While not all hope is lost for a 2012-13 NHL season, the league will not be able to hit the ice nearly as smoothly from a PR perspective.
Seemingly snail-paced efforts to resolve the lockout have amounted to Friday’s cancellation of the sixth annual Winter Classic, as announced by NHL.com.
That marquee midseason event could have easily been saved as recently as two weeks ago, if not even more recently. Now that it has been relinquished to the rapids, the NHL has officially failed to match the prudence of its primal wintertime fanfare competitor, the NBA.
Recall that around this time last year, David Stern’s league was in its own labor stalemate and had already lost a portion of its 2011-12 campaign. Yet a collective urge to resume normal business on the court no later than Christmas, a day that reputedly marks the NBA season’s true arrival on the national radar, effectively brought an end to the dispute and allowed a booming tipoff on the day in question.
Since at least 2007-08, both of the major winter sports circuits have fostered a habit of gripping the better part of their fanbase’s attention within the fir ...
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Article written by Al Daniel
Winter Classic Cancelled: NHL Fails to Follow NBA’s Admirable Example
November 3rd, 2012 by Al Daniel Leave a reply »
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