Friday, January 14, 2005

Is NHL headed to Ice Age?

Lockout could cause irreparable damage to sport if one or more seasons are wiped out

By Bob Wojnowski / The Detroit News

Shrinking fan base If the NHL settled the labor dispute tomorrow, would you watch or go to the games? Yes Yes, but fewer than before No, I'm done with the NHL No, I didn't follow hockey to begin with Get results and comments Error processing SSI file Error processing SSI file Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

TROY--So this is how it ends, huh? Two women, faces pressed to the glass, stare at the ice. One, holding a camcorder, waves and yells, 'Stevie, look over here!'

In the stands, another half-dozen people watch impassively. In the hallway outside Rink 3 at Troy Sports Center, older men and younger kids walk by, heading to games and workouts of their own.

Kris Draper glides past Steve Yzerman and skates in on a partial breakaway. As Yzerman yells "No!", Draper is stuffed at the net and flails his arms in frustration. The shouts echo, reverberating as noise does in an empty arena.

So this is how it ends for the NHL as we know it, a league that barely a decade ago was branded, on the cover of Sports Illustrated, hotter than the NBA. Now it's pushed to obscure corners, out of sight and slipping from mind, hope fading by the hour.

Today, the NHL Board of Governors was supposed to meet, a last-ditch chance to reach a settlement. The meeting was scratched. The lockout has gobbled up more than half the season with no deadline, no announcement and no talks planned. If the season doesn't start by early February, it isn't likely to start at all.

There are small pockets of hope, mostly among the players, and theoretically, there could be behind-the-scenes progress. But few in hockey believe the season will be saved. Many suggest at least half of next season also will be lost.

Apparently, it will wither away, scattered by stupidity, greed and apathy. It's sad. It's pathetic. And for anyone who loves hockey, it's unbelievably dangerous.

"Basically, we're putting the sport in the Dark Ages," Draper said after the practice with teammates and other NHL players. "This is uncharted water for a professional sport. Who knows how long it'll take to come back from this. People will find other things to do, that's the scary part. I really fear for what will happen to the game."

The potential damage might just be dawning on everyone. In a recent USA Today-CNN-Gallup poll of sports fans, 50 percent said they wouldn't be disappointed if the NHL season were canceled.

That's staggering. So is this: Cable TV ratings have gone up without hockey, replaced by an assortment of fringe events. That's where hockey is headed -- from the verge to the fringe.

"We're all wondering," Nicklas Lidstrom said. "I think fans will come back here eventually, but in other cities, they're going to have a tough time. Other things take over. You watch ESPN2 now and all you see is poker."

Well, that makes sense -- hockey supplanted by high-stakes poker. The difference between the card game and this showdown is simple. In hockey's version of poker, nobody's bluffing, and nobody wins.

I think some players were naive heading into this, figuring the owners would blink as they always have. Conversely, the owners and Commissioner Gary Bettman have been obstinate in their quest for a salary cap, without even considering a strict luxury tax, raising the notion they want to break the players union and create a scaled-down NHL.

Bettman and Players Association Executive Director Bob Goodenow have become too adversarial to be productive, which is a shame. In nasty situations like this, face-saving becomes more important than game-saving.

So a season fades away as most predicted it would, and in many places, the silence is stunning. Former Wing Sean Avery, now with the Los Angeles Kings, said people approach him in L.A. and ask how the season is going, oblivious to the stoppage.

If hockey was a troubled $2.1-billion business before the lockout, what will it be a year later, when season-ticket holders have their money back, when sponsors have departed, when arenas are hosting dog shows and circuses?

"That's why I have a hard time believing the season will be canceled," the Wings' Derian Hatcher said. "The owners are smart businessmen. If it gets canceled, you don't even know how long it'll last because I doubt anything would happen over the summer. I think the players understand hockey isn't baseball or football or basketball. But I don't know where it goes from here."

Nobody knows because this has never happened, a major professional sport in this country on the brink of a year-long absence. Detroiter Peter Karmanos Jr., who owns the Carolina Hurricanes, said the other day it was his "gut feeling" the season was lost, and he'd be willing to risk losing another.

The really scary part is, once a season is canceled, it only gets worse. Players lose money never to be regained. Owners assume a hard cap will solve everything, but once the product is devalued, customers rightly will demand lower prices.

Sure, players could cave and accept a cap. But as irresponsible as NHL owners have been, I understand the players' mistrust. When they offered a 24-percent salary rollback and it barely stirred Bettman, it was obvious the owners want complete victory or nothing.

So this is how it ends, huh? One of the people at the rink the other day was Tommy Woolsey, owner of Andrews on the Corner, a popular downtown restaurant-bar. He's surviving, although hockey crowds comprised about a third of his business. It's tough, but he knows he's not the only one hurting.

Inside the cramped dressing room in Troy, where Red Wings mingled with average guys, Draper fought frustration. He was coming off his best NHL season, perhaps on the verge of stardom. Now he skates for fun and to stay in shape, just in case.

"Until I wake up one day and hear the news that it's over, I'm maintaining hope," Draper said. "It might be foolish hope, but I'm holding onto it."

With that, he headed out, past the Coke machine with the giant Hockeytown logo, past the youth-hockey office with the sign-up sheet for "Future Wings," out of the empty rink and into a cold, miserable rain.

Bob Wojnowski's column appears regularly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. You can reach him at wojofan@aol.com.