Tomorrow Night

Well it all ends at 11:59pm tomorrow night.  That's when the NHL's collective bargaining agreement expires and the third lockout in Gary Bettman's reign as commissioner begins.  Let's be real though, Bettman announced that the lockout would happen a month ago.  Everything that's happened from then until now is just public relations crap.  The lockout began when that announcement was made.  Their first proposal to the players union was so insulting as to guarantee no middle ground would be reached by the deadline.  The lockout was already underway.

Three lockouts.  He's already erased about half of one season, and 100% of another.  Now we're going to go through it again.  Can you imagine trying to work with some one like that?  It's almost as if his only means of negotiating is cancelling games.  It's insulting. 

And where are the fans in all of this?  Ignored.  Forgotten.  Insulted.  The millionaires and the billionaires once again fight over our money like the spoiled brats that they are, and once again we are the ones suffering for it.  Do you think Jeremy Jacobs gives a rat's ass that his Bruins miss a few games when he is bringing in revenue from every other event that happens at the TD Garden?  I'm going to see Rush there next month, and that asshole gets a piece of my admission.  Do you think the players give a rat's ass about missing a few games when they can all barrel off to Europe and steal jobs from other, less talented hockey players?

For the third time we have to sit here and watch as a deadline approaches while both sides make pointless proposals that they each know the other side will instantly reject and then blame the other side for not being good negotiators.  It's as if they are following a script.  Part of that script is when the lockout eventually ends, the fans will come rushing back into the arenas buying tickets and $100 jerseys and all the hot dogs Jacobs can sell so that everyone can start rebuilding their war chests so that they can be ready for the next lockout when it comes.

Not this time.  We fans need to stand up to this.  We need to stay away in droves.  We cannot come rushing back again.  When the lockout ends the entire league needs to play the entire season in empty buildings.  We can't give them our money anymore.  We can't watch them on television so that they can live off of that revenue stream.  We need their sponsorships to dry up and die.  We need their broadcast contracts to never, ever be renewed.

We need to let the NHL die.  Personally, I hope the next lock out never ends.  I hope they just wither and die.

To hell with them.

Collective Bargaining Bullshit

As another day draws to a close without any real progress on the NHL collective bargaining front (both sides offered proposals today, but it's all just PR at this point) I can't help but reiterate what I've been saying for the last couple of weeks.

This is all our (the fans') fault.  All of it.

After the 2004-05 season was cancelled due to collective bargaining bullshit, we fans should have stayed away from the game in droves.  We should have punished both sides for not taking our wishes into account.  We should have made them suffer.  They cancelled the '04-05 season.  We should have cancelled the '05-06 season.

But we did not.  We came back in droves.  We missed our game... OUR game... so much that we came running back to the rinks and welcomed the league back as if nothing happened.  We welcomed them back with open arms, as if they hadn't just collectively pissed all over us for an entire year.  We opened our wallets to them as if they hadn't just taken a giant shit on us.

And this is the thanks we get.

Had we stayed away after the last lockout the league would commit suicide rather than consider another work stoppage.  They would be so terrified of losing the fans who did come back that they would never dream of closing the doors and locking us out of our game again.

But that did not happen, and now we are three days away from another lock out.

We cannot let this happen again.