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Settling in for a long winter's nap

Sporting News, The, Oct 25, 2004 by Kara Yorio

That sound you didn't hear last week was the puck not dropping on the ice when the regular season didn't begin. Now games are being lost, and the season is truly being affected. And now team employees are settling into new patterns, professionally and personally. "I've been married for nine years," says Stars head equipment manager Steve Sumner. "I've never been home for a full year."

His regular-season schedule was supposed to keep him at the arena from 7 a.m. to midnight on game days and 7:30 a.m. until about 6 p.m. on other days. These days, he heads home about 2 in the afternoon.

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Sumner, though, is one of the lucky ones in this stalemate. Although he was forced to take a 20 percent pay cut during the lockout, he has not lost his job. He makes a point of saying Stars management has treated the employees well. He shows up for work and makes himself busy, trying to show ownership he is loyal and hard-working no matter the circumstances. He also is helping some midget teams in the area. Outside of work, he is spending more time with his 5-year-old daughter, one of the few upsides to the situation.

Sumner became head equipment manager in the offseason, and in what should have been his first full season on the job, there are no skates to sharpen, no shoulder pads to fix. There are no players in need of new equipment or looking to modify the old, familiar gear.

In Dallas, home to a huge hockey payroll, high expectations and the 1999 Stanley Cup champions, the Stars haven't been even a blip on the radar of those in Sumner's community because of this NHL labor situation. He doesn't see or hear much about hockey in the local media, and outside of his hockey circle, he doesn't hear many people talking about it.

"It's kind of weird," Sumner says. "It's really, really quiet. High school football is the No. 1 thing going on in Dallas. There's nothing in the paper about us."

So maybe when the 16-year-old players hang up the pads and move indoors for the basketball season, somebody in Texas will notice there's a padlock on the arena door and that no ice will be needed unless a figure skating tour stops by.

"The fans will start missing it in November and December," Sumner says.

That's when he thinks it'll start getting difficult to come to work. There won't be much to do, and the less-than-hopeful atmosphere probably won't make most folks in the Stars offices jump out of bed and look forward to what the day might bring. For now, there's a newness to the nothingness. That will wear off soon.

Summer and his colleagues have been told not to speak publicly about the labor situation. The issues involve the players and owners, not the trainers, equipment managers, broadcasters or public relations directors. But, like everyone else, Sumner knows the league and its teams wouldn't be laying off staff if they expected to be back by January.

The long haul has begun for victims of circumstance such as Sumner and many others who are hurt much worse financially by the situation. It's more than a month into the lockout, and neither side has moved. The peripheral people wait and hope NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow can find a way to patch things up sooner rather than later.

(S) Keep up with all the news around the hockey world at msn.foxsports.com, keword: NHL.

SPEED READ

* More wasted time on the Internet: Fans can sign up for news alert e-mails on the collective bargaining agreement from the league at NHLCBAnews.com. An automatic reply says fans should expect to receive reports "in the near future and as often as circumstances warrant." At least there is little danger of anyone's e-mail crashing because of an overwhelmed inbox.

INSIDE DISH

Comments by the league and its owners are unifying the players more than anything NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow could say to them. Most recently, Steve Belkin, the largest investor in the Thrashers' ownership group, talked about using replacement players next season. Belkin was fined by the league and later issued an apology, calling his views "uninformed." But that brings up another issue: Aren't the league and its owners communicating and united on the issues and strategy, as we're told? Even though Belkin has been an NHL owner for just a few months, which was the league's excuse for his supposedly ignorant comments, shouldn't he be up to date? The public mention of replacement players followed by the admission that an owner could be uninformed does not reflect well on the league.... Add Thrashers LW Dany Heatley, who signed with Bern in Switzerland, to the long list of North American players off to Europe. Heatley, who is facing vehicular homicide charges stemming from the car crash that killed teammate Dan Snyder last year, apparently is flee to leave the country. According to the International Ice Hockey Federation, almost one-quarter of the more than 200 NHL players in Europe as of October 14 were from North America.... RW Blake Wheeler, the surprise No. 5 overall draft pick last June by the Coyotes, is playing in the United States Hockey League. He had two goals and an assist in his third game.... The Lightning finally had to give the Stanley Cup back to the Hall of Fame, but the Cup will go on tour soon, making appearances in NHL markets. The Cup's schedule hasn't been set.--K.Y.

Settling in for a long winter's nap

Sporting News, The, Oct 25, 2004 by Kara Yorio

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