"It's just good business"

I don't watch a lot of movies but I was forced to sit through the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. If you ever saw the 2d and 3rd movies you might remember a certain Beckett guy who was rather fond of saying "it's just good business" or variations on that.

The point is?

Hockey is a business.

And since I've been thinking about that a lot, his stupid quote kept popping into my head (which is stupid but that's how my brain works).

As much as part of me really wanted to think that it was something else, at the end of the day, the bottom line is hockey is a business. It's a business that relies on people to invest emotionally in it (because when people are engaged emotionally, they will spend money). On the one hand it asks you to invest your emotions into the players, into the team. But on the other hand, it also plays the business the end when things don't work out. If a player leaves without a backwards glance to take a bigger paycheck somewhere else "just business". That's why we feel hurt. But we don't want to believe that hockey is merely a business. We've been told and we want to believe that it means more than that.

Of course that's how it works, right? The fans need to believe that hockey means more than just being a business. I'm not talking about for the fans emotional well being here. I'm talking about as a business, the fans need to believe it. Because if they don't then they won't pay. If everyone believed that hockey was just a business they wouldn't be willing to fork over the cash for the tickets to see these players. They wouldn't be willing to pay for the over-priced merchandise.

Does this mean that I'm going to stop watching hockey? Probably not. I think I can still enjoy the sport. But I think it's something to think about the next time a player gets traded or a UFA leaves. It's just business.

Although we all know how Beckett's business venture went... BOOM!:



How come all the "baddies" get the best death scenes?