Icing the Money

This is idiotic. The National Hockey League owners have "locked out" the players -- and will likely suspend or cancel the entire hockey season -- because management and the players union cannot agree on salary cost controls. Two Sides Prepared for Long Lockout [USAToday.com]. These NHL players now make an average of about $2 million per year, with the highest paid (Jaomir Jagr) at $11M yearly. Basketball and football have both prospered economically with a salary cap, while baseball -- the only other major US professional sport without cost controls and which has had a recent, almost-disasterous labor stoppage -- is in real financial trouble.

But baseball at least once was the "national pastime." The NHL never was in the America and hockey just cannot recover, at least not in its present form, from another work suspension. Ted Montgomery puts it best, writing that "a compelling case can be made that this lockout was premeditated and heavily orchestrated by both sides. That shows an alarming lack of concern for the average hockey fan. It smacks of a fan-be-damned attitude that won't soon be forgotten by those who pay the exorbitant ticket prices to indulge their passion for hockey."

I am one of those who paid those exorbitant prices and have no intention of doing so again until sanity is restored to this sport.

 Posted by glenn