For hockey fans, this year is not what was expected out of the NHL. The NHL lockout continues, with coaches, players and owners all battling over salary and shares in the league and teams. European players, including Russian and German players, have returned home to wait through the lockout as long as they can. The NHLPA (NHL Players’ Association) are still waiting for the deal that can close the lockout and create a satisfactory situation for both sides of the argument.
“I watch ESPN in Germany, and I enjoy watching the hockey games, but because there is a lockout, I can’t watch them anymore,” Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Gymnasium student Matthias Farrenkopf said. “I only have the few German hockey games that come to the stadium in Heidelberg.”
The players and the owners are still contending over what to do, with the players’ union displeased and the owners fighting to create a solution without too much traffic. Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, released another offer on October 17 that included a full season and a salary cap of $59.9 million. The players’ union is not impressed, and because of that, neither are the fans.
With the regular season start date just a week away and almost no hope of making it by then, the NHL looks like it might not have a full season this year. The lockout continues, as it has, until the NHLPA and the owners can reach an agreement for this coming year.
“I want it to end,” Farrenkopf said. “I just hope I get to watch hockey again soon.”
