Lockout taking toll on Players Career, Hockey Hall of Fame Ceremony -NHL Update
It is certainly strange seeing how the National Hockey League (NHL) and Players’ Association have continuously met these past few days and before that as well, but fail to make any significant progress on saving what remains of the 2012-2013 NHL regular
season.
Many fans and players have definitely lost hope, but there are still a number of those who hope to see hockey go on this year and are putting money on getting the puck drop while others have begun to concentrate on other aspects of life.
Hockey players, who have not signed on to other teams around the globe to continue playing during the lockout, are still being hit hard in terms of where they stand and how they should be coping with the whole situation.
One of the prime examples of having missed out on time is former NHL great Joe Sakic, who is set to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, if the ceremony goes through on the scheduled time. The Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, native saw two lockouts
during his time in the NHL and could have extended his record beyond the 1,378 games he played and 1,641 points he potted, of which 625 were goals and 1,016 were assists.
There is also another meeting reportedly scheduled between the NHL and Players’ Association on Monday, which is also the date of the Hockey Hall of Fame ceremony and it is not clear whether League Commissioner Gary Bettman will show up to take part.
A more recent example of having missed out is of New Jersey Devils veteran Ilya Kovalchuk, who is a regular scorer of 40 plus goals and due to the 2004-2005 NHL lockout, he also missed out on boosting his career stats even higher. He is definitely one of
those players, like many, who will still get inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame when the time comes, but they will always regret having faced those lockouts and not having added another few goals and assists to their career total.
It will be interesting to see how the ceremony plays out on Monday.
Tags: