Fans Spread Blame for Lost Season

Some blame what they perceive as money-grubbing owners for the cancellation of the NHL season. Others said it’s the players who are at fault, insisting that the league made an adequate concession by dropping its insistence on a link between revenue and player salaries.

Nonetheless, Southland hockey fans interviewed Wednesday by The Times could agree on at least one thing: The loss of the 2004-05 season marks one of the darkest moments in the sport’s history.

“I’m embarrassed to be a hockey fan at this point,” said longtime King fan Dan Daniel, who surrendered his season tickets last year when it appeared that the players and owners were headed toward a stalemate. “It’s the first major professional sports league in America to cancel a season because of greed.”

Fans expressed universal disappointment that players and owners could not come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement despite a flurry of last-minute activity that ended with the teams reportedly $6.5 million apart on salary-cap proposals.

While a few fans contended that the owners created their own fiscal mess by paying inflated salaries for years, many said the players could have averted the current disaster by agreeing to play for less.

“With something so close, I have to put this on the players to say, ‘Hey, they’re paying you, at some point you have to do what they say,’ ” said Jason Bunch, 35, an accounting manager from Long Beach.

Said Mark Ceccanese, 38, a sales manager from Cerritos: “The guilty party in this mess is the players. These players are making too much money in a sport that’s not very popular and accepted nationally. Football and basketball have reasonable salary caps and those players still make millions, so why can’t hockey players see that?”

Several fans wondered whether the sides would be able to save the 2005-06 season after the owners reinstated their demand for a correlation between revenue and player salaries.

“I just don’t see how the players are going to come out better than they would have if they made a deal now,” said Phil Seeman, 46, of Calabasas.

Members of the L.A. Junior Kings shuffled to practice as usual Wednesday afternoon at the Kings’ HealthSouth training facility in El Segundo, determined to carry on their season even if their professional namesakes could not.

Twelve-year-old Zach Hagmaier, lugging a hockey stick in one hand and a bag of gear in the other, said he would miss attending games in Staples Center and would return once NHL play resumed.

“I really want to see them play,” Hagmaier said of the Kings.

Hockey instructor Gary Schipper said his players were “bummed out to the extent that they love the Kings, but they don’t understand the [collective bargaining agreement]. They’re just disappointed because they love the game.”

Schipper said the strife had not hurt attendance or enthusiasm among his players, but he worried that that might change if the NHL were canceled for two seasons or more.

Steve Ross, watching his 8-year-old son, Sean, glide across the rink during private lessons, said the boy was too consumed with his own skating to hold a grudge against players or owners. The defenseman for the Junior Kings attends practices twice a week and plays games on weekends.

“In five years I don’t think he’ll remember,” Ross said. “Heck, I may not remember.”