At this point in the season, the average NHL team has played about two thirds of its scheduled 48 games in this lockout-shortened season.  The typical hockey fan might be annoyed that the season has gone by so quickly, but the most frustrating thing is why this season is so short in the first place.

Over the offseason, the owners and the National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA) engaged in a testy labor dispute over a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).  There were several issues that the owners and the players disagreed about including revenue sharing, maximum length of new contracts, signing bonuses.  However, revenue sharing topped the list.

The previous CBA in 2005 gave players 57% of all hockey-related revenue and the owners 43%.  During the 2012-2013 NHL Lockout that lasted 119 days, the owners sought to reduce the players’ share to 46%.  You read the last statement correctly; it took 119 days to negotiate over the 11% difference between 57% and 46% only to have the new CBA split revenue 50-50.

The revenue isn’t the only thing that should be split evenly, so should the blame.  Stupidity and arrogance was of no shortage as both sides failed to recognize whom the true victims were of the lockout: the fans.  Not the fans who permanently stopped watching hockey after the 2004-2005 lockout cancelled the entire season, but the fans who hung in there and hoped that a new league would emerge from a state of confusion to one that was stronger and more stable than ever.

I don’t blame the fans that stopped watching after 2005.  They saw the direction the NHL was headed to with commissioner Gary Bettman calling the shots.  Bettman has held the title since 1993 and since then three labor stoppages have occurred: 1994-95, 2004-05, and 2012-13.  In ’94-’05, the season was shortened to 48 games just like the ’12-’13 season.  If the NHL is to lure back frustrated fans and attract more people to watch the game, it will have to completely change its image.  Firing Bettman is a start.

To be fair, his tenure hasn’t been completely terrible.  He played a pivotal role in landing the NHL a 10-year, $2 billion television deal with NBC, giving hockey the opportunity to be televised on national television.  He also took a balanced approach to making the game safer, unlike what the NFL has done with radical rule changes.

But for the NHL to once again become one of the four major sports in America in terms of profit, it will need to ensure that work stoppages never occur again.  With a lucrative t.v. contract, the NHL definitely has the capability, but it will be a long, upward climb.