While Simmons mentions frighteningly offhandedly that the NHL may lose up to 15 teams during the economic crisis, I highly doubt this will be the case. According to NBA attendence statistics (which do, I admit, suffer from the same problems as NHL attendence statistics, in that they are webs of lies), the Thunder are selling at 97 capacity at home. If basketball in Oklahoma City can draw anywhere close to 97 capacity, what would bringing a hockey team to Hamilton do? According to Jim Balsille and his 9,000 season tickets in two days, quite well. There are plenty of spaces willing to support a hockey teams (whether they can be financially viable long term is another question) like Hamilton, Las Vegas, Winnipeg, or even another in Toronto or Minnesota. Long term, a couple teams (read: Panthers, Coyotes, Thrashers, Predators) may contract, which may be embarrassing for the league and a problematic issue amongst the NHLPA and the NHL, but for a hockey fan, isn't contraction been the dream for years? The circumstances may be unfortunate, but the quality of hockey would improve as third liners become fourth liners and teams will be able to avoid giving roster spots to this guy, or this one, or perhaps this one (pictures of Dan Cloutier and Mike Weaver not included). Game quality would go up, violence would go down, and the league would be able to broaden its appeal.
But back to my main point. As Bill Simmons points out, the major flaw in the NBA system is the fact that the players are earning guarenteed money, while the owners are quickly finding their team (and therefore them) is losing money. All too real to a Vancouver Grizzlies fan (and probably all too soon to a Memphis Grizzlies fan) is that sports is a business, and when business ventures fail, the market dries up. If sports become a business that has too high costs, while not making enough revenue (mainly tickets, especially luxury or club suites), investors will look elsewhere. There will always be enough money to save a team with history and a soul, like Maple Leafs and Rangers in hockey, or the Celtics and the Lakers in basketball. But teams with not enough support will be treated like a business and fold.
And this is where my point takes me. Since the NHL adopted a cap system after the lockout, costs have skyrocketed to a point where the cap floor (minimum spending amount) is now above where the cap ceiling was in 2005. This represents not only a salary cap raise of $16 million in 3 seasons. With the league rapidly growing again and the upper limits of the cap not clearly defined, teams went out and signed guys to big money and - more importantly - longer term contracts. Now, similarly with the NBA, these long term contracts are burdening owners, and faced with immobile costs and declining revenue, they have no choice but to move or contract.
But the lockout, as well as its timing, may have saved hockey by allowing the league to grow and a more sustainable pace. Contracts before the lockout were beginning to outpace the league's ability to sustain it (read: Yashins contract in 2001 (10 years, $87.5 million) and the entire NY Rangers team). The ability for richer teams to spend more allowed them to compete among themselves by driving up contracts and further marginalizing the poorer teams. But here's the catch: what if the lockout had been two years earlier? Already in three years we've seen the growing popularity of big money, long-term deals, due to increased competition and the skys-the-limit mentality. Most franchise players have been locked up for 7, or 10, or 12 years, and a medical school cadaver got 15. But if the lockout had happened two years earlier, many organizations would already be done for. As it stands, there are two or three franchises that stand a real possibility of being moved or contracted (if problems don't get worse than they already are.) But if teams had had two more years to throw Ryan Malone figures (7 years, 31.5 million, 34 points) at players like him (read: medicore), there might be as many as 10. A league in this alternate world may have ended up richer, but would have not likely captured the imagination of the casual fan enough to turn them into the three-jersey owning, news-hunting, trade-deadline-day-watching (SO stoked) fan the league needs to avoid losing them when times get tough. In a league where less fortunate teams had been given a better chance to spend first and draw crowds later, it would have effectively worked like a Ponzi scheme and collapsed under its own pile of feces. Some say the lockout saved hockey by bringing back parity and exciting style of play, but it should be remembered for possibly saving it economically.
Five years from now, who knows what the NHL will look like. Maybe there'll be teams in Prague and Moscow, maybe we'll be left with the Original Six, maybe ice will become too expensive and hockey will be played on a big rubber court like Slamball (the more I think about it, the more I like this idea), or maybe Gretz will be forced to put on the skates again and play for the Coyotes in order to save them. But remember: even though the NHL as we know it - the soulless corporate entity that tests our loyalty and profits off our love of the game - may change, our sport will never die.
And last but not least, for your enjoyment, the beloved Blue Jackets mascot, the...something?
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