Fans Upset with NHL Lockout

Author's Note: This article was written on Oct. 3, 2012 for my journalism class. Since then major changes have occurred in the NHL labour negotiations. 

    Hockey fans are upset with the NHL for locking out the players union and potentially cancelling the season.  

            “They’re wasting their time,” Adrian Laginski, an entrepreneur, said. “Most people make $40,000, not $4 million.” 

                        The NHL locked out its players at midnight on Sept.15 after the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the union expired.

            This was the same agreement that resolved the previous lockout which saw the entire 2004 season get cancelled.

            Ana Vayak Zunko came to Canada from Croatia for her honeymoon and was only able to see the Hockey Hall of Fame.

            “It sucks because this is my first time in Canada,” the university marketing professor said. “I wanted to see a game.”

            Dimitria Germanakos, an assistant law clerk, offered a solution to the problem.

            “If the league is making money then the players should get some of it,” she said.

            Last year the NHL reported revenues of $3.3 billion, up from $2.2 billion in 2004.

The main disagreement of the negotiation has been which side gets the earnings.

The players collected 57 per cent of the revenues last season but the owners want some of that cash.

After meetings on Tuesday in New York City, the sides seem to be far from agreeing.

But until they do, fans will continue to be angry.

“(They are) a bunch of spoiled, rich people,” Wayne MacNeil, a retired Thunder Bay resident said. “I’d love the fans to boycott.”  

All interviews were conducted in Brookfield plaza and the Hockey Hall of Fame store.