NHL

Silence about NHL
lockout is deafening

Labor talks would progress if
politicians, business leaders cared

Alex Wong / Getty Images file

Sen. John McCain spoke out against steroids in baseball but has said nothing about the NHL lockout. NBCSports.com contributor Evan Weiner wonders why.

COMMENTARY

By Evan Weiner

NBCSports.com contributor

updated 11:24 p.m. ET Jan. 18, 2005

One of the more fascinating aspects of the National Hockey League's lockout is how quiet politicians, civic leaders and labor unions have been as the dispute drags on.

The NHL owners began their lockout last spring, when both individual teams and owners began firing front office employees preparing for the Sept. 15 lockout. At that time, there was no talk about how people were losing their jobs from politicians, who were offering any solution that came into their head to solve baseball's steroid problem. There has been a deafening silence from mayors, including New York's Michael Bloomberg, Los Angeles' Jim Hahn, Chicago's Richard Daley, Philadelphia's James Street and their smaller NHL city counterparts, about the lockout, which is entering its fifth month.

Mayors and governors also produce various studies and show all types of positive numbers and economic grown patterns to justify municipal spending to build multi-million-dollar stadiums and arenas for teams and leagues. So it should follow that the 24 cities in the U.S. which host NHL teams have lost money from the .lockout. Yet where is the outrage from political leaders?

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U.S. Senator John McCain threatened punish the Major League Baseball Players Association and impose steroid testing on baseball players if they and the baseball owners didn't come up with a steroid testing plan. The Arizona Republican claimed he and his colleagues in Congress could impose mandatory testing on the players, because Major League Baseball fell under his purview as interstate commerce.

Under that thinking, McCain should be imposing his considerable weight and influence to finding a solution for the NHL. But McCain has been mute on the lockout, despite the fact that the NHL's Coyotes are in Glendale, Ariz., and that Glendale Arena employees and area businesses have lost money because there are no games been played.

Business and union leaders have said even less. As part of the argument for bringing in a franchise or building a new arena, team owners or politicians always recruit business leaders to tote the benefits of having a franchise. Business leaders parrot the line of politicians who claim that sports teams and arenas/stadiums are economic linchpins that create jobs, business opportunities and a good feeling among the area's population who root, root, root for the home team. Why are those business leaders so mute?

Why are union leaders so quiet? In some NHL cities, union members are losing money because there are no games. Yet no one from the AFL-CIO or other trade unions has said a word about the lockout.

Does anyone except for some scattered fans really care? If the NHL or sports in general are economic linchpins, why is there no outside pressure from the White House and the Bush administration to end this dispute?

What is even more baffling is that Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has not put enormous pressure on the owners and players to get the sides together at his Ottawa offices like President Bill Clinton did in early 1995 after the Major League Baseball Players Association went on strike.

"There's only a role for Ottawa if the parties want it," Martin told CBC television in December. "There's not a role for Ottawa if Ottawa simply goes in there and says to either the players' association or the owners, ‘Look now, here we come.’ ”

Hockey may not attract an across the board fan base, but if you look strictly at TV numbers, its audience is not much smaller than Major League Baseball or the NBA, and the league is a multi-billion dollar industry. It will be interesting to see the general reaction of politicians, business and labor leaders if the NBA locks out its players July 1, and in two years when the baseball owners and players will be embroiled in a labor negotiations. Will there be action or just silence?

Evan Weiner is a radio commentator on "The Business of Sports."