As the owner of the American Hockey League's Syracuse Crunch, Howard Dolgon isn't enamoured with another NHL lockout, even though it's good for business.
He's torn, understandably. He loves the business. But he knows what the NHL means to the game he loves.
"It makes it maybe easier to market our brand, but at the same time I think every owner in the league will tell you that we really don't want a lockout," Dolgon said Monday after perusing the NHL's website. "I think it is important to us for the NHL to be playing and the NHL to be healthy.
"But that's an issue that we don't have any control over."
Join the club. The NHL locked the players out over the weekend when the collective bargaining agreement expired Saturday night. It's the NHL's fourth work stoppage in 20 years. Day 2 of the NHL lockout on Monday saw no changes from either side as talks between the league and the NHLPA remain unscheduled. Nothing official will resume until at least Wednesday between commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr. The two sides haven't met for face-to-face talks since last Wednesday.
Attention already has turned to alternative leagues like the AHL, where players will continue to train for the season and play the game. The AHL consists of 17 independently owned franchises and another 13 owned by NHL clubs. It's the primary minor league of the NHL - nearly 90 per cent of today's NHL players spent time in the A - and a safe haven these days for younger players on twoway contracts that remain eligible to play at the lower level.
Another prolonged NHL lockout like the one that forced the cancellation of the entire 2004-05 season means better competition in AHL cities like Syracuse, increased attendance everywhere and international media attention that it is simply not used to.
"The effect then was a window of opportunity for the American League to have a greater presence from a media perspective across North America and certainly more live television exposure, and to some extent an even stronger player pool than we normally have," longtime AHL president and CEO David Andrews said. "I'm anticipating that will be the case again this time."
The AHL's 77th regular season starts Oct. 12 - a day after the scheduled start of the NHL season - and training camps open in less than two weeks.
There's been movement toward the A already.
The Buffalo Sabres announced Monday that it had loaned 20 players to the Rochester Americans.
Among them were forward Luke Adam, AHL rookie of the year for the 2010-11 season, and Marcus Foligno, who played 60 games for Rochester last season. On Saturday, the Philadelphia Flyers assigned 26 players, including Erik Gustafsson, Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier, to the Adirondack Phantoms of the American Hockey League.
"At least I know my season's going to start. We have camp on the 28th which is great. I'm just preparing for that," Gustafsson said. "I think the AHL is going to be a great league. I think it will be the best league in the world."
Among the young NHL standouts that could give the A a jolt are Carolina's Jeff Skinner, the 2011 NHL rookie of the year; Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the first pick of the 2011 draft by Edmonton; and New Jersey's Adam Henrique, who clinched the Devils' Eastern Conference title in June with an overtime goal against the New York Rangers in Game 6.
"We've always been the second-best league in the world," said Dolgon, who switched NHL affiliations from Anaheim to Tampa Bay after last season and has seen a bump in fan interest. "Now, we can be the second-best league with even greater talent playing in that league."
