waaaa, waaa, waaaa...

I know, who the f**k cares. I want to watch and talk hockey, not talk about 3 days of a room full guys pulling on it. I know the owners are being greedy, but I can't feel for the players when Zack P gets a $96Mil contract. Run of the mill players making $4 or $5, Mil a year.  

Face it folks the only way that we as fans can make a point that is to boycott them for a while and prove that if they keep doing this, we as fans are not buying tickets, or the jerseys, or the NHL package.

We need to do it for one year. Just one year of not buying the extras. It would be really hard to stop watching or going to games, but don't buy the jerseys, or programs, or the hotdogs and beer. 

If we don't do something, this is going to happen again, and for what? 

 

 

 

not hard at all not to go to games....

and with CBC, TSN, Sportsnet, nhl network & RDS there's no need to buy the nhl package either....

agreed, owners need to feel the hurt....  but for longer than just a year, much longer....

You beat me to it.  I was about to start a thread just like this.

Except for the boycott stuff.  It will never ever work.  Never.

If they are willing to shut down the rinks, they are more than willing to take it on the chin for the aftermarket stuff.

In response to days-of-Orr's comment:

It'll take a long time for billionaires to feel the hurt.

What struck me as a tab funny was if a boycott did in fact work, the owners and the players would be scurrying off to their prospective corners and working out a new CBA contract, as there wouldn't be enough pie to go around for everyone and we would have another league shut down ! 

 

What annoys me the most, like most collective bargaining deals. Is that. We KNOW they are going to get a deal done. And this deal could have being done before any stupid lock out had to happen.

Here's the comedy behind any boycott:

People would be so upset that hockey was canceled for a year that, for the following year, they'd watch no hockey.  If someone loves it so much that they're upset by it, why would they intentionally double the time the games weren't enjoyed?

Also, the goal is to have the games back on so they can be enjoyed.  When the CBA is signed and the games return, what would be the point of "hurting" them?  To hopefully avoid it the next time?

 

Stuke, that's the part that always drives me nuts about collective bargaining.  There's an assumption that you need to let things get bad so that one side or the other has leverage.  Maybe.  But if everyone can see the leverage at the various points down the line, why actually wait and pay the price? 

In response to Bookboy007's comment:

That's just it -- whenever a resolution is reached down the line, there won't be one person with a decent explanation of why that same resolution couldn't haave been reached earlier.  

I mean, we'll get plenty of spin about holding out for what is fair, etc. etc.  But both sides have leaders that are supposed to be expert negotiators and when they continue to lose money and damage a product just to eventually come to a predictable resolution, they don't seem to be very effective at what they do.  I suppose that if one side wins big, they'll be able to rationalize that the ends justify the means, but more and more this is starting to seem like a battle that will not produce a winner, just a lesser loser.

And whoever 'wins' might just end up with a bigger piece of a smaller pie.

Here's a different view:

Why not have a lockout?  Look at the jump in revenue from the last one.

In response to Not-A-Shot's comment:

  Bettman shouldn't take it for granted that will happen again. He is playing with fire this time around.

No he isn't.  Hockey is awesome and hockey fans won't disappear.

In response to Not-A-Shot's comment:

Yes! All this mighty boycott and protest talk from the fans will quickly be forgotten when hockey starts again. They'll all be back on their couches watching all the games.

 

I'm so bored I jsut read a bleacher report article.  The one about what other hockey I can watch in the area.  Someone come hit me with a 2x4.  The problem with watching other hockey is that now I'm going to have to cough up some money to get it, whereas NESN comes with the package I've got now.

Call me naive, but I just don't get this lockout.  Everyone is losing money for the sake of the game of who blinks first.

* Can someone sum up the point of this lockout succinctly.  Simple enough so that even I can understand it?  I can't resolve the thinking I interpret the owners to have;  

We're are going to go out of business because the players want too much money.

And we don't want to go out of business.  

So to remedy that we've decided to go out of business.

* I think the owners have more skin in the game at least as far as the NHL is concerned because without games they are earning zero.  No hockey, they starve.  (yah yah yah they're billionares and have other investments, but for the sake of this discussion, they starve).

* The players can find jobs elsewhere in other hockey or flipping burgers.  True, it's not like their previous income, but they don't totally starve, but near to it.

* Why don't the owners get replacement players to fill the gap?  an over 40 league or some such thing?  Or have regional teams with teams like Arizona and Florida and Texas carving up Ontario/Quebec?  Some such circus act which if you think about it hard, isn't much different than what we have now in the NHL.

* Why don't the players form a new league or get some guys to cough up money and start a new league for much less money that works on a monthly basis or something?  True, it's cutting off their nose to spite their face, but if they can come up with some alternative league that would play in the small venues (because I somehow doubt the owners would let them use their rinks somehow).  They probably could get college rinks to put on a show.

