Newsday columnist Evan Weiner takes a look at the
economic impact of the lockout on cities with NHL teams. "A hockey team," he says, "even one with an illustrious reputation like the Rangers, is a small business."
Aside from this unsubstantiated claim that the Rangers have "an illustrious reputation," Weiner has a point. If his numbers are accurate, team and arena employees number fewer than you might guess, and a lot of them — "the people who work the games — the ticket takers and vendors — are per diem employees with no benefits."
The financial losses that citizens of NHL towns will suffer in the absence of this hockey season, Weiner says, is minimal. The real cost is the incalculable one borne by fans. He quotes the U.S. Conference of Mayors, who came to the same conclusion: "Work stoppages in sports have little to no aggregate economic impact on the cities, though there is certainly a social impact."
By the way, Weiner leads with the sarcastic claim that commissioner Gary Bettman "has garnered a tremendous amount of sympathy for the owners in the battle for the hearts and minds of hockey fans — at least according to the
NHL Web site." It's true that NHL.com is useless as a source of informed opinion about the lockout — and I guess it's to be expected. It's the bosses' PR outlet, after all. I do use the site as a source of League news, though, when I need schedules or scores, so I've had plenty of opportunities to be annoyed after something entirely newsworthy happens — a bench-clearing fight, a blown call — and I see that it's completely absent from the official story as reported by NHL.com. Too often, they won't even comment on events that put the League in a different light than they prefer. Instead, they just act like it didn't happen, whatever it was.
Likewise, it bothers me that the official season-end videotapes and DVDs put out by the League are so infuriatingly
neutral. As we all know, a fight can be a turning point in a game, a series, or a season, but you won't usually see one on these tapes — and if you do, the voiceover sure as hell won't tell you that you're seeing justice served for one combatant's dirty play. They act like neither player is in the right or in the wrong, but they both simply
are, and violent conflict is a natural phenomenon ebbing and flowing over them like the sea over tidal pools.