National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman made official what even the most die-hard fan had already accepted when he announced the cancellation of the 2004-05 NHL season. With this announcement, the NHL becomes the first major professional league in North America to cancel an entire season.  Despite both sides coming off their hard-line stances for cost certainty and against a salary cap, Bettman and NHL Players Association president Bob Goodenow failed to come to a new collective bargaining agreement.  |

Regular visitors to this site know that I am not one to offer my opinion in this space very often, but despite the disappointment of no NHL hockey being played this season I feel this is the best result for a team like the Edmonton Oilers.  Bettman's final offer of a $42.5 million dollar salary cap was not going to address some of the fundamental problems that the league faces today.  Under that arrangement, teams like Toronto, Dallas and Colorado would be able to spend in the neighbourhood of $12 million per year more than the Oilers could afford.  The same problems with inequity of talent would remain, and 'have not' teams like Edmonton would remain feeder teams for the 'have' teams in the larger markets.  Small market fans were promised that this lockout was going to fix these problems with the system, and a $42.5 million cap would have been a slap in the face to fans who have suffered through this lockout for the last six months. Steve's Oilers Web Site will continue to cover any updates related to the team during the ongoing lockout, but it may be a long time before there is any real team news worth mentioning.

The Edmonton Journal ran an article today interviewing me about the effects of the lockout on myself and this website.  Story and photo © 2005 The Edmonton Journal.

Diehard Oilers fans find lockout's silver lining
Quality family time, new-found hobby, provide substitute for NHL
 

JASON SCOTT, THE JOURNAL

Steve Potter, his wife Claire and sons Ryan, 4, and Adam, 8, have turned to table hockey and their aquarium in the absense of NHL hockey this winter

Bill Mah
The Edmonton Journal

Sunday, January 09, 2005

EDMONTON -- Fifty little fish have replaced the Edmonton Oilers.

With NHL players benched by a lengthy lockout, the job of entertaining diehard fan Steve Potter has fallen to two tankfuls of rainbowfish, discus, kribensis, rams, loaches, cories and other tropical fish.

For Potter, the new-found hobby tackles the quandary many Oilers fans face this vanishing season -- what to do with the time and money they once lavished on big-league hockey?

More than most, Potter suddenly finds himself flush with extra cash and spare time.

A systems analyst with the city of Edmonton, he used to devote an hour a night updating his unofficial Oilers website with details on everything from training camp performances to trades.

Like the NHL, the website has ground to a halt.

"I put a disclaimer on there saying that any news would be posted, but there just hasn't been anything to say."

The lockout has also denied him the games he attends using season's tickets he shares with friends and the televised games he watches with his sons Ryan, 4, and Adam, 8.

"That's in the neighbourhood of 60 hockey games you don't watch. That's a lot of time freed up in the evenings."

But in what he calls the lockout's silver lining, Potter's spending more time with his family in and out of their Spruce Grove home.

Steve finds himself playing video games and table hockey with the boys and watching DVDs with his wife Claire. The family has taken more outings together, including lots of shopping trips and an excursion to Edmonton's Provincial Museum.

That's not to say Steve hasn't found other ways to get his hockey fix. He bought season's tickets to the Spruce Grove Saints, the Alberta Junior Hockey League team that moved from St. Albert last year.

In some ways, the junior games deliver more fun than the Oilers, he says.

Without TV timeouts, the games zip along and the juniors often shame their major-league counterparts when it comes to effort.

"It's hit or miss when you go to an Oilers game whether the guys are going to feel like showing up."

Reaping the savings

He estimates he would have spent about at least $500 attending Oilers games if the lockout hadn't occurred.

"If you're going to an Oilers game, you're staying in the city to go out for dinner. You're paying for the parking and something from the concession. That's not necessary with the team in Spruce Grove now."

Edmonton autobody shop owner Doug Bailey also reaps savings from a dormant pair of premium season's tickets. It's like finding money in an old coat pocket -- lots of money, several times a month.

"There's definitely opportunities to use the money that you would normally spend on parking, eating and just a few beers," says Bailey. "That money is getting used up wisely."

He's buying tools and equipment for a second autobody shop he's building.

The play stoppage provides intangible benefits too. He now spends Saturday nights -- normally, Hockey Night in Canada night -- visiting his mom or curling in a recreational league. The physical exercise is something he wouldn't normally get, he admits.

Oiler fans aren't sitting on their wallets moping over lost games, says a recreation and physical education professor at the University of Alberta.

Dan Mason, completing a three-year study of sports economics, says the NHL shutdown might be hurting businesses like sports bars, but fans find lots of ways to spend what they would have dropped on the Oilers.

"I don't think there's any perfect substitutes for NHL hockey, so the impact of that money is dispersed all over the economy," Mason says.

"You may have people who decide to go to Marmot Basin for a weekend and ski or you may have people who decide to go to more movies."

Both Famous Players and Cineplex Odeon theatre chains report bigger crowds during the lockout. The Alberta Junior Hockey League says attendance jumped about six per cent this year. The Edmonton Art Gallery announced a 30-per-cent increase in visitors over the previous year.

It's hard to say if the increases are directly related to the NHL dispute, but Mason says they're among the many activities people might substitute for the Oilers.

Fans will return to game

"Perhaps people don't miss them as much as they thought they would," Mason says.

And despite Oiler fans rediscovering their families, new hobbies and recreational sports, Mason predicts they'll return to the stands when play resumes.

"In some respects, the citizens of Edmonton see it as more of their responsibility to support the team to make sure it stays."

But fans Bailey and Potter say the Oilers can't survive with players being paid what they were before the lockout began. If the salaries don't change, there's a good chance the fans won't return, they say.

"I'm stuck on the salaries," says Bailey. "Suddenly now, I've had too much time to think about it. When you're all caught up going to the games, you're not thinking about that."

Potter reasons that it's pointless to back a team doomed by dizzying costs.

"If the owners win the battle, then I'd probably return and be as great a fan as ever," Potter says.

"But if they capitulate to the players, I don't think so. That's inevitably going to cost Edmonton the team."