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NHL fosters sense of entitlement
Kootenay Crust
Are you one of the millions of Canadians still wondering how a supposed ‘dream team’ of teenaged hockey players failed to capture a medal in the recent World Junior Hockey Championship?
It was a team led by blossoming NHL star Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and about five or six other young players who would not normally have been playing in the tournament if the NHL had not been embroiled in its fourth petulant ‘labour’ war in 20 years. Yet, despite Nugent-Hopkins’ prodigious support, our best teenagers fell flat on their sleepy faces in Ufa, Russia and, to borrow a phrase that just seems to fit more and more nowadays, ‘shit the bed.’
How could such a stacked team collectively spray their sheets with last night’s dinner?
It’s the NHL’s fault; the owners, managers and coaches, and the fans’ fault. Don’t think for a minute, you poor suffering fools who pitchfork over thousands of your hard earned dollars each hockey season, that you are not to be blamed as well.
Now that the assholes and scumbags (players and owners) have stopped shoving one another and have opted to stop acting like spoiled brats, fans will stream back into NHL arenas, happily forking over a rough average of $100 plus for tickets for the pleasure of seeing their multi-millionaire heroes in action. Within weeks the whining (for those whose teams suck) and the gloating (for those whose teams get hot) and the excuses (for those whose teams shouldn’t suck but do) will be in full flight and the memories of how those same fans were essentially told to “get lost, you’re insignificant and we’ll go play in Europe, taking jobs from our hockey brothers there” (kudos to you Dustin Brown for recognizing and stating that very thing) – will fade like last season’s crummy moment memories.
The non-stop pseudo Reservoir Dogs images of Gary Bettman and his posse of lawyers and weasels walking the streets of Manhattan, on their way to shiv the NHLPA (always seen standing awkwardly behind Donald Fehr, some nervously tapping at Smart phones), or rising from hell on an escalator to nowhere will be forgotten as soon as (insert name of player of your choice) goes end-to-end and removes the gitch of (select Maple Leaf goalie here).
And that, my friends, is a picture of abuse. The NHL and NHLPA are abusers.
They claim to love us, the fans, but in reality are self-centred SOBs who are only looking out for themselves. And who among you think ANY of them, from the lowest grunt moron who shouldn’t even be playing in the AHL but gets NHL money because he’s a knuckle dragging meathead to the wealthiest of the owners who are stupid enough to invest in hockey in markets that don’t even know how to say ‘puck’ without blushing, deserve large slabs of your hard-earned wages.
You probably earn $30,000 or $50,000 a year. Some of you are now rolling your eyes and huffing, “I wish.” Others among you earn much more than but, the fact is, you are still peasants compared to the lowest wage earning player.
And they are all wealthy beyond their – mostly – oft-concussed minds because YOU willingly sacrifice insane percentages of your annual income for the pleasure of being a hockey addict.
Players and owners are parasites who live off the whims of fans and the endless coverage of sports reporters and only now, now that the peeing and moaning has subsided to the sounds of Ts being crossed and Is being dotted and Brian Burke being fired, do we hear such disingenuous hissing from some such as “we’re glad to be getting back to work so all our great fans can get back to fattening our bloated pockets and paying for gambling and other addictions.” Okay, I haven’t heard anyone say that, really… but read between the lines, right Evander?
Or how about that ‘apology’ from Bettman? Glark!
There was a crime committed, again, during this so-called lockout. It was the complete disregard for the employees of NHL teams and arenas.
The players were getting between $10,000 and $15,000 a month in union wages during the lockout. I am sure some started researching how to get EI or welfare. Others just signed in Europe and took jobs from players they took jobs from earlier on in the NHL – and those players tend to be living in a real world, where their wages and compensations are fractional compared to the NHL prima donnas.
How much were the ticket takers, beer slingers, ushers, parking lot attendants, janitors, mascots, front office staff etc. earning during the lockout? How about the myriad of bars and restaurants and merchandise outlets that spring up around NHL arenas like beehives near canola fields? How many thousands were laid off during this time?
But awwwww – hey look, the NHL is back. Let’s all forget about the anger, disappointment, frustration and disgust we’ve felt the last few months and forgive the lugs.
All of this leads me to my original point. It is the NHL’s (and NHLPA’s by association) fault that Canada’s world juniors had their pampered asses handed to them by the Yanks.
Canadian hockey players – most especially those either drafted by NHL teams or on the verge of being drafted – are treated like demi-gods in this country.
There is nothing wrong with kids idolizing heroes, but think about this for a moment. What form of role model are kids idolizing here – if we base things on what has become common NHL practice, which is to stick the fans and support workers the continent over in the face every six or so years, even though they are earning wages up to 1,000 times the average fan?
To the man Jack suiting up for Canada’s WJC team, they all believe they are going to be millionaires and famous athletes and about half of them will become that very thing. They go from being the best player in their minor hockey programs and are placed on elevated stages. Then they become the best players in their junior programs and the elevation continues and then, if they make Canada’s WJC team, they become (thanks to TSN etc.) ‘stars’ and their tiny young minds and egos cannot process the swift devouring they experience.
Soon they are no longer themselves, even the most grounded of them, and they become caricatures and clichés and, sadly for so many of them, prima donnas.
Canada has lost its humble. That is the NHL’s fault. I am not saying our kids didn’t play with heart or try; not at all. For a second, try to fathom what it is like for a 17 to 19-year-old hockey player, who’s had his ego stroked for at least a decade, having to take a nation of 34 million peoples’ expectations on their shoulders, all the while believing the sun shines out their bums.
These kids work hard. Many miss out on other extremely valuable aspects of growing up while they devote themselves to hockey. And some of them are truly exceptional people – good through and through.
Still, the overall picture is what has me worried.
The NHL obviously does not care about the fans. And if I hear the argument the players are just looking out for themselves because they play a hard, violent game – they all need to sit down a spell with hockey players from the bygone era when owners really, well and truly dicked players over, to get a dose of reality.
And then they need to go spend a day selling tickets, or beer, or pointing people where to park in -20 C or sweep the aisles and then try to pay rent and bills and raise their kids on sub $30k a year salaries and THEN find themselves unemployed because the millionaires and billionaires they work for are having pathetic hissy fits over the FANS’ money and in the process, screwing the fans around – again.
The entire hockey picture in this country is broken. We expect to win and when we don’t, we have hissy fits. That comes from elitists’ loss of awareness of what is real. The NHL is now long lost as to what is real.
So don’t blame the kids. Blame the path the NHL and Hockey Canada and, truth to tell, the crazy expectations we fans place on them as well.
But fans can shake off the blame because we pay the freight. That’s how it works in an elitist world.
So don’t go streaming back folks. The parasites have sorted out their nonsense and now they want to climb back aboard the dogs that sustain them – we the fans.
It’s time we sat and shook a spell.
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
