Penguins First Four Preseason Games Canceled
By Joe Crowley
The Penguins were suppose to start their preseason match ups this week with a game against Columbus on Monday and They were supposed to play their first home preseason game tonight against Detroit. Canceled.
Depressing as hell.
The next non-canceled preseason game for the Penguins is scheduled for October 3rd against the Detroit Red Wings. In place of what should be a good warm up for the start of the regular season (which is still scheduled for October 11th), with a team the Penguins had played in back to back Stanley Cup finals, there will be nothing but chatter about if there was an interception in the Monday Night Football game.
The fact that a major American sport is in a lockout has been put on the back burner in the media due to the woes of the NFL with a lockout of their own and the NHL’s low profile is a travesty. It’s a crime that there is really no coverage in the media, and night after night hours of sports programming pass without a mention. When this was the NFL just last year television and radio shows had a day count of how long the league was locked out and if they would make it back in time for the regular season. These stupid things which seem not to matter put pressure on the owners to get something done and though the NHL Owners are losing the PR battle big time in the social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook or blogs like this one, there has been no major outlets pressuring the league to get something done. The only hope we have is that a big player like NBC, who just signed a 10 year, 2 billion dollar television deal with the NHL, will go the league and tell them to get their shit together and make sure they are on the ice before the Winter Classic (NBC’s real first “game of the week” sans their NBC Sports Network) like a parent tells a stubborn child.
There have been CBA talks tentatively scheduled for the first time since the Lockout started on Sept. 15 this Friday but they are not suppose to touch on the core economic issues which is where the divide lies. I suppose any talks are good at this point considering it would be catastrophic if they went months without talking like they did in the ‘05 lockout.
There is one part of me, the emotional part, which thinks maybe they figure everything but the economic issues out, get some good will flowing, and that will allow them to start to make some significant headway on the economics and we can get back on the ice.
The other part of me, the logical part, believes that they could get all the non-core economic issues done within a day of agreeing on the economic issues so just focus on the effing problem because I’m sure whatever they work out before they talk about the economic issues will be changed when they actually talk about the economic issues by using the non-core economic issues as compromising pieces.
This whole thing is a clusterfuck. They’ll talk Friday but they will most likely come out of it with one conclusion and that will probably be that it’s time to cancel more games including the start of the regular season. At least they’re talking I guess. We’re still waiting.
The Steelers defense sucks.