Are You Bummed About the NHL Lockout?

"Here we go again," is the phrase ringing in hockey fans' minds across the world right now. For the second time in 10 years and fourth time since 1992, the National Hockey League is set to have a work stoppage. It's actually been less than 10 years since the last NHL lockout, which did away the entire 2004-05 season.

With any lockout, a sports league of any level takes a huge risk in money, television deals, etc. In the last lockout, NHL players lost money and team owners and league officials lost a lucrative ESPN deal. The NHL suffered initially when it returned from its last lockout, especially when it came to visibility on TV, with the occasional game on NBC and regular programming on the Outdoor Life Network (later becoming Versus, now known as the NBC Sports network).

The NHL eventually recovered and made significant financial waves, but the players union, owner, and Commissioner Gary Bettman find themselves in a lockout yet again. On ESPN's Pardon The Interruption, popular journalist Bill Simmons called the NHL "the dumbest league in sports." If this lockout kills the entire 2012-13 NHL season when the NBA and NFL resolved their work stoppages and salvaged their respective seasons, it will leave millions on the table--and millions of unhappy fans.