Devils and Rangers fans working together? This is serious.
With no meetings scheduled mere hours from the deadline, the NHL work stoppage is all but a certainty at this point. But that didn't prevents the folks behind No Hockey Lockout from protesting outside the NHL store in New York on Saturday.
It wasn't much. Only about 20 hockey fans showed up, according to Helene Elliott, disappointing organizers hoping for a larger presence.
Even more disheartening, efforts to organize similar protests in Montreal, Boston, and Tampa Bay didn't appear to amount to anything. "Not a [expletive] soul in Montreal", tweeted transplanted 18-year-old Rangers' fan Oliver Quintal, who was aiming to lead the protest at the Bell Centre.
Most disheartening of all, everybody on the Avenue of the Americas knew full well that it would do nothing to prevent the inevitable. Even so, the small group made their voices heard from noon to 3pm, just as they had planned.
Sure, it didn't change much, but it was a yet another reminder that NHL fans care deeply and, unlike the owners and the players -- who haven't met since Wednesday -- they are unwilling to go quietly into the lockout.
Protests like these have caught plenty of flak for being ineffective, even from yours truly, but as Quintal told the New York Hockey Journal on Friday, this protest wasn't about solving everything. It was simply about being heard:
"I fully understand the cynicism of the public and journalists," Quintal said. "I know that the protest will not change the world, but I feel it's necessary for me to express my anger and my sadness when I see owners and players… keeping us from having a season of watching our national sport. I would not feel right to let this happen without knowing that I did my small part."
And hey, the small protest may not have stopped the lockout, but at least it gave us this sign:
Ah ah ah.
Follow Harrison Mooney on Twitter at @HarrisonMooney
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