Music: {allcanada} GOLFER WEIR FRUSTRATED OVER NHL LOCKOUT

Monday, October 15, 2012

{allcanada} GOLFER WEIR FRUSTRATED OVER NHL LOCKOUT

The San Jose Mercury News caught up with Mike Weir at CordeValle Golf Club over the weekend.

The Canadian lefty won the 2003 Masters, the 2007 Frys.com Open and is a known Red Wings fan who grew up in Southern Ontario not far from Detroit.

"I follow it fairly closely," Weir said of the lockout that has shut down the NHL once again this season. "I know the gist of what's going on. We were just talking last night. We were at a restaurant watching baseball and football and we were thinking tonight was supposed to be opening night. As a Canadian and a hockey fan, it's disappointing."

Weir said he wasn't really taking sides in the dispute. But a minute later he added:

"If I was a player, I'd want to play. As a golfer, if for some reason we had the purses reduced, I'm not going to not play — I'm going to play," Weir said. "So I would like to think those guys will get it all figured out and the owners and players would come to common ground here.

"It's a very tough call," he continued. "I don't know the details of the ins and outs of it all."

Weir said one of the last NHL games he saw in person was in San Jose – Game 7 of the 2011 Western Conference Semi-Finals, won by the Sharks.

"It didn't go our way, but I had my daughters with me and they thought it was pretty cool to come and see that, feel that atmosphere," said Weir, who brought his family to HP Pavilion from their home in Salt Lake City. "I love the sport."

The longer he talked, the more Weir sounded the same as any frustrated fan.

"Given where they came eight years ago and how the league has grown the last seven years, you'd like to think there'd be middle ground. There's a lot of money to be had," he said.

"It seems like they don't get together enough," he added. "They need to get together and talk it out a little more. Weeks go by. It's like high school boyfriend-girlfriend stuff – 'I'm not going to call you, you call me.' You wish they'd get together and just hash it out like the NFL had to do with those officials."