NHL Season Cancelled

Well for the first time in professional sports a league has actually cancelled it's entire season in the past decade baseball, hockey, and basketball all had to contend with lockouts and strikes. But either the season was delayed or postseason was cancelled. But the league just checked itself out of an entire season.

There are a lot of sports fan who complain about the outrageous amount of money these professional athletes make. Somehow though the players have issues and any agreement that is failed to be hammered is a loss for the fans. As you know in 1994 hockey had a lockout and they wound up playing a half season only cancelling the all star game for the 1994-1995 season. I remember watching David Letterman when the NHL started playing again, there was a brief video with hockey players barely able to skate, very funny.

Also the other labor strifes of the past decade includes the 1994 baseball strick which not only cost baseball fans the rest of the 1994 and the playoffs but a few games of the 1995 season (they were even gonna hire some replacement players). In 1998 the NBA had a lockout. The NBA usually doesn't have much labor strife and then the strife hit. This cost the NBA half of the 1998-99 season. The NFL is missing I know but they seem to be the most stable sport right now, their last labor problems occured in the 1980s.

Now I want to discuss the strife that threatened baseball a few years ago. President Bush threatened to get involved and ultimately thank goodness the players and owners made an agreement. In a time in which we're still recovering from the worst foreign attack in US history the loss of that baseball season due to a strike would have not been good for morale at home.

This prompts a lesson in electoral politics. During the baseball labor strife of a few years ago they mentioned President Clinton and how he dealt with baseball. He didn't deal with it. Then some political analysts and reporters who have analyzed this years later have come to the conclusion that angry men went to the polls to express their displeasure at President Clinton for not doing anything about baseball or the very least their displeasure at what was going on in this country at this point.

Some people may not treat the labor problems of a few athletes as serious but it could beg the question of whether this affects elections or anything else.