In case you haven’t seen it yet, this video by Ottawa musician RiSHI was posted on November 1 and has been making its way around the Internet over the weekend.
Titled “The Fan Lockout“, it’s a wonderfully creative response to the ongoing NHL CBA negotiations, highlighted by the following lyrics:
So here’s my appeal to every fan of the league
Reduce attendance from the stands to the seats
Go the first two weeks without purchasin’ tickets
Let the players come back and hear the chirps of the crickets
When you’re out think twice about buying jerseys
Maybe next time both sides can find mercy
And settle major issues in the labor disputes
In a timely fashion can’t we get a favor or two?
Not only is this video very good and quite entertaining, it also makes a justified appeal to fans to do something, anything, about having to sit through a work stoppage for the second time in eight years.
It also ties in with a post I wrote the other day about the cancellation of the Winter Classic and flies in the face of the league’s belief that fans will blindly return and fill their coffers whenever the players get back on the ice.
Check the video out, enjoy and consider what you as a hockey fan can do to stage some form of protest of your own, whether it be through staying away for a couple weeks, holding off on buying merchandise, or demanding a year’s worth of Center Ice for free.
In short, whenever hockey does come back, don’t sweep it under the carpet and pretend like nothing happened; respond and remind the league that hockey related revenue doesn’t exist without the fans.