March

 

30/2005

NHL Meltdown

Champ Farley, OP Contributor

 

f it wasn’t official already, it sure as

hell is now. The NHL officially dis-

solved last Monday as Gary Bettman
and the owners came to the conclusion,
after reviewing the NHLPA’s latest CBA
counter-proposal, that the rift between the
NHL and NHLPA is too large to be
bridged. Following this realization, the
league’s owners decided that the NHL was
no longer an intelligent investment and
therefore chose to disband the league.

Bettman issued the following brief
statement to reporters: “The NHL is no
longer in a position to be a fiscally prosper-
ous investment for our owners, and so I am
announcing the dissolution of the league.
The cancellation of this season, along with
the lack of progress toward a deal for next
season, has made it impossible for our
league to make a profit, and we have there-
fore decided to cut our losses and dissolve
the league. The NHL and its owners wish
to thank and apologize to the fans of the
NHL for their unwavering support of the
sport over the last hundred years.”

Bob Goodenow, the NHLPA’s chief
negotiator in the CBA debacle, has also
issued a statement in which he tries as hard
as he can to shift the blame to Bettman.
Key quotes were, “Bettman’s fault,’ “the
NHLPA tried,” “we felt that things were
looking up,” and “at least I’m not fat like
you, fatty.”

After the official dissolution of the
league, several officials of the NHL, under
orders from the owners, burned down the

Hockey Hall of Fame after melting down
the Stanley Cup into a large silver ingot.
This decision was made in order to erase
memory of the sport as quickly as possible.

However, in a further development,
die-hard fans of the NHL found the once-
famed hunk of silver and kidnapped it in
order to preserve the memory of the sport
they love. The Stanley Hunk of Silver is
now hidden in an undisclosed location, and
the fans have apparently written the names
of their favourite players on it with a
Sharpie.

“The names were all melted, so we just
tried to remember as many as we could,
eh?” said one of the fans in a speaker-
phone interview with me.

“Yeah, eh,” said another, “Gretzky.”

“Lemieux.”

“Bossy.”

“Cujo.”

“Cujo never won the Cup, Greg,”

“Sure he did, eh. He won with
Edmonton.”

“No. No, he didn’t.”

“Maybe it was with Toronto then, eh?”

“Nope. Toronto hasn’t won since
1967."

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Well didn’t he win with...”

Well, you get the idea. The NHL is dead
and its history is in the hands of Bob and
Doug Mackenzie. It’s been a sad week for
sports in Canada.

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