Dad, what's a Lockout?

Dad, what’s a Lockout?

‘Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king,
and the king ain’t satisfied till he loses everything……’
Bruce Springsteen
Badlands

You have to love it when your nine year old son asks questions that make you think harder about things than you usually do.

This one wasn’t quite as challenging as “Where do babies come from?” But none the less was just about as difficult to answer.

There has been so much talk in the media about the pending NHL lockout so I guess at some point I was going to be asked.

I tried to answer him as best I could. Now keep in mind being a former player and a player representative during two work stoppages, I am pretty biased. But trying to be a good Dad I thought I would try to explain the situation as best I could giving both sides of the argument.
I think I may have failed miserably… Here is how it kind of went:

“Dad, what is a lockout?”

“Well son, the owners of the teams and the players don’t have a working agreement that the owners like so they have the right to lock the players out from playing.”

“Doesn’t anyone else have keys to the rinks to get in to play???”

“No son, it is not that simple. The owners don’t want to pay the players as much to play. They want to reduce their salaries. Sort of if like Mom and I wanted to pay you less allowance we would lower it to a level we felt was fairer.”

“Don’t get any ideas…..”

So they are not going to have a season until they agree on something. They will eventually.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“So when will we see a game again?”

“I don’t know.”

“That stinks. But Dad, don’t they sign contracts or something? Those guys are the best players in the world….they should get paid good.”

“Well, they do. Really well. And they just want to continue to get paid well.”

“So then the guys who own the teams won’t play the games at their rinks?”

“Right.”

“But don’t they make money from the games?”

“Yes, but they want a better deal.”

“Gotcha. Well if they pay the guys less, when we go to the games the popcorn is going to be cheaper!”

“Well, maybe not. They have a lot of expenses and a lot of people to pay.”

“Hey yea, what about the Zamboni drivers?”

“What about them?”

“Do they still have jobs if they don’t have ice to do?”

“Good question.”

“What about the refs? They’ll probably find some other games to ref, right? Maybe they will do some of ours!”

“Maybe.”

“So the players want to keep playing, and the owners make money on the games, but they aren’t going to play the games…..I don’t get it.”

“It is very confusing for everyone.”

“What about the Stanley Cup?”

“What about it?”

“Do the Kings get to keep it and keep taking it to their homes?”

“No, they have to probably give it back.”

“To who?”

“The league I guess.”

“So the owners own the cup?”

“I never thought of it like that but I guess they do.”

“But the players win it……”

“Yes they do. Can we get back to your first question?”

“So no one gets paid, no one gets to watch hockey and the owners teams don’t get to play each other. That’s a Lockout.”

“You got it.”

“This is stupid. The players should just go play somewhere else.”

“Some of them will. They will go to Europe to keep playing.”

“Wow, Europe is far. They should start their own league here…….”

“Well, it’s not that easy. The NHL is so big and powerful. It would be impossible to recreate. It’s like a Monopoly kind of.”

“Ooh, Monopoly is awesome!!! Especially if you land on Boardwalk or Park Place……”

Good talk son……

Let’s just hope both sides pass Go and collect their $200.00 soon.

 

Kerry Huffman
www.platinumhockey.net
khuffman5@gmail.com

Twitter  @khuffman5