Since there were no immediate reactions to my suggestion of settling this National Hockey League mess, I decided to take it a step further.
Regular readers will recall that my solution was for the 30 owners, or ownership groups, to get together and simply fold what we know today as the NHL and reload under another name. I suggested the Billy Powers Hockey League, but that has already been patented and it would cost billions to buy. Then again, they’ve already lost billions.
There were further suggestions about salary caps and such. But I just took the idea of starting again to Ken King, president and CEO of Calgary’s Flames. Actually, we were sitting together at a roast for Big John Forzani at which both of us were head-table guests and roasters of a sort.
King, is not an owner but can bend the ear of a powerful man like, say, Murray Edwards, part-owner of the Flames and a part of the NHL’s negotiating group.
Kenny, who seemed interested for a second, then shot the idea down saying that while the concept is different it “would start a law suit to end all law suits, the players suing the owners.”
Leaving it at that for the moment, I kept thinking about the overall picture and the law as we know it today.
And now I say let’s get it done. Fold the league and let the players sue for whatever amount they want.
At least while the suit is before the courts the people who really pay the way, the fans, who are getting more upset and frustrated by each day of the lockout, get to see the best hockey in the world today. The league, which will be shortened to the BPHL of course, would then put $1 billion into an account at the end of each season.
After 30 years that would be $30 billion. About 30 years from now the court case would be decided by a judge who is in law school somewhere today and the 500 or so players who sued could then split the money, or at least those who had survived to that point.
Of course, it’s far-fetched.
But the supposed brilliant minds representing both owners and players are certainly not getting the job done to this point. And maybe drastic measures must take place.
This may sound like I am siding with the owners on this one, but that is far from the case.
To me, it’s just that the owners have the money to work with to enable such a change and get things moving in a positive direction.
But, at the same time, why couldn’t the players break away in their own fashion and allow the owners to go their own way but then come to their senses in a short time when they realize that only the best can provide the entertainment that the paying customer demands for his dollar?
Having said that, I still contend that the players should not receive the ridiculous salaries of the past and have to realize just that and accept the fact they’ve been basically stealing money of late.
Paying a player $12 million a year to participate in a game others would pay to play is simply unrealistic. If a talent can’t get by on $3 million a year, or maybe even $4 million, he is a greedy man to be sure.
Of course, the owners let it get this far and for that they should pay some big dollars.
But, somewhere along the line, they have to reach a happy medium.
Until that happens, we are forced to watch games from the past of which we already know the result. We need hockey of the right-now variety and hockey that is meaningful.
Another season of no games would certainly put another black eye on the face of the game.
And when will the owners finally realize that commissioner Gary Bettman is not the answer, but instead the problem?
Today’s attempt at humour, or to be more precise my joke of the week, is about the guy who suggests to his wife that if he was to die he wants her to sell all of his personal goods. When asked why, he explained that if he was to die she was still young enough to get married again and he “didn’t want some jerk to be using my stuff.” After a moment of thought the wife replied: “and why would you assume that I would marry another jerk?”
The great comedian Phil Harris once talked about golf by saying: “When you start driving the ball down the middle, you meet a different class of people.”
