More important than a pension fund. More important than contract lengths. More important than the salary cap. More important than the definition of hockey related revenue. The most important thing that needs to be established from this lockout mess is trust.
The days leading up to the final resolution in the spat between the National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association were spent with both parties four blocks apart in New York City. Federal mediator Scot Beckenbaugh, who will undoubtedly drink for free for the rest of his life, went back and forth between both parties because the players couldn’t trust the owners enough to be in the same room.
In the days prior the league reneged on provisions they had promised and almost doomed the whole damn thing and the whole season. Both sides, seeing the importance of what they were doing, kept talking. If not for the efforts of Beckenbaugh everything could have fallen apart.
Over the next 10 years there won’t be a Scot Beckenbaugh to keep the fragile egos of players and owners in check. Parties from both sides of the trenches need to cross the war zone to forge a new relationship.
Through the whole mess the owners acted like the league should be run like the way Joe McGrath ran the Chiefs in the 1977 movie “Slap Shot” rather than a multi-billion dollar entity. The players come across as heroes. In reality both lie somewhere in the middle.
From here out it can’t be about whose fault it is. Neither side can look at the other with a distrusting eye. Perhaps both sides can by focusing on the fans and the workers who depend on them, the groups really hurt by this lockout, and build a foundation on that.
Mike Hopey is a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and media studies. He can be reached at hopey@mail.usf.edu.
