A Golden Opportunty That NHL Strikers Will Never See

“The Golden Opportunity That NHL Striker’s Will Never Consider”

The National Hockey League strike…is this thing hilarious or what? I mean on one side of the table you have one group of spoiled adults who are being paid minimally $185,000 per season to PLAY hockey. In the off-season these guys PLAY golf, and cut lucrative commercial deals through their agents who take their own cut of the cut. Other than that, these guys are placed on social pedestals, revered by family and friends, and now they’ve gone on strike in order to get…MORE!
On the other side of the table you have the owners who are wallowing in potential revenue from a variety of hockey related sources or else they wouldn’t be at this bargaining table in the first place. And these guys are doing everything they can think of to avoid giving up…ANY MORE.

In principle this well publicized sports brouhaha is no different from a classic Teamsters or a teacher’s strike in which each party is battling for a larger piece of a finite economic pie. But in terms of real dollars per participant there’s a huge difference because the relative size of the NHL pie is so much greater, which is precisely what makes the whole situation so laughable.

Here’s How They Could Turn The Tide
But I suggest that there is an opportunity for the NHL to turn the tide here, and go from looking incredibly stupid and greedy on both sides, to exquisitely intelligent in a single bound. This move would not only settle the strike, but it would delight the fans, increase the size of the business pie, and also provide an economic role model for this nation and the rest of the world who is so desperately in need of a way to get beyond the old US VS THEM, 19th and 20th century economic paradigm that’s had all us all (including the NHL as we speak) in its grip since before the dawn of the industrial revolution many moons ago.

What is this move you ask? The move is to unionize or unite on the ownership side of the table. The move is to transform the players into owners, into partners, who actively participate in the economic wins and losses of their respective companies (their teams) as owners instead of employees. And when the company/team does well in economic terms, the player/owner reaps the benefits. If the company/team does poorly, the player/owner suffers the consequences…as an owner.

Eliminate The Reason For Strikes Forever
In making such a move you’d immediately eliminate all future strikes by replacing the old worker vs. owner paradigm with a new, all for one and one for all OWNERSHIP paradigm. And since all the participants would benefit from working together and succeeding, you’d also provide both sides with a system in which working together toward a single, productive goal, both on and off the ice, wins.

The Profound Potential Of Such A Move
But on a much larger scale, if the NHL were to make such a move, it could provide the entire nation (and eventually the world) with a high profile model for a free enterprise based, OWNERSHIP SOCIETY that the Bush administration keeps crowing about, but seems to so know so little about implementing. But my contention is that if the NHL could actually get it, surely their fans, and all those incredibly smart guys in the US Congress could get it too. And when it works like gangbusters, maybe we as a nation could take a tip from the NHL, apply the same principles to our economy, and see ours finally grow into a government of the people, by the people, and for the people

Yes, this represents a golden opportunity for the NHL to turn their proverbial lemon into lemonade, delight and enlighten their fans, increase the size of their pie, and have an absolutely profound effect on the rest of the world at the same time. On the other hand if they all continue to behave like greedy, spoiled brats, I sincerely hope they kill their golden sports goose, crash and burn as a league, and may they all finally get a real good taste of actually working for a living. They’ll all deserve it.


P.S. For anyone who’s really interested in an Ownership Society (like say the Bush Administration perhaps), a user-friendly roadmap for this new, 21st century economic paradigm entitled Capital Homesteading For Every Citizen has recently been published by Dr. Norm Kurland through the Center For Economic and Social Justice, and it’s available special order through Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble web sites.