SportsFanMagazine.com Editor-in-Chief Urges NHL Owners to "Bring on the Scabs!"

SportsFanMagazine.com Editor-in-Chief, James J. Patterson, takes a firm stand for National Hockey League (NHL) fans throughout the United States and Canada, with the potential of losing a complete season, he strongly advocates NHL owners to "Bring on the Scabs!"

Bethesda, MD (PRWEB) September 18, 2004 -- SportsFanMagazine.com Editor-In-Chief, James J. Patterson, takes a firm stand for National Hockey League (NHL) fans throughout the United States and Canada, with the potential of losing a complete season, he strongly advocates NHL owners to Bring on the Scabs!"

As posted on www.SportsFanMagazine.com, Patterson writes that the National Hockey League (NHL) should put a limit on how long they will be willing to entertain negotiations with the National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA), who have, for more than a year, been sitting on their hands and refusing to own up to the role they have to play in the NHLs problems or any role they have in finding possible solutions to those problems.

Patterson further states:

We believe the NHL should set a date, December 1, 2004, that training camp doors will open for tryouts for replacement teams and players who still want to play in the NHL, and that over the Christmas holidays, as a gift to the fans, the NHL should resume play and charge only movie ticket prices to see those replacement games. And the games should count.

The players have to face the reality that network television is not going to step in and pay their salaries like they do in the other big three sports. The NHL took a calculated gamble ten years ago when they inked the last deal with the Players Association, that a subsequent deal with the networks would save ownership from the atrocious salary bind ownership was getting into. Now there is a new no-money deal with NBC, and a virtual cut-back on ESPN that ought to be sending shock waves of horror through the union. But the union seems oblivious. It is tickets at the door that pay the freight in this league, and there is only so much salary pressure a market like that will bear.

Our goal here at SportsFanMagazine.com is to see better hockey for lower prices, but no hockey at all is completely unacceptable. We are willing to give it a couple of months, but that is it. We think the league should be starting the season on time with replacements, but the NHL is bending over backwards to give the process time to get started. The problem is, ownership is the only side with a plan. The players are living in a Fools Paradise that should, rightfully, end -- as soon as possible.

So let owners and players have at it, but sooner or later the league will have to assert its authority over its own business, say, Enough is enough!" and Bring on the Scabs!"

For a compete transcript of James Pattersons position paper titled "The SportsFan Magazine Plan to Save the NHL, Part II", please visit: http://www.sportsfanmagazine.com/content/view/775/29/

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