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Tom Gulitti: NHL needs NFL-like fan revolt


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http://www.northjers...fan_revolt.html

"Pushed by the bad publicity and the fear that their teams might be the next to lose on a bogus call, the [NFL] owners didn’t want another snap to be taken under those replacement officials and a deal was struck by Wednesday night.

"The next day, the NHL quietly canceled the remainder of its preseason schedule. With the Oct. 11 start to the regular season less than two weeks away, it won’t be long before regular-season games are canceled, too.

"As upsetting as this is to die-hard hockey fans, casual fans in the U.S. probably won’t even notice the NHL is missing. That in itself is evidence of why the league can’t afford a shutdown like this, but it’s not going to pressure the owners into changing their stance on cutting the players’ share of hockey-related revenue."

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Hard to revolt when the League isn't operational, with the U.S. media not caring, along with the millions of people who do not care about the sport. It is what it is.

He even mentioned it in the last sentence of the article, we are powerless, so why bother writing the article. :whistling:

Edited by Zubie#8
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The referee dispute was over a relative pittance, part of what made it so insulting. This is over the financial future of the league - neither side is giving in no matter how loud the fans are. I also don't believe that the NFL was moved to settle because of what happened Monday night, though they did risk curdling the increased interest in the league the longer the dispute dragged on.

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I also don't believe that the NFL was moved to settle because of what happened Monday night, though they did risk curdling the increased interest in the league the longer the dispute dragged on.

lol, so it was just a coincidence there was zero movement before Monday night then all of a sudden two days later they're conducting marathon sessions to ratify a deal and the refs are catching red-eyes to Baltimore? It wasn't 'entirely' because of Monday night, but Monday night was certainly the culmination of disaster upon disaster.

Unfortunately, TG's right, there won't ever be enough of a public outcry to affect the NHL lockout. They won't be talking about the lockout on the Today show.

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lol, so it was just a coincidence there was zero movement before Monday night then all of a sudden two days later they're conducting marathon sessions to ratify a deal and the refs are catching red-eyes to Baltimore? It wasn't 'entirely' because of Monday night, but Monday night was certainly the culmination of disaster upon disaster.

Unfortunately, TG's right, there won't ever be enough of a public outcry to affect the NHL lockout. They won't be talking about the lockout on the Today show.

I guess I should've said the NFL could've very easily continued the lockout - there was no reason, financially, why they should've given in, ratings were up, people were talking about football, even if it was about blown calls and poor procedures. The one thing few people talked about with the replacement officials was the possibility of fixing games - that specter was probably raised with that call. That would have an enormously negative impact on the NFL.

I don't think that the NFL was going to lock out the referees indefinitely and that even if there weren't a calamitous bad call this sequence would've played out.

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i can't find where i read it, but it was actually floated that had the nfl ref lockout gone another 3 weeks, vegas was going to consider actually taking the games off the board because home teams were covering too much as refs were influenced by the home crowds. amazingly, that would have absolutely hurt revenues for the league.

futhermore, it is believed that old school owners (think mara, rooney, etc) were disgusted with goddell's handling of the ref lockout because of the black eye it put on the league.

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i can't find where i read it, but it was actually floated that had the nfl ref lockout gone another 3 weeks, vegas was going to consider actually taking the games off the board because home teams were covering too much as refs were influenced by the home crowds. amazingly, that would have absolutely hurt revenues for the league.

futhermore, it is believed that old school owners (think mara, rooney, etc) were disgusted with goddell's handling of the ref lockout because of the black eye it put on the league.

If only the NHL had a few owners who thought the same way about the lockout.

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don't fool yourself - there are several owners who would've been fine to keep the CBA for the most part - illich, dolan and snider to name 3.

I can believe it, but that's different than being concerned that the potential cancellation of another entire season would give the league a black eye.

As a fan, one can't help but wonder, are their any respected NHL owners out there who are dead-set against a hard and fast lockout simply because they think it is bad for the game?

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I can believe it, but that's different than being concerned that the potential cancellation of another entire season would give the league a black eye.

As a fan, one can't help but wonder, are their any respected NHL owners out there who are dead-set against a hard and fast lockout simply because they think it is bad for the game?

no, i don't think so. there are no "first families" of the NHL anymore like there are with the rooneys and maras of old and the tisch's and krafts of new. maybe illich. but dolan, jacobs, wirtz - the notion of "keepers of the league" is completely lost on them.

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