BY A.J. KURZMAN
As of Saturday, September 15th at 11:59 P.M., the NHL collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expired, forcing owners to lock out the players for the 3rd time in 18 years. The last lockout completely wiped out the 2004-2005 NHL season, and fans are praying that won’t happen again. As a result of the 04-05 lockout, the players got a big raise in their share of the revenue (up to 57% in 2011-2012), and that is too much for the leagues liking. As of now, the two sides are far from striking a deal and all preseason games have already been canceled.
Commissioner Gary Bettman has had two previous lockouts before this one. He first became commissioner of the NHL in 1993, and the first labor dispute with him as commissioner came during the 94-95 season. That season was shortened from 82 games to 48 games. There was then a 10-year break, until the second lockout came during the 04-05 season where the entire season was lost. As a result of the lockout in 04-05, TV ratings declined, as did total revenue due to the lack of ticket sales. Also, many people lost their jobs because teams weren’t making any money, so they couldn’t keep some staff in the organization. Big market teams, such as the LA Kings were greatly affected too because with so many other teams in LA (such as the Lakers, Clippers, Angels, and Dodgers), people just kind of “forgot” about the Kings.
Some teams, such as the Florida Panthers and the Ottawa Senators, are already feeling short-term effects of the lockout. The Panthers have already laid off 13 employees in their organization, including mascot Stanley C. Panther on just the third day to help conserve a budget when no money is rolling in. The Senators also laid off several employees during the first couple of days of the lockout. In addition, many league superstars including as Alexander Ovechkin, Evegeni Malkin, and Ilya Kovalchuk, have already signed with KHL clubs (Kontinental Hockey League in Russia) and they will stay there until the lockout is over. Some players have taken to Twitter to protest the lockout, such as Philadelphia Flyers superstar Claude Giroux, who tweeted that he and teammate Scotty Hartnell won’t shave their beards until the lockout is over.
No one knows if Bettman will keep his job once this is all sorted out. It is his 3rd lockout as the commissioner of the NHL, which is more than any other commissioner. Furthermore, he is the only commissioner to lose an entire season in recent years. The public isn’t too fond of Bettman either. If there is indeed a shortened
season or no season, clubs like the Kings, who just won the cup and gained a huge fan base in LA, will lose almost all of that because fans will start to lose interest if there are no games. There is also the question of what fans that already have season tickets will do if the entire season is taken away.
This is the 3rd lockout under Commissioner Gary Bettman, who isn’t too liked by the public as it is. While the NHL and NHLPA try and decide on how to split up 3.3 billion dollars, the fans are taking the biggest hit. The fans that live and breathe hockey are being deprived of the game they love, and they are furious to say the least. There is no end in sight for the lockout right now; it could end in an hour, a week, a month, or it could even take an entire year.
