Suppose you owned a business that has been growing pretty well over the last few years. You were real popular in your home community for a long time. Now you've opened a number of new stores in other geographical areas.
The new stores are doing OK, but a lot of the public there is not too used to your product, can't figure out how it works, and are not sure if they need it.
So you get into a pay dispute with your employees. You want them to agree to a limit on how much can be spent on salaries. As a result of the dispute you decide to close your stores, depriving your employees of their jobs, with the intent to get them to settle the dispute the way you want.
How much of your business, especially in those new, outlying areas, do you expect to find when you eventually do get back into business and reopen the doors?
Don't expect a lot.
That the situation that National Hockey League owners seem to have put themselves in by locking out players last summer, then allowing the lockout to continue, canceling training camp, the opening of the season, and finally the season itself, including the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman made the announcement earlier this month, calling it a "sad, regrettable day."
Bob Goodenow, executive director of the National Hockey League Players' Association, said that, "Every day that this thing continues we don't think it's good for the game."
Hockey, as you probably know, is the national pastime of Canada. Since the league began in 1917, it grew among Canadian cities in southern Canada provinces and spread into cities clustered around the Great Lakes and in northern U.S. states.
The interest in those markets seemed natural. They have winter, water freezes, folks play hockey one could easily understand professional hockey thriving in Chicago, Detroit and New York.
It was questionable, though, when the league began selling franchises in such places as Florida, Texas and North Carolina.
Major League Baseball and the National Football Leagues each survived strikes in recent years. During the strikes, some fans swore they would never again attend a game. Maybe some still are boycotting stadiums, but they can sustain and nourish their fandom by watching their teams on TV.
But those sports have longer histories and traditions in U.S. cities. They are more ingrained in the fabric of the communities.
But hockey is not. It doesn't have long roots in such markets as Jacksonville, Florida or Charlotte, North Carolina.
Speakers for both the players and owners in the dispute are predicting that there will be an NHL season next year.
It's very easy to predict, though, that some franchises will not survive long.
I found it interesting though, in an Associated Press article about the loss of the season, a reference to Mario Lemieux. Lemieux is both an owner and a player. He's with the Pittsburgh Penguins and is the first owner-player in the modern history of American sports teams.
Lemieux said that, as a player, he thought that owners were making lots of money and were hiding some from the players. However, he notes, that when he became an owner too, he saw how fast money was going out the door, too.
Kind of an eye opener, Eh?