Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images

With the dog days of summer officially here, we’ve been thinking about something cool.

Can you tell me the events that took place on September 16, 2004? I didn’t think so, unless of course you suffer from hyperthymesia. On that date, the National Hockey League (NHL) officially locked its doors to players… and fans. This was the first time a major professional sports league lost an entire season to a labor dispute. I guess you could say the sport was on ice, but really the sport’s appeal, which had about as many fans as soccer in North America, was melting away. The long-term outlook was bad. Meanwhile, the National Football League isn’t anticipating any major repercussions as a result of their current lockout. That’s pretty telling.
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