38 ~ Wednesday, June 24, 1998 - North Shore News - north shore news © SPORTS Hockey run by Yawners Love, all alike, no season ' knows, nor cline, Nor hours, days, monihs, which are the rags of time. — John Donne WELL done, Donne. ™ Substitute pro sport for love and we've got you where we want you -— telling it as it is as we nudge up to the Millennium starting gate. Pro toorball, Canadian brand, goes to camp in the final blush of spring and sweats its way through sum- Mer, autumn, onto the very doorstep of winter. In the States spring is left to its own devices, but the sound of a punted ball occupies all of summer, autumn, New Year’s Day and another tour weeks of winter after that. Bur there it sits in neutral, at least for the present, with no more territorial ambitions on the calendar. Nor does it have any plans to return any of the wecks stofen from the baseball and hockey seasons. ~ And why should it? The summer pastime and the win- ter pastime not only use up four months of the year over- lapping each other, but between them they totally blanket the foorball season as well. But if what some people in those sports are saying means anything, these nvo games most definitely are not in neutral, Once more hockey has proven it knows how to turn your friendly neighborhood rink into a sauna bath. It goes _ to camp in summer’s last week, consumes all of autumn and winter and almost all of spring as well. Had Washington Capitals been able - to steal just nvo games from Deuroit Red Wings this THOnth, Father’s Day would have been the mother of all Stanley Cup finals: the first time the hockey season made it into the frst day of summer. - °!“Thhank heavens for small metcies. This was the fourth straight year of the ultimate playoff anti-climax — the one- sided four-game sweep. Yawners, Inc., sole proprictor of the Stanley Cup final since 1995, has yet to make a beach head on the summer solstice. Bur it keeps getting, closer. Where the hockey season winds up in a sauna, baseball is just the opposite. It opens its sezson in front of tecth-chat- tering fans in overcoats, who must put then on again in late October to survive the deep freeze World Series, where spitballs arrive at the plate sheathed in ice. ~The late Bill Veeck, one- time owner of the Chicago White Sox, said it all a genera- dion ago: “The season starts too carly, ends too fate and there are too many games in between.” That was back in the 1970s. Since then others in the game have been equally forthright. But you won't hear anyone of note in hockey — i.c., Commissioner Gary Bettman or the team owners —- being this up fronton the — @bvious. Nor was much ever said in the past. Is ir not possi- ble to go back to a 70-game season, ending in mid-March and the plavoffs going no far- ther than the end of Apmil? That question has been asked almost annually tor the past quarter century, And the answer has always been the Same; RO Way. Many of the teams would be in even bigger financial trouble than thev are now. The plea was being copped as far back as the mid-?7"s, when the average NHI salary was a mere $80,000. Today it’s more than a million. At fast count, the NHL fin- ished the season $100 million in the glue, accounted for by ar lease half che 26 teams, includ- ing the Canucks. Indeed, notably the Canucks, who last mont announced a $30 mii- lion ioss. If they go on at this rate, John McCaw just may go broke 50 years from now. McCaw has at least a fight- ing chance to break even with his basketball team. Now accepted as a full member of the NBA after the league ripped them off on TV rev- enue for a couple of years, the Grizzlies’ share of network TV loot was more than USSI8 million for the past season. That's about six times as much as each of the Canucks and their fellow NHL found-ins received. Given the abysmal viewer- ship numbers in the US., both for league and playoff games, added to a sharp drop in CBC viewing, it’s about time Bettman and company started to face reality. To wit: TV will never produce more than a fraction of the loot it bestows on football, baseball and basketball. Thus the second-hand Chevy NHL must stop trying to live the Cadillac lifestyle of those other jockstrap enter- tainments, The best thing it could do this summer is go out of busi- ness, then re-start under a new name — the North American Hockey League perhaps — with a salary cap of no more than $10 million a team, meaning an average wage of no more than $400,000. . Ofcourse the players would mise a merry old fuss. But just tell chem if they think they can make more money skating in the chorus at ice- Capades, then hop to it. Also, it would permit the reams to give the paying custonsers a breax by cutting back the highest admission prices in prufessional ream sport. and speaking, of cutbacks, maybe 9 rerurn to the old 70- game schedule ending in mid- March and a Stanley Cup win- ner by the beginning of May. Can it possibly happen? Just as surely as Donald Brashear can score 60 goals a season. This ts very miidswmmr autduess— Shakespeare, trom Twelfth Nigh. Groups Save BIG on Fun! SAVE UP TO 40% on admission with your group booking. Enjoy great fun. thrills and games at a great price. Catered food packages for your hungry group are also available. Call one of our event planners today j Group Sales to find cut more > > > Pp 251-7752 anid Jonnifer Haniner with, their children Carson and Kaitlyn. 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