The NHL's unresolved labour troubles mean ongoing economic troubles at businesses ranging from sports bars to lottery kiosks.

At Shoeless Joe's sports bar in Toronto, the announcement that the 2004-05 season is cancelled was greeted with groans.

"It hurts. It hurts. It's not fair for everyone," said waitress Maria Angelopoulos.

At places like Shoeless Joe's that depend on a hockey game to bring in fans to cheer and drink beer, no season has meant fewer hours and tips -- or even layoffs.

Julie Charest lost her job at a Quebec factory that makes NHL pucks and souvenirs. Now her husband may lose his.

"I find it hard," Charest said, speaking in French.  "I wasn't prepared, we didn't have time to put money away."

In Vancouver, Wilson's Steak House was originally supposed to be a hockey-themed joint.

"Unfortunately, we had to change pretty fast and drastically, knowing there would be no hockey for two years," said proprietor Dean Wilson.

The Western Canada Lottery Corporation estimates it will lose about $25 million in Sports Select tickets as a result of the dispute.

"In overall profit, we'll probably lose about $7 million," said the corporation's John Matheson.

Statistics Canada estimates the season's cancellation will cost the hockey and entertainment industry $350 million and cause the loss of 8,000 full-time jobs.

Costs to the league

The owners had claimed they would lose less money by shutting down this season rather than continuing on under the old collective bargaining agreement.

About half of the league's annual revenue of $2.1 billion US comes from gate receipts.

Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist told The Canadian Press that in the U.S., baseball is only now returning to the audience it had before it cancelled the 1994 World Series -- and baseball is more deeply ingrained in U.S. culture.

When the NHL negotiated a contract with NBC to carry hockey, it wasn't able to extract any money up front from the broadcaster.

ESPN 2 is reporting better revenues from showing college basketball and extreme sports in timeslots where it had aired NHL games.

Marc Ganis, owner of Chicago-based Sportscorp, a consulting business, told CP the league had to become more "fan friendly" in ways ranging from better television camera angels to reduced ticket prices.

An average NHL ticket costs about $50.

Fixing the game

A hockey historian had this view of hockey's place in the NHL dispute: "The game is not sick. It is a great game, always has been and always will be. It's the state of the NHL that's sick," Paul Kitchen told CTV News.

One prominent Canadian journalist thinks the current disruption might finally cure NHL hockey of its ills.

"The product is terrible. Every Canadian who knows the game knows that. And we should take a deep sigh of relief and say, 'good, let's get on with reinventing the game'," said The Globe and Mail's Roy MacGregor.

To fix the game, Kitchen recommends speeding it up: "Eliminate the centre red line and widen the rink by five feet."

Adds MacGregor: "And let creativity rule. That's the game that is Canada's national game. The NHL is not Canada's national game."

With reports from CTV's Peter Murphy and Roger Smith, plus files from The Canadian Press