NHL Fans Are Sick of the Mushroom Treatment

When he broke with the Detroit Red Wings back in the 1970s, after 25 seasons as a player and a couple of years in an office, Gordie Howe said he was tired of being treated like a mushroom: "They keep you completely in the dark and every once in a while they come in and throw manure on you."

Hockey fans can relate.

A new poll reported by Canadian Press suggests that Canada's hard-core hockey fans are kissing off the NHL.

The poll, conducted in early February, indicates that Canadians still feel attached to the league: 39% call themselves regular NHL followers, down just three per cent from a year ago. Within that dedicated group, however, nearly one in three say they do not miss the NHL game.

Ken Dryden, Hall of Fame goaltender and Canadian parliamentarian, essentially predicted those results.

"I think that there are a number of fans in this country who have sensed over the last number of months that actually, maybe, it was more habit than it was passion," Dryden told reporters this week. "I think for the great majority, it's still a passion.

"But others have discovered that maybe it was something else. And so, as much as this can be problematic in the U.S., and that's where it's usually talked about, I think it's also a problem in this country."

A bigger story here might be the flipside of the poll results - the fact that so many stand by the league. After five months of dark arenas and tiresome rhetoric, 63% of hockey followers continue to pine for the NHL's return. That translates into 28% of the general Canadian population.

Considering the barely concealed contempt shown to fans by both sides in the lockout, that level of devotion is remarkable. And it likely ebbs with each passing day.

Even at this late stage, it is easy to picture grateful fans flooding back to arenas and televisions across Canada if the lockout should suddenly end. But that scenario grows less plausible as the stalemate continues.

One assumes the owners and players understand the irony of this self-abuse. But who knows? You have to wonder if anyone connected with the NHL can tell what is real and what is fantasy in this expanding hall of mirrors.