August And Everything After08/23/2012 11:22 AM - Mike Peck
It’s hard to believe that August is winding down and hockey season is just around the corner.
The big talk of course is the potential lockout that the NHL is facing again this year. I would highly doubt that there will be a season long lockout again, ala 2004, but it’s looking like some of the 2012-13 regular season is going to be lost. From an American Hockey League standpoint, a lockout would make things very interesting. Any player on a two-way contract or an entry level NHL contract (also a two-way contract), could end up in the AHL. So for Rockford, this means potentially that players like Brandon Bollig, Jimmy Hayes, Andrew Shaw, Brandon Saad, Nick Leddy and Marcus Krueger could all end up with the IceHogs to start the season. Of the above list, a few probably would be in Rockford regardless of a lockout. Yes, Rockford would be “stacked”, but so would just about every other AHL team. If and when the CBA issues get resolved, some teams will look drastically different than the team they began the season with. The IceHogs for example, if all six of the above were to play in Rockford during the lockout, up to four or five of them could be gone once resolved. That’s an entire line combination of forwards and defensemen that could be here one day and gone the next. With all that being said, I really hope the NHL does not lockout the players and gets this CBA resolved. Fans of professional sports are growing tired of these lockouts, strikes and whatever else is putting a halt to the leagues. Major League Baseball is the only major league professional sports league that hasn’t threatened or taken action on a lockout in the last calendar year. Reality is, professional sports is a business as is selling cars, running a restaurant, running a grocery store, etc. We don’t always view it this way, but the mighty dollar is what it all boils down to. Another reality is that we, as sports fans, always come back. Have you heard anyone gripe over the potential lockout of the NFL last summer? How many people truly are staying away from baseball now since the strike of 1995? Hopefully everyone agrees that the best NHL is an NHL that is balanced financially. I don’t know the ins and outs of the current CBA and have no clue if owners are truthful about their financials, but hopefully this CBA gets resolved and my favorite league doesn’t get shutdown again. |
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