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NHL Lockout Ends: Economic Impact Will Be Limited Thanks To Agreement

OK, Let’s Start Making Money!
CP

The NHL lockout has ended, and the teams and various businesses that depend on them can get back to making money, but some economic damage has already been done to Canada as a result of the labour standoff.

BMO Nesbitt Burns economist Doug Porter predicted last fall that a strike would shave about 0.1 percentage points off of Canada’s GDP. Now, with roughly half of a regular season salvaged, that economic damage will be half the original forecast.

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How Much Are Canada's NHL Teams Worth?

How Much Are Canada's NHL Teams Worth?

Though Porter noted that the sector is too small a part of the economy for the strike to have a very noticeable impact, he described it as “a big drop for the category,” according to the Toronto Star.

Porter based his estimates on observations of the 2004-2005 NHL lockout, which shaved 0.1 percentage points off the economy.

The real impact of the strike will have been at the local level, where small business and municpal governments that rely on NHL revenue saw revenue drop.

And some individual businesses have been particularly impacted. Joe Kasel, owner of the Eagle Street Grille in St. Paul, Minn., told the Associated Press he had to lay off 32 of his 48 staff as a result of the strike.

"The impact on our lives is immeasurable,” he said in a letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. “I know this is happening in other cities around the nation."

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