Courtesy: Getty Images
The Winter Classic, the NHL’s showcase game played on New Year’s Day, has been cancelled by the league. This afternoon, the NHL used its last, real bargaining chip and came through with their threat to cancel the game because the lack of real negotiating by both sides. It was to be the sixth straight Winter Classic, a game that has transcended everyone’s expectations. For the past six years, the Winter Classic has been hockey’s version of the Super Bowl, bringing in record T.V. ratings and helping the game branch out to more people than ever before. This year was supposed to be the biggest game yet, pitting the Detroit Red Wings against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was the first time a Canadian team was to participate in the Classic and the first time a team from each conference was to play against each other. The ‘Big House’, the University of Michigan’s football stadium was the set to be the star of the game with an estimated 110,000 fans expected to fill the seats. There were college, junior, alumni and AHL games scheduled as well, to fill out the entire week in celebration of the game. That’s all over now.
The NHL was to pay $250,000 today to the University of Michigan and two more payments of $1M and $650,000 each in December. $250K to extend the life of the Classic another month and the NHL won’t do it.
The simple idea of playing outside is something that every kid in Canada and a lot of kids in the U.S. have experienced – I even got the chance to play a couple games of shinny here in Maryland. There something beautiful about taking the game out of the rink and playing in the cold air. There’s almost a magic about it, and if you don’t play hockey, then you don’t understand. This isn’t like football or baseball, where you can just go outside and toss a ball around. Hockey is a sport that was born in winter. It was born on the ponds and lakes of Canada in the harsh conditions that only winter can bring.
The NHL is now making a mockery of that.
To use the Winter Classic as a bargaining chip in these negotiations shows just how low and pathetic these ‘talks’ really are. The Classic wasn’t about them, it was about us – the Fans. Now we’re being robbed of that.
Just do us a favor, NHL, and cancel the rest of the season. It’s all part of the plan, am I right? I want to get on with my life and not be disappointed every day when I see that you and the NHLPA have ‘ no meetings planned’ or that you ‘couldn’t come to terms with the new proposal’. I want hockey. If I wanted greed, I’d watch football, basketball or baseball. There’s no honor anymore in this league and there definitely is no respect for the people who pay millions to watch you and your teams play a game.
I wish I could say that won’t come crawling back whenever you get your shit together and start the season. I’ll watch my Capitals and I’ll cheer them on, but I promise you I won’t spend money to see them.
If the players were smart, they’d have their own Winter Classic. A charity game to benefit a major cause like Prostate Cancer, and every player would have to grow a mustache to honor those with the disease. It would be a nice gesture anyway. A way to show the fans that at least someone cares about them and their loyalty.
But I doubt it.
Courtesy: A Bronx Tale/Universal Studios
I was watching ‘A Bronx Tale’ the other day and Chazz Palminteri’s character ‘Sonny’ tell’s little ‘C’: “…Mickey Mantle don’t care about you. Why care about him? ”
Well maybe it’s time for the fans to stop caring about the NHL and the players. We pour our hearts into our teams and get nothing in return but higher ticket prices and autograph snubs from some prima donna player that drives a Porsche (yes I know that not every player is like that).
I guess ‘For Love of the Game’ is not a phrase that means anything anymore unless you’re playing beer league with your buddies. Maybe it’s always been that way and I’m just seeing it for the first time now that I’m older.
Anyway, the NHL, whenver the season starts, will do its best to lure people back into the seats. Telling us, the Fans, that we’re the only ones that matter – just like after the last lockout. I think this time, however, the league is going to find it a little harder to get our respect.
