I know it's finally over and we're stuck with a half a season but as puck drop approaches I'm going to say what I'm sure is on everyone else's mind.
I'm so sick of the NHL. This was the worst CBA ever, because it could be ten long years until we get to the next round of negotiations. How the hell are the fans supposed to maintain their interest in what matters - the lies, the staredowns, the bad-faith offers, the podiums and lecterns and rumors, the weeks without meetings - with so many games in between lockouts creating a distraction? Don't they know that as kids we dreamed of someday being trapped in a stuffy room with stuffy guys and fighting over money? But instead we have to watch these cattle on skates all winter, every winter. Where's the joy?
Honestly, is there anyone out there who would bother watching the interminable Stanley Cup playoff if it weren't for Gary making his presentations at the end? He's so...suave. They should just treat the playoffs like the draft seedings: Throw the teams into a hat and pick one so Gary can talk more. Even if you don't like the guy, you had to have gotten chills when they made that initial offer in the summer. "We're offering the players 43% of hockey-related revenue." Best highlight video ever.
I'm just begging that one of the two sides is unhappy after eight years so we can ditch this hockey crap and get back to labor strife. And PLEASE NBC can you please televise the next one? How can you ever expect the sport to catch on with the casual fan if you don't show us the action?
It's not even been a full week and I miss it already. I gotta have something to carry me through the next decade. Maybe I'll get my head re-shaped so it looks like Bill Daly's and I'll spend all my days like a 21st-century Bartleby reciting "There's no progress to report" over and over. Yeah, that might help. It's too late in life for me to ever hope to be an NHL spokesman or some other league apparatchik but I can live vicariously, right?