Pro Hockey Oil Consumption

The potential lockouts of both the NFL and the NBA ensnared the hearts of fans of both sports and was the hot topic around the water cooler for months. It was a scary callback to the 2004-2005 NHL lockout which lead to the cancellation of an entire sports season, the first time in North American professional sports history. Congress was called in to help solve the labor dispute for the National Football League, in part to help prevent what some considered to be a potential economic breakdown.

The infrastructure surrounding the NFL brings in an estimated $3.2 billion to the American economy on a yearly basis. This includes the jobs and economics created by high-played players, the ubiquitous coaching staffs, the trainers and personal trainers, equipment managers, food vendors at the various arenas, parking lot attendants, and even pizza delivery drivers. A lockout would surely have a negative impact on the economy...Or would it?

Let's go back to the 2004-2005 season. Professional hockey gets canceled. Now those players and everyone surrounding them are out of a job. But what do professional hockey players do a lot of? Travel. It's especially bad in the NHL, since it expands across the wide country of Canada. These players travel nearly 250,000 miles per year, just to slap a puck on frozen water. Sure it's entertaining. But is it sustainable?

Professional hockey players consume a lot of oil and when that precious black gold runs out, the NHL will simply have to fold, unless there is some sort of sustainable alternative. With all the excess cash that professional sports leagues make of the common men, perhaps they can reinvest some of that cold hard cash into local infrastructure, thus ensuring they will always have the capacity to play. This makes perfect sense in southern markets, where sunshine is plentiful and efficient, from a photovoltaic standpoint.