Dad, what's a Lockout?

Dad, what’s a Lockout?

‘Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king,
and the king ain’t satisfied till he loses everything……’
Bruce Springsteen
Badlands

You have to love it when your nine year old son asks questions that make you think harder about things than you usually do.

This one wasn’t quite as challenging as “Where do babies come from?” But none the less was just about as difficult to answer.

There has been so much talk in the media about the pending NHL lockout so I guess at some point I was going to be asked.

I tried to answer him as best I could. Now keep in mind being a former player and a player representative during two work stoppages, I am pretty biased. But trying to be a good Dad I thought I would try to explain the situation as best I could giving both sides of the argument.
I think I may have failed miserably… Here is how it kind of went:

“Dad, what is a lockout?”

“Well son, the owners of the teams and the players don’t have a working agreement that the owners like so they have the right to lock the players out from playing.”

“Doesn’t anyone else have keys to the rinks to get in to play???”

“No son, it is not that simple. The owners don’t want to pay the players as much to play. They want to reduce their salaries. Sort of if like Mom and I wanted to pay you less allowance we would lower it to a level we felt was fairer.”

“Don’t get any ideas…..”

So they are not going to have a season until they agree on something. They will eventually.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“So when will we see a game again?”

“I don’t know.”

“That stinks. But Dad, don’t they sign contracts or something? Those guys are the best players in the world….they should get paid good.”

“Well, they do. Really well. And they just want to continue to get paid well.”

“So then the guys who own the teams won’t play the games at their rinks?”

“Right.”

“But don’t they make money from the games?”

“Yes, but they want a better deal.”

“Gotcha. Well if they pay the guys less, when we go to the games the popcorn is going to be cheaper!”

“Well, maybe not. They have a lot of expenses and a lot of people to pay.”

“Hey yea, what about the Zamboni drivers?”

“What about them?”

“Do they still have jobs if they don’t have ice to do?”

“Good question.”

“What about the refs? They’ll probably find some other games to ref, right? Maybe they will do some of ours!”

“Maybe.”

“So the players want to keep playing, and the owners make money on the games, but they aren’t going to play the games…..I don’t get it.”

“It is very confusing for everyone.”

“What about the Stanley Cup?”

“What about it?”

“Do the Kings get to keep it and keep taking it to their homes?”

“No, they have to probably give it back.”

“To who?”

“The league I guess.”

“So the owners own the cup?”

“I never thought of it like that but I guess they do.”

“But the players win it……”

“Yes they do. Can we get back to your first question?”

“So no one gets paid, no one gets to watch hockey and the owners teams don’t get to play each other. That’s a Lockout.”

“You got it.”

“This is stupid. The players should just go play somewhere else.”

“Some of them will. They will go to Europe to keep playing.”

“Wow, Europe is far. They should start their own league here…….”

“Well, it’s not that easy. The NHL is so big and powerful. It would be impossible to recreate. It’s like a Monopoly kind of.”

“Ooh, Monopoly is awesome!!! Especially if you land on Boardwalk or Park Place……”

Good talk son……

Let’s just hope both sides pass Go and collect their $200.00 soon.

 

Kerry Huffman
www.platinumhockey.net
khuffman5@gmail.com

Twitter  @khuffman5

 

Work

Work

“I always love the feel of sweat on my shirt, Stand back son and let a man work.
Let a man work is that so wrong, I woke up this morning shackled and drawn…..”
Shackled and Drawn
Bruce Springsteen

Well, it is one week after Labor Day weekend. There is talk of an upcoming work stoppage in the world of hockey. Two national political conventions are now over and the focal point of both was work (or the lack thereof). A friend of mine emailed me asking about my break from writing my blog. He told me to get back to work. So what better theme to ramble on about than work?

Believe me, doing my blog does not feel like work. It is far from it!
But as we get older the lines get a little blurred between what is work and what we are doing that makes us feel good and proud of ourselves. The whole definition of work seems to change as time marches on.
I have had good jobs, I have had bad jobs.  I have worked with some good companies, worked with some not so good companies.  Sometimes it felt like I was working, sometimes it didn’t. There were times when I wasn’t working that it seemed like I was working my ass off to find work.  Recently in a mild mid- life crisis, I decided I would run a marathon this coming November. I was told the training was going to be a lot of work. An incredible amount of work. I am now working up to over 20 mile runs. But guess what? The work has morphed into love and passion. I can’t wait to workat it most mornings.

So then what really is work? Well I am sure everyone is entitled to feel any way they want about it or describe it as they choose.
I kind of look at it like this.

I work in order to be, not simply exist. To work is human. Work opens the door to the meaning of life and stops it from being boring and dull. Work is being creative.
I used to think work was a burden. Something I had to get through. Something I had to do for money or security.
If you feel that way you are missing the creative dynamic of work and how it can enable you to feel good about yourself. If we’re lucky enough, we try to shape our work to fit our lives……
Ok, that is deep enough. This is supposed to be a fun hockey blog. So how does all this relate to hockey? I’ll give it a try.

There was always times when I played during the season when the game felt like work. Boy was I wrong. It was challenging for sure but age has taught me that something you love doing that much should never be called work. I hope as parents and coaches we pass that along to our young players. They have their whole lives to figure out what they are going to do for work, AFTER they are done PLAYING.

Players are described as having incredible work ethics. Is it work ethic or do they just love being good, the feeling of getting better, and are willing to endure challenging times to achieve that feeling?

How many times after a hockey game have you seen a team win and the coach gets up in front of a microphone and blurts, “We deserved to win tonight, we outworked them…..” If you ask any pro player they will tell you it always feels more like fun than work when you win. The work feels like it comes during losing streaks…..
So here’s something for the young coaches out there, just a suggestion. Try encouraging your players “to out funthe other team tonight!” It’s worth a shot. It seemed to work with our mite team at times last year….

And one more thing on the topic…..

Let’s all pray that there won’t be a work….I mean a funstoppage in the NHL again this year…….