* Why don't the players do a leverage buy out kind of thing where they actually become partners with the owners?  Make them all stock holders or some such thing?  I don't know, I'm no business major and haven't got a clue, but I'm thinking of some idea where it behooves both parties to work together to make money for everybody.

This post has been removed.

Hockey not only survived but grew after the last lockout which was when the economy was even worse than it is today. I'll be back, you'll be back and so wll everyone else.

In response to Not-A-Shot's comment:

You are right, boycotting the games is silly because we the fans suffer more. But not buying the jerseys hurts both the players and the owners. And lets face it, we probably all have more than enough shirts and / or jerseys to get us by for now. I have 3 Ts and 3 jerseys.

Not buying the bevies and hotdogs definitely hurts JJ, one of the ringleaders in the lockout. 

My point is simple. If we continue to be lemmings, we will continue to get treated like such. Bettman knows that we will come back, maybe even stronger, as the last lockout clearly showed. So if we do not buy the EXTRAS, a message is sent. We are not talking small potatoes here either. This will hit their pocketbooks hard. Next time Bettman says "because we have the best fans in all sports" (or something close), he might not be so sure of himself. The players could use a little grounding too. 

We have no other means to show our displeasure. The radio talkshow hosts listen to us babble on, agree with us that this is a travesty, and nothing changes. $$$$$ is the only way to talk. 

I'm still bored. I want to talk hockey. I want to talk about how Doug Hamilton is coming along. Is Seguin finally moving up to the top of the scoring charts. Is Horton rounding into form, etc.... 

And what is TT's next move !!!!!!

 

In response to kelvana33's comment:

Yes.  I'll be back, you'll be back, but there will be a couple who won't.  Not in enough numbers that matter, but there will be some.  And the owners and players think that's fine, but in a 2nd class sport it's not a smart thing to do.

I'm not entirely sold on the idea that once they finally stop the shenanigans, that the fans will come back in droves. This is the 4th work stoppage in 20 years. The league continues to show little interest in proving that they care even one iota about "the greatest fans in the world". 

I'm to the point now where I wish they would not even have a season. They take my love of the NHL for granted...and that just stinks.

In response to Bisson1's comment:

owners want fans watching games from the stands even more than from their couches at home....

Opps sorry I though the title of the thread was freaking board.  On the subject, life without the NHL is simply flat lined!  

Ya im going to agree the owners want ppl at the games not watching on tv. Something ppl fail to realize on these boards. You want to hurt the owners watch from home and dont go to games.

In response to days-of-Orr's comment:

What was meant by those two sentences was that fans won't stop following the NHL because of a lockout.

In response to seobrien's comment:

The fourth in 20 years is 100% irrelevant..and incorrect.  The players strike in 1992 was over 20 years ago.  Most people don't even recall the strike and certainly are not basing their views today upon it.  Similar can be said of the Fall of '94 lockout.  It has no bearing today.

 

The '04-05 season came and went without a game being played, but the league bounced back quickly and better than ever.  What's to say it won't happen that way again?  Oh, that's right, the players strike in 1992.

In response to BadHabitude's comment:

Yes.  I'll be back, you'll be back, but there will be a couple who won't.  Not in enough numbers that matter, but there will be some.  And the owners and players think that's fine, but in a 2nd class sport it's not a smart thing to do.

[/QUOTE]

I think it's fine also.  If someone decides that they don't want to watch hockey next year because the NHL didn't play this year, that simply means they don't watch.  My life remains the same.  So does everyone else's.

You might think it's fine and no fans' life will change, this is true.

But I still say it's not smart.

I don't have an MBA, but I believe it's not a good idea to be so short sighted about your business.  Not enough LONG TERM thinking out there.  Not enough creative thinking out there.  

One example.  Hockey was the last to adopt video replay.  Why?  It's the most tailor made thing for video replay that ever could be - reviewing goals.  It was often suggested, but they didn't do it.  I remember my hr high science teacher who had a part time job with the Bruins say it back in 1973.   Once football did it, they reacted and followed suit.

It would be really nice to have bragging rights about that and when it comes to arguments about who's sport is better, it would have been sweet to say 'well, hockey had video replay 20 years before everyone else.'

The current lockout is an opportunity.  It's an opportunity to make a deal that would end strikes and lockouts and just like video replay hockey has a chance to do it first.  Then hockey could be held up as a model for others to follow.

They are a second rate sport, primarily because they think of themselves as a second rate sport. It's evident in their marketing.  It's evident by the 'skating clowns' as you like to call them.

Can you honestly say you can see the day when you and I are going saying on this forum;

'wow, weren't those staged fights idiotic?  Good thing they got rid of them.'

No we won't.  One day in our old age we *might* be saying

'why did those idiots take so long to get it out of the sport?'