If you’re like me, when the NHL announced the lockout you went from checking TSN (or RDS, or ESPN, or wherever you get your sports news) daily, to every few days, to once a week, to once in a while when you were bored, to not at all by December. By the time the World Juniors rolled around I had pretty much given up hope on an NHL season, so boy was I surprised to see them reach an agreement and get everything rolling for the January 19th start of a 48 game season.
Now, let’s be real for a second (not too real). We all have our opinions about the lockout and want to accuse one side or the other of being greedy since they’re all millionaires (or at less make a few hundred thousand a year) and so on and so forth. However, none of us are in their shoes. I know that at work I would be pissed off if my bosses wanted to reduce my salary by even a few cents and I know that if I ran a business I would be pissed off if my employees were making more money than I was. In the end, you can have your opinion and in the end both sides were probably in the wrong on some points and in the right on others.
In Montreal we at least have the solace of knowing that our team owner, Geoff Molson, was almost assuredly opposed to the lockout from the get-go? Why? Well, Mr. Molson sells beer. You know what people do when they watch hockey? They drink beer. From ordering a few pints at a bar, to paying insanely inflated arena prices for a beer, to picking up a 24 to watch the game with friends, hockey fans drink a lot of beer. Multiply all that by 30 cities and you have a pretty substantial loss. A loss that Molson Coors tried to mitigate by seeking compensation directly from the NHL. To think Geoff Molson was on board with this owner induced lockout is insane.
Anyhow, there are a lot of sports blogs you can read that will be talking about the makeup of the team, the possibility of seeing Galchenyuk take the ice, Emelin’s big hits, Markov being healthy, etc. However, that’s not what I’m gonna talk about. I’m going to talk about the Top 5 Not Really Hockey Related Things to Be Excited About: ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
