Time to play hardball with hockey’s bankers Kearney ) | cS IOP « THE SPECTATOR IF YOU are a Vancouver Canucks season ticket-holder, and if the NHL owners lock out the players in the next two or three days — as seems Likely — here is a suggested course of action: Get down to the Canucks’ office on Renfrew Street and demand your money back. All of it. Do not be fobbed off. Do not agrec to any arrangement for recompense, some- where down the road, for games net played during the pericd of the lock- out. After all, the hockey club has your money out there somewhere, making interest. If it is not about to live up to its impticit contract to pro- vide you with 42 games of hockey — you'll pardon the expression, entertainment — then it has no busi- ness hapging onto your money. The implicit contract will have | been broken. The $5,000-$6,000. you paid for a couple of seats in the reds should be yours. If anyone is to eam interest on these dollars, it should be you. ff the club doesn't agree to retum all your meney, point out to its rep- resentatives you already have been ripped off, having had to pay full price to see wannabes and never- will-bes play exhibition games while many of the top hands didn’t even dress for the occasions. If this doesn’t get you satisfac- tion, may I suggest that you get together us a group, hire a good. tough lawyer and start playing hard- ball. The word is out, and seers rea- sonably well substantiated, that the NHL already has drawn up an alter- nate 50-game schedule, to stan January |. This just happens to coin- cide with the start of a $150 million TV contract the league recently signed with the Fox Network. Does this make you a cynic? Good. if it wasn't obvious before. it certainly is now, that by unilaterally depriving the players of many of their perks befure training camps opened, and by threatening to impose a salary cap and eliminate arbitration, Commissioner Gary Bettman hoped to goad them into suriking. They didn’t bite, so now —- baz- ring 4 miracle — comes the lockout. If there’s any moral highground here, it belongs to the overpaid mer- 66 The word is out... that the NHL already has drawn up an alternate 50-game schedule to start Jan. 1,99 cenaries. Certainly not to Bettman and the owners. The owners and the players’ union will have October, November and December to do what they haven’t managed to do in the past year: negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. Maybe theyll get it done. Maybe they won’t. Don’t jet it concem you. Your attitude should be: a plague oa both their houses. Don't forges. Demand full repayment, not merely a refund for the 17 unplayed home games this fall, should the January 1, 50-game scenario be a reality. For one thing, if there’s no col- lective agreement by the end of 1993, a New Year’s Day start toa shortened season would be pure fic- tion, New agreement or not. you may be sure the players are thoroughly ticked off; they may decide they have other things to do in carly January. Nothing can he guaranteed. Therefore, go after al) your money, ‘Your affections have been trifled with. Your loyalty has been abused. You must show them they can‘t pull this cynical stunt on you again. Tel! them you'll make up your mind about buying tickets to a shortened season when the time comes. After ail, sports attendance — like smoking — is a habit. Deprived of it for three months, you may dis- cover that the craving is gone; that you can find another use for the money. Such as: building a new sundeck, putting it into an RRSP or tripping to Maui or Puerto Vallana to escape a month of winter. Winat you must realize is this: the hockey establishment takes you for granted. It has noted the history of work stoppages in major league baseball and in the NFL, so is encouraged to believe you have the memory span of a gnat. In those sports the fans have flocked back. The darnage has been minimal. All is forgotten; all is forgiven. Don’t go this route. in hockey’s pecking order, you’ re at the end of the queue. It’s time you moved to the front and started giving a few orders, along with a good, swift kick to the estab- lishment's — i.e., the owners and players —- bank account. It’s the only way they'll pay attention. They can’t play this cotton- pickin’ game without you. Let them know in the only way they "ll under- stand: get your money dack and spend it elsewhere. You're welcome. 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