I care, just not that much
On May 19, in passing reference to the moving target that was the deadline for settling the Phoenix Coyotes ownership mess, I typed the word “lockout” in a column.
You have no idea how proud I am to have managed to go 139 days before doing it again.
Alas, the Stanley Cup playoffs have come and gone, along with the U.S. Open, the British Open, the London Olympics and the Ryder Cup, and it is suddenly October and no longer easy (dammit) to ignore the elephant in the room.
The natural rhythms of autumn for a Canadian sports columnist — the post-Labour Day meat of the CFL schedule, playoff baseball, early days in the NFL — are missing their customary backbeat: the all-is forgiven optimism of a hockey training camp, when hatchets are buried and the scores don’t really matter. In a week, they would have started to matter, but only a little.
Thursday, the NHL announced the first two weeks of regular-season games have been cancelled, no doubt in an effort to avoid refunding any ticket money and keep alive the fiction that at any moment a settlement might be reached.
“We understand the disappointment this news causes all of us who share a passion for hockey,” says a statement signed by Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillis. “We understand the concerns of our passionate and loyal fans, especially at this time. Our commitment to deliver exceptional experiences and reciprocate your unwavering support is stronger than ever.” (Cough.)
And yet, in doing my best to ignore all the posturing and acrimony arising from the non negotiations, it was enlightening to discover that I have no dog in this fight: don’t care who wins the lockout, feel no empathy for either side, don’t mind postponing a couple of months of the kind of hockey we get while teams are still figuring out who they are.
This seems entirely sensible. I wish fans could do it.
They can’t, of course. They are conditioned to care.
Those who represent the actual collateral damage — team or league office employees whose wages are cut, ushers and servers and security staff whose supplementary income is gone — care deeply, in their pocketbooks.
Hockey bloggers, who have carved out niches small or large in the sport’s digital landscape, have to care.
So in the social media, there is probably a large disconnect between the mainstream jocks and the hockey nerds, for whom a day without games to be dissected is like a day without air to breathe.
What all of us should know by now, though, is that the NHL never fixes itself. It is the world’s most moronic sports league. And they all expect us to agonize while they argue over a $3.2-billion pot.
But not me. Not yet. I’m going to a Lions game Saturday. After that, we’ll make it up as we go along. The word “lockout” is hereby locked out.*
Rest assured that it is my intent to deliver exceptional experiences and reciprocate your unwavering support by writing about ... you know, other stuff.
(* — Until next time.)