The Vent: The $38 NHL protest; enduring a second lockout for Nashville fan

This NHL logo I made from $38.22 sums up the nickel and dime (and penny) league that the NHL is. Come back, go away, I don't care. It's become clear that the people who are supposed to be the stewards of the game are anything but.

So long as Gary Bettman and his cohorts are running this league into the ground, my thirty-eight bucks won't go into the NHL's coffers.

Hockey fan from Nashville here. I'd like to take a few moments to reflect on just how effed up it is that I've only been a hockey fan since 1998, yet I'm already in the process of enduring my second lockout.

So the Preds played their first season in Nashville in 1998. My parents were pretty pumped about it and had season tickets, but I was in 8th grade and didn't really care. My dad kept trying to convince me to go to games, but I wasn't interested. Whatever Dad, I'm busy watching Dawson's Creek and listening to the Armageddon soundtrack, leave me alone.

Then on December 1, 1998, my dad invited me to a game and I finally accepted because I had nothing better to do. We were playing the Ottawa Senators. The Preds weren't very good--we were already below .500 at that point and our roster featured such dynamos as Jan Vopat, probably the only player in NHL history to have his career ended by a persistent rash. We lost 3-1 and I had no idea what was going on. I didn't know anything about the game whatsoever.

All I knew was that it was AWESOME.

The fast pace of the game and the energy of the crowd hooked me. It was all over after that.

I became a huge hockey fan. I pretty much became an example of what the NHL hoped to do in expanding to non-traditional markets: I went from being a 12-year-old who knew nothing about hockey to a 27-year-old buying my own season tickets. My younger brothers, who wouldn't have had the option pre-Preds, both chose to play hockey instead of football growing up. The youngest one doesn't know what a life without hockey is like. Finally, my generation and younger is getting old enough to buy their own season tickets and create multiple generations of fans in my city, the youngest of which have grown up with the game.

And then this damn lockout comes along.

For the first one I was in college and was pretty pissed that an entire season got stolen from me, but then the new CBA was signed and I figured we'd be good for awhile. Now we're doing it again?! WTF?! I feel like I fell in love with who I thought was a great guy, married him, and now it turns out he's an a--hole. But I care about him too much to just get a divorce. Damn you, NHL.

How can you put me through two lockouts in 7 years?!

After Friday's "Thank you, Bettman," rant, I'd also like to show my appreciation to the commissioner.

For the first time I was planning on buying NHL Center Ice this season. He stopped me from wasting my money on a league that doesn't care about you, or your game experience.

I'm one of the millions of individuals who live in an AHL town. Last year I attended 36 Albany Devils games, and I'm sure to reach 40 this season. He's provided this junior league with about 100 premium players and the fact that once every few days I get to watch Henrique and Larsson is hockey bliss.

I get two tickets and two beers for the price of one NHL ticket.

The NHL has hockey teams in markets that seem to want NHL hockey teams (exception: Phoenix). The AHL has hockey teams in markets where they can get an arena deal, a few corporate sponsors, be within a hundred miles of some opponents, and otherwise be ignored. I argue this is where the game gets grown; exposing a few hundred families and friends each week to live hockey (i.e. the best thing ever). I'm a diehard, and I'll be back when the NHL returns. And maybe I'll bring some people with me.