Calling all puck bunnies! Surprise, surprise, there is more to hockey than toe drags, dangles, and sexy sweaty boys. In case you haven’t noticed, the National Hockey League has yet to start the 2012-2013 season due to the mysterious “lockout.” Sounds exciting right? Like somewhere all the hockey studs of the world are just hanging out together waiting for you to find them. While that would be nice, it unfortunately isn’t the case.
The NHL agreed to a labor contract for seven years. This September the contract ended and, naturally, all H-E- double hockey sticks broke loose. In that contract it was agreed that the players earned 57% of the revenue. Seems fair, given all the blood, sweat, and sexiness they out into the sport right? Well the owners (guys in suits) wanted to reduce that number to about 47%, and obviously the players weren’t too keen on that.
So your probably wondering if the players are being greedy, after all they are making a killing for playing a game they love. Well that might be true, except for the fact that revenue has gone up yet they are asking the players to take pay cuts.
So far they have eliminated games through December 14th. That’s a total of 422 games that the fans will be missing, which is 34.3% of the entire schedule, including the New Years Day Winter Classic and the NHL 2013 All-Star Weekend, which was scheduled for January 26th and 27th.
What now? Well now, we, the fans, (whether that be of the sport or the guys) just have to wait. We wait until the NHL and NHLPA can come to an agreement, and then we get a short glimpse at what could have been a great looking season (pun intended).
So you can thank this guy (Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL)…
For keeping you from all of this…
If you are still confused, see Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” and think of Taylor Swift as the players, and Jake Gyllenhaal as the owners.
And if you are STILL confused, you should probably start following a different sport.