The reputation of the NHL is already piss poor, the only thing that makes it worse is your beloved commish stepping to the podium and announcing that the season is canceled. Any momentum the NHL has in gaining most of these southern markets has been obliterrated. This is the work of Gary Bettman. Maybe if the product on the ice was better to watch, maybe if it was more attractive to a casual person, the casual fan would pay attention more. When the playoffs were on the NHL had a lousy marketing scheme for it (actually they has no marketing scheme). Commercials on ESPN had boring workers at a plant which was a boring commerical vs. the NBA having the Black Eyed Peas remaking one of the biggest songs of the year along with some former greats and Carlos Santana on it. What the hell is that? This is all a joke, and the sport won't get better until the commishioner starts taking the sport seriously. He is entrenched on this salary cap and nothing else. In reality, we're in this mess because Bettman has dnoe nothing but hurt the sport since he walked into the door. He was more concerned with expanding to the south, and keeping up with the other sports to get to a magical 30 teams. He gave teams to markets without ever truly making sure they were viable markets for hockey.
To suggest that franchise values will be made up in a short time is dilusional at best. Maybe if some of these teams had proper marketing schemes, sane business people, exposure, just some competance by the caretaker of the sport we wouldn't be in this mess, and the sport would be thriving. None of this has to do with player salaries, if it was that much of an issue 5 years ago when the owners supposedly wanted to start talking a new deal, maybe they shouldn't have given guys outrageous salaries. And now we are on the verge of doing something not even baseball has done, and that is cancel an entire season. We all saw what happened to baseball and that is America's pasttime, they still haven't completely recovered and it's 10 years later. What happens to a sport in America that's not even one of the top 4 or 5 sports as it is? It goes down the toilet is the answer and will probably be as popular cricket is.
You can take whatever side you want in CBA neogeotiations, but the fact of the matter is we're in this mess because of Gary Bettman. The players have nothing to do with all the things I just mentioned that Gary Bettman has done. Now if there is no season, you will see empty arenas. It's not because angry fans are boycotting the sport, it's because they could really care less. There were really only 3 markets doing any kind of good in the south, one is Los Angeles (they were always up and down), one is Tampa Bay (only because they won a Stanley Cup), and one is Dallas (won a Stanley Cup, but is also legitmatelly developing a viable hockey market, they have built about 25 new ice rinks, has good attendance rates and one of its hockey programs called the Texas Tornado has developed legit NHL prospects and sent them to division I hockey schools). Other than that you have Gary Bettman trying to force hockey down the throats, most of which probably don't really want it, lost a ton of money, and it's because of these markets that most people would argue shouldn't have hockey, that we are in this lockout, because fans don't care because frankly the product is not as good as it was in the 80's, teams don't make money, and therefore they want to complain they can't afford to comepete with the teams in the North.
It's really quite simple. I don't call myself pro-PA, even though I do lean to their side. I lean to their side for one reason, and that is because the owners have put in control of the sport, their business venture, a complete and utter imbicile who has absolutely no idea what he is doing.