The leaves have turned colors and mostly fallen off the trees, the temperature has dropped, ski resorts are beginning to open and we’ve even seen our first snow. Yet there is a void in my heart.
What is missing from the change of seasons is the start of hockey.
The league is on strike. The league wants to reduce the salary cap to ensure financial security for all 30 teams and the players want to make more money. Unfortunately, what the NHLPA and the league seem to be forgetting are the fans, the ones who pay those high ticket prices and purchase $5 hot dogs during the games.
I’m not for either side, I just want to see professional hockey again – actually I want to see the Toronto Maple Leafs win the cup, but that probably won’t happen any time soon.
Without being able to watch my beloved Leafs, I’m forced to reflect on the good hockey memories I have. I remember my first game at Maple Leaf Gardens.
I couldn’t have been more than 6 when I first saw those lights go off as the noise in the crowd rose and then became a roar as the announcer began to introduce the players. “And starting at center, number 93 Doug Gil…mo…ur.”
The Leafs lost to the St. Louis Blues that night after Brett Hull scored a hat trick. I was convinced that I was a curse and the reason they lost.
In retrospect, they lost a lot of games that year, so apparently they had curses in the stands. Those red-line tickets in the first row of the red section couldn’t have been more than $20 and the big thrill was eating a big pretzel at the first intermission.
When I began junior high school and was allowed to take the subway for the first time, I remember going down to the game with my friends, buying tickets off scalpers for the nose bleed section and cheering so loudly that I couldn’t speak for the next week.
It was a whole day event where we would go down early in the morning for an afternoon game to watch the entire warm-up and hang out at the door next to the dressing room to talk to the players after the game. It could take them hours to shower, get dressed and talk to the media, but it didn’t matter. We would stand in the cold for hours so Wendel Clark could walk by us and say “hey.” We would yell back, “great game Wendel,” to which a trailing response would follow, “thanks, but I really need to run.”
I also remember the last Leafs game I saw. My dad left a message with my high school telling me to meet him at gate 7 of the Air Canada Centre at 6:45 p.m. We had ninth-row blue-line tickets for the steep price of $127 and then paid $20 for dinner, but if you thought any of that mattered you’d be wrong.
During the World Series they showed fathers sitting with their sons and that was the scene that evening. I was 18 years old and taking in a hockey game with my dad.
Unfortunately the two sides in the current dispute have not met for serious talks since the middle of September and it is not looking good for the rest of this season. I’m no expert, but if both sides forget about the fans, hockey will suffer.
Fathers won’t have an excuse to allow their children, especially sons, to stay up into the morning hours because the game went into overtime and sons will be missing out on those big pretzels, while everyone will be missing professional hockey.
I don’t want to say that either side should fold, but both sides must realize that if they want to retain fans, especially in many of the cities where hockey isn’t such a big sport, such as Atlanta or Nashville, owners must open the arenas and players must lace-up.
