Hockey owes its fans an apology

Sporting News, The, Jan 30, 1995 by Bob Verdi

When NHL owners and players are done complaining about that rotten deal they just signed, maybe they can find time to say they're sorry.

The season has started, and after both sides declared a reluctant truce, fans haven't heard much beyond which tickets bought in August will be good for which rescheduled game in April.

When that information is issued, the league tends to lapse into its usual drowsy public relations posture. Certainly, the NHL knows all about captive audiences. Hockey is a terrific spectacle, supported by loyal customers who pay the heaviest per capita prices to occupy the highest percentage of available seats in professional sports.

No, hockey isn't as popular as baseball, football and basketball, but for that, the NHL needn't apologize. What would be nice now, however, is if someone, anyone, expressed regrets to fans for this coldest winter ever on ice.

Instead, you hear management and labor grousing about what might have been. Well, enough already.

There isn't a lot of sympathy for owners who didn't get their salary cap/luxury tax but are so destitute that they'll be peddling four expansion franchises at $75 million per any minute now. Likewise, athletes whose average wage is $558,000 aren't about to endear themselves to fans by whining about how they were pillaged and plundered at the negotiating table.

If that last of a dozen counterproposals was so humiliating, why didn't the union toss the grenade back to the owners again?

When the arenas went dark in October, Commissioner Gary Bettman kept insisting that the lockout was really a "postponement" and he wasn't kidding. In the NHL, there are two blue fines, one red line and no deadlines.

Except for your season ticket money, and when one fan went to Chicago's United Center recently to inquire whether the Blackhawks would pay interest on funds they were holding, the answer was a warm, "Lady, we ain't running a bank here."

But last Friday fans returned to rinks throughout the league, and one can only hope that participants in this recent mess show appreciation. The Blackhawks should open the United Center on a night when there's no game, admit every season-ticket holder and sign autographs until the pens go dry.

After all, the bond among hockey players and hockey fans in Chicago is unique. Across the street at the old Stadium, it was a standoff - did the crowd feed off the 'Hawks, or the `Hawks off the crowd? The venue has changed to the new colossus, but rest assured fans in Chicago win be heard.

They still love hockey, even if they're not sure whether hockey loves them.

Besides, after all the accusations and finger-pointing during the last three months, fans might represent the last outpost of trust.

Blackhawk players see their management claim the team made $409,000 in arena revenue last season - an average spending spree of 61 cents per night by every customer. They voted to ratify the owners' proposal, but that doesn't mean they believe them. Meanwhile, the owners look at the union's stance, digest some of the verbal attacks, and wonder if this fight has ended or just begun.

Moreover, half the owners are mad at the other half, and there will be many a chilly dressing room in the NHL too. One player's ballot could alter a teammate's future, and if a left winger skated for dollars elsewhere during the lockout while his center stayed home, how will these different agendas affect team chemistry? Which comes first the uniform or the union?

Hockey's chance to grow hasn't been destroyed, only interrupted. The owners stopped the games, and the players restarted them, but the fans, who never had a vote, kept the faith. Do they get an apology, or just a bill?