There is no excuse worthy enough to justify the National Hockey League having three lockouts since 1994.
Each lockout has essentially been millionaires fighting with billionaires, showing no respect to their fans and middle class employees.
The NHL has handily missed more games because of labour disputes than any other professional sports league. That begs the question - why can't the owners and players get on the same page like other big-time leagues?
It is easy to blame NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. He is clearly depicted as the NHL's biggest villain.
Nevertheless, putting the blame solely on Bettman is like blaming the dummy for what the ventriloquist is saying. Bettman, who earns 7.8 million a year, is just doing what the owners tell him to do. Owners such as the Boston Bruins' Jeremy Jacobs and the New York Rangers' James Dolan are just as much to blame as Bettman.
The players and their union leader, Donal Fehr, have to be held accountable for the lost games just as much as the owners, if not more.
Prior to this year's CBA expiring, they were earning 57-percent of the revenue brought in by the NHL. That's right, the owners take the financial risk and their employees walk away with the majority of the profits before expenses are paid off.
The players argue they deserve that high amount because they are both the employees and the products. They do have a point; however, the thought process doesn't align with the majority of the world's businesses. Pigs would fly before a company such as Walmart agreed to give their employees a large percentage of their revenue.
Fortunately, it seems that this year's lockout has an expiration date. Credible sources such as The Globe and Mail and Yahoo! Sports have said that it seems the two sides are too close to write off the entire season.
Nonetheless, why did it take them until the CBA was practically expired before they start negotiating a new contract? Wouldn't it make more sense to do the majority of the negotiations a year before the lockout? Sure, the league wouldn't have their final year's balance sheets, but they would have the majority of the statistics to piece together what has worked and what hasn't.
Even once the new CBA is signed, it seems another lockout will inevitably follow when it expires. So NHL fans should get use to being taken for granted by the league that they spend their hard-earned money on.
But the fans aren't the worst victims in this mess. They can still go to junior hockey games and/or watch other sports.
The true victims in this drama are the employees of teams that make working-class salaries and are laid off or forced to take pay cuts.
One also has to consider the damage the lockout has done to business owners of sports memorabilia stores. Their balance sheets quite likely aren't looking too hot.
