By JASON CARRIS
The Daily Journal (Vineland, N.J.)

After years of media criticism about the ridiculous length of the National Hockey League's regular season, league owners and players finally stepped up to the blue line and blasted a slap shot, the force of which shattered the "Suggestions" box.

With no real games to report, The Toronto Sun has had to resort to a fantasy league to satisfy its readers' hockey fix.

The NHL lockout appears to have all-but-eliminated the 2004-05 season. Barring a miraculous series of events, NHL hockey will not resume operations until the fall, at the earliest.

While North American hockey fans have found alternative forms of entertainment, newsrooms in hockey towns have been dealing with lockout issues of their own, including redistribution of resources, travel budgets and newshole.

Bylines

Most of the editors surveyed said they haven't had a problem finding new assignments for their hockey writers.

The New York Daily News' four hockey writers have been backing up baseball, football and basketball coverage, according to deputy sports editor Adam Berkowitz.

"The hockey columnist doubles as our horse racing writer, so she's been focusing on that while keeping an eye on the labor negotiations," Berkowitz said.

Hockey writers at the Chicago Tribune are bolstering the paper's college basketball report. Across town at the Sun Times, the main hockey writer has picked up the Notre Dame basketball beat.

The Philadelphia Daily News is looking at the lockout as a mixed blessing. The News' hockey writer has helped "prop up" the paper's Eagles coverage, according to Paul Vigna, special projects editor.

Nick Pugliese, deputy sports editor at the Tampa Tribune, said his hockey writer has been keeping track of the NHL labor situation, but most of the bylines are in the form of general assignments.

"College football, golf and baseball," Pugliese said. "If the (NHL) season is canceled, our main hockey beat writer will cover the Yankees during spring training."

Two editors, Glen Crevier of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Emilio Garcia-Ruiz of the Washington Post, haven't had to concern themselves with an extra set of hands. Crevier's hockey writer took a job at the Boston Globe, while the Post promoted its hockey writer before the season. Neither position has been filled.

"We didn't fill the opening to help with overall newsroom budget," Garcia-Ruiz said.

Keeping tabs

Asked how often NHL reports made the paper, the majority of editors responded with the same three words: When news dictates.

Most sports sections are just "keeping an eye on the negotiations," running a daily graphic with lockout stats and the latest buzz, plus occasional player features.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was running a feature every week on a Penguin playing in a foreign league, with a chart of all the players' statistics. "Now we just run the chart weekly and stories when necessary," said Carl Remensky, assistant sports editor.

The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C, has a hockey package every other Sunday.

"(It) tracks five key figures involved with Carolina Hurricanes hockey and what they are doing at this period in what would have been the hockey season," said sports editor Sherry Johnson. "The package includes photos of each and short (five or six paragraph) updates on each. ... We did a feature piece on Carolina Hurricanes fans busing to Norfolk to feed their hockey need with a game featuring the Canes' minor-league affiliate, the Lowell Lock Monsters."

The Tennessean in Nashville is running a weekly recap of how the Predators are doing in a season-long simulation at www.whatifsports.com. The Tampa Tribune is publishing results of the Lightning's simulated season via EA Sports.

The Star Tribune has written numerous features on the lockout, including sending a reporter to Toronto to profile about hockey-starved fans north of the border, and a piece about fan apathy in the so-called "State of Hockey."

Then again, hockey coverage is a little different north of the border. The Toronto Sun is running NHL-related stories and columns every day, according to sports editor Pat Grier. His hockey staff — three writers and a columnist — are concentrating on features and enterprise, such as "local business impact, what the hockey landscape might look like, etc."

"We also instituted a mock NHL league, using dice to get the results," Grier said. "It mirrors what would have been the schedule, and we run daily standings and results with a small tongue-in-cheek story."

Newshole

With space always an issue, the hockey lockout has allowed some sections the chance to play up football, basketball or preps coverage.

"We had not cut the space until recently," said David Wright, deputy sports editor at the Denver Post. "(We were) just allowing other coverage to breathe a bit."

"We have plenty of teams to cover, and the space goes very quickly," said Berkowitz. "We're doing a bit more college hoops and high schools. Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets and Jets have taken up most of the space, though."

Other editors have taken the opposite stance, making the conscious decision to trim back newshole.

"We have cut back space, so we can save it for a rainy day," said Chris D'Amico, sports editor of the Newark Star-Ledger. "This will allow us to get space needed for big events without having to worry about going over our yearly space budget."

The Dallas Morning News is "banking some of the space for use during NBA playoffs, next football season, etc."

The Washington Post diverted its hockey budget and space to covering the arrival of the Washington Nationals baseball team, Garcia-Ruiz said.

As part of budget cuts, the Star Tribune is losing 42 columns a week that would have been devoted to the Minnesota Wild.

At the News & Observer, Johnson saw the hockey travel budget swallowed up by the news department.

"The money ... was diverted to news-side travel for former N.C. Sen. John Edwards' vice-presidential bid," Johnson said.

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