How the NHL managed to screw-up one of the ONLY good ideas they’ve had recently…

As a public service, I thought I’d remind everyone what we SHOULD have seen on New Year’s Day:

The NHL Winter Classic.

And now let’s discuss WHY we won’t get to enjoy one of our best, and most unique, sporting events in 2013.

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The NHL and its players need to go through marriage counseling, together. Seriously.

They’re killing me: I’m a lifelong hockey freak. Heck, I’d rather watch a minor league or even a high-school hockey game on TV than sit court-side for an NBA game. Although, to be honest, I’d also prefer a sharp-stick-in-the-eye to watching an NBA game, so that may not be the best of comparisons.

Regardless, my favorite sport (or, at least, the professional level of my favorite sport), seems intent on committing seppuku. And what’s worse, …I don’t know as I care anymore.

Let’s be honest: the NHL has always been perceived as the Ringo Star of the Big Four American sports. There are pockets of hardcore fans around the country, sure, but the casual fan has never embraced hockey in the same way they have Major League Baseball, the NBA or the NFL. And now, for the 4th time in 20 years, the NHL is going through a “labor dispute” that is leaving most ice hockey fans cold.

If you boil down the arguments for each side, it comes down to the owners saying they are taking all the financial risk, and the Players Union saying they’re taking the physical risk. There have been plenty of reasonable solutions offered to fix this up ’til now.

Want MY solution? Split the spoils down the middle, 50-50.

All fixed. Can we drop the freakin’ puck now?

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This argument is basically millionaires arguing with multi-millionaires. Now granted, not every player in the NHL is worth ‘millions‘; I get that. BUT: Joe Six-pack the sports fan will never “feel your pain” when the League minimum salary is over a half-million dollars, annually.

Sorry, guys, that’s just the way it is.

Literature is full of stories and fables (‘The Dog & his Bone‘, “A bird in the hand…“, etc.,) which warn of the consequences of mindless greed and/or envy. Namely, that one may easily lose everything as they release what they have and grab for more. That certainly would apply here, as the NHL fan-base is being whittled carved slashed to pieces every time one of these lockouts/strikes occur.

That’s why I said initially that the owners and players need marriage counseling. In effect they are “married”, even though this marriage was always about profit, not passion.  Their relationship has made each of them (player & owner) wealthy beyond what anyone could have foreseen 30 years ago…and still they’re squabbling, again, over who deserves the bigger piece of the financial profits ‘pie’??

Find the average hockey fan in this picture (HINT: he’s sitting down).

Only one thing seems certain to me: If both sides don’t get their act together soon, …and maybe even if they do, …they may be shocked to discover that there is suddenly far less overall ‘pie’ to divvy-up than there was just a few short months ago.

Hope it was worth it, fellas.