I think it is pretty much over. Hockey season this year died before it was born, taking with it some hundreds of millions of Canadian dollars out of the Canadian economy, I read in Sports Illustrated recently. The Union and the League have called off talks and I think that there is really no hope that we are going to see a zamboni again this year on the ice at Madison Square Garden.
The sad part is that I only now just really noticed. I mean, I was excited and all to take part in the Inter-Munuvian Hockey Bitch Slap (hence the Rangers image on my sidebar) even knowing that my local team was going to feel the bitch slap a lot. But I didn't miss it for more than a minute. I barely noticed that no one was playing. And why would I? I think that these greedy asswipes have effectively destroyed their league, their game, their place in the pantheon of professional sports. My bet is that no one is coming back when they turn the lights back on again. I wrote about hockey before, asking: when did hockey lose its relevance. I guess it happened when most of us were doing other things.
Sprint training for baseball begins really soon. That, I'm excited about.
Rest in Peace, Hockey. We hardly knew ya.
Posted by Random Penseur at February 11, 2005 08:39 AMAs professional sports players lose more and more class their sports decline. How many NBA watchers were lost when Dennis Rodman was in the limelight? How much damage did it do when Latrell Sprewell choked his coach and then KEPT HIS JOB?
Gone are the days of Brett Hull and Dave Andreychuk, men who played for a love of the game and a love of their team. They've been replaced by skilled princesses like Dominik Hasek, a player who was more concerned with getting his coach fired than was with building a real team.
It's not just the players, of course. The owners and administrators are the ones who pimp out the "shocking" and "rebel" problem children of professional sports in an effort to attract a young disaffected fan base.
It's hard to root for a team when you despise the people playing on it and are constantly pissed at the people running it.
Posted by: Jim at February 11, 2005 11:26 AMWhat's a "hockey"?
Posted by: Howard at February 11, 2005 03:58 PM