Thought I would start my 2013 New Year's Wish List with you by simply thinking out loud. I want to spend the next few columns wishing and wanting, pleading and planning. My first wish, then, comes in the form of a missing telephone call. Or maybe that would be a missing text. Tweet?
Not sure if there has been a mix-up, but I have been waiting by my phone(s) day in and week out, sleeping outside in the doghouse—okay, that's for another reason—waiting for the call.
The call? you ask. What call? you ask again (Stop getting impatient: I can't type that fast.)
The “call,” is the one I am expecting from Gary or Donald or Donald's brother, Steve, or maybe even Sid the Kid. (When you're cool, or at least think you're cool, you feel you can talk about multimillionaire athletes on a first-name basis.)
The call, then, would be the one that revolves around the NHL players' strike. Said work stoppage (technically, of course, it's a lockout, but at the end of the day, it's as good or bad as s strike) is where billionaires have locked out millionaires from chasing a rubbing disc and clobbering it with a curved stick into a mesh, then hugging everything in skates (so long as they are wearing the right costumes) when it goes in.
One might say that the players are revolting, but that could be taken at least two different ways.
In one sense, I'm not surprised the afore-mentioned gazillionaires haven't phoned me, because, after all, what do I know? I'm just a common, ordinary citizen who has to go out and actually earn my living, one day at a time; the composite me works in a factory, on a farm, near a rig—so what would I know about the “work” of a hockey player?
To put things in perspective: Many of them will earn more money in the life of a short contract than I will earn in the time of a long life.
I'm not a jock, nor the son of jock, but I at least like watching hockey. I think I understand the nuances of the game, and what the difference is between a red line and blue, or what a crisp pass and clean check is. I even know how to boo a ref. And throw teddy bears on the ice at Christmas.
I also know that there are dozens of businesses suffering in thirty major cities across North America because of the two (stubborn) bodies who can't seem to divide the spoils. Okay, perhaps it's not that simple, although that's what my insider sports sources are saying.
These businesses that I am talking about include hotels, gas stations, eateries and pubs, arena workers, transit workers, and others I just can't think of. No one business should depend solely on one market (eg., hockey) or one season (eg., Christmas), even though it does represent a chunk of change for them.
If Gary or Donald phoned me, I would give them some ideas that they have likely already heard and discarded. Whatever. Down here in the land of common people, they still make sense. Here are three in a nutshell:
1. Try shorter seasons. Is there any need to play for nine months? Obviously, I am including play-offs with that time frame, and teams like the Calgary Flames who, as a rule don't make the play-offs, usually only play seven months. A shorten season may lengthen the careers of some players, and there is really no need to be playing when it's almost summer. Make the first round series a best of five, and have fewer teams qualify.
2. Try fewer teams. That means have 24, instead of 30. Take a long hard look at the teams that are floundering and in the red, year after year. Or, look at teams that are not in traditional hockey hotbeds (likely the same teams). It's not good fiscal management at any level to run a perpetual deficit—unless, of course, you're the government.
3. Try lower salaries. It's utterly appalling what players are getting paid these days, and how much more they want. In a North American economy of homelessness, unemployment, and forclosures, it is unconscionable that the players are getting what they are. Before we take their heads off, however, we need to ask ourselves: Who is giving them these outrageous contracts? Yer right: the same owners who are now pleading how poor they are.
But what do I know? I'm just a common, ordinary citizen who has to go out and actually earn my living, one day at a time.
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