these Devils jerseys in for a few Rat and Engineer jerseys, I’ll get along fine.
Editor’s Note: These views expressed in this article are those of the individual writer and are not necessarily help by the members of the sports department of the Polytechnic.
