NHL fan boycott urged
DON’T ATTEND FIRST GAME says Montreal actor Bruce Dinsmore
While sitting around with his friends after playing a weekly hockey game in his hometown of Hudson, Montreal-based actor Bruce Dinsmore decided he would try to make an impression on the NHL’s Gary Bettman and its hockey players by expressing his frustration about the 113-day lockout, which ended just a few days ago.
He would boycott the first Habs game.
“The whole idea is just a way of empowering the fan,” Dinsmore said.
“Throughout the whole lockout, people have talked about the owners, the players and the NHL, but the missing parties at the bargaining table are the fans who inevitably are the bottom line, who pay everybody’s salary.”
To get the ball rolling, he started a Facebook page asking ticket holders to go down to the Bell Centre — just not step into the building.
“Go down and stomp around outside and make some noise and say ‘Boo Gary Bettman’ and then go into the pub, have a nice meal and watch the game on TV,” Dinsmore said.
“If the arenas were at least half empty for the first game back, I would be there for the second,” said Dinsmore with a laugh.
Long-time friend and fellow Montreal Canadiens fan Richard Gratton helped Dinsmore set up his Facebook page.
Gratton doesn’t know if the plan will work, but like Dinsmore, he hopes that an empty arena would send out a clear statement: “You (the NHL) are nothing without us, the fans.”
And Dinsmore and Gratton aren’t the only frustrated hockey fans on a quest to boycott upcoming games.
Steve Chase, co-founder of the “Just Drop it” campaign is an exMontrealer living in Los Angeles. The campaign asks for NHL fans to skip one game for every game cancelled after Dec. 21, averaging out to 10 games per team.
His Facebook movement has so far garnered over 23,000 Facebook “likes,” with over 5,000 coming from Montreal.
“Let the NHL see what could happen if a bunch of fans decided not to come back,” Chase said. “We want it to be a little slap on the wrist and say: ‘Guys, we’re here, we have a voice.’ ”
Despite encouraging fans to skip games, Chase’s intentions aren’t to hurt the sport.
“We simply want the acknowledgement and promise that these people will take care of the game and take care of the people that make it work,” Chase said. “We love hockey, we’re hockey nuts.”
But according to Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association of Canadian studies, there are too many hockey-deprived people who won’t be swayed by a boycott.
“I think people are upset and I can appreciate that,” said Jedwab, who used to teach a course on sports in Canada at McGill University.
“A lot of fans feel a certain degree of propriety over their teams, especially the Montreal Canadiens, but I don’t think it’ll take off because there are too many people who are very relieved the lockout is over.”
That won’t stop Dinsmore from trying to persuade people to boycott the first game though.
“I find there’s a lot of momentum for it and I think this time people are really, truly cheesed off,” he said.