"Just Drop It'' has received a half-million responses from fed-up NHL fans.
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Actor Patrick "Paddy'' Demsey (left) and Agawam native Bobby Peloquin are among the key figures in "Just Drop It,'' a fan-based initiative calling for the NHL owners and players association to settle the lockout that kept the league from operating this season. A boycott of NHL merchandise is among their initiatives.
Steve Chase says his group is passionate about hockey, but they are not naive.
"We're a little squeak in the wind. They're ignoring us, but from our perspective, we have accomplished a goal,'' said Chase, who is among the organizers of "Just Drop It."
"Just Drop It'' is a grassroots drive that has been urging National Hockey League owners and players to end a lockout which threatens to wipe out the entire season.
"We are having an affect by unifying the fans and giving them a voice, a place to stand up and yell,'' said Chase.
The tight-knit group of hockey fans who started the movement in Los Angeles include Robert Peloquin, an Agawam native who serves as a salesman for the Nielsen company.
Chase is involved with the film business. Christian Lalonde is a writer and producer who once played minor league hockey in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization.
Chase and Lalonde are natives of Montreal, where hockey's soul has been jarred by the lockout that has caused games through Jan. 14 to be called off.
If the labor standoff is not settled within the next several days, the entire season is expected to be wiped out. Chase not only concedes the likelihood of that dismal prospect, but says it is probably better than an abbreviated season that would add to the travesty being made of the sport.
Whatever happens on the labor front, "Just Drop It'' will soldier on, armed with a Facebook page with 500,000 viewers. More than 21,000 fans have pledged to honor the movement's call for an NHL boycott in response to the lockout.
"We've been featured on TV shows like CBC's 'The National' in Canada, and on radio shows and many well-known sports (publications),'' Peloquin said in an email before leaving for a holiday vacation in Egypt. "Our goal is to get enough people involved to pressure on the NHL players and owners, so that they have to make a deal and get the game of hockey back on the ice where it belongs.''
They have not succeeded. The original "Just Drop It'' game plan called for fans to boycott one game for each game that was lost to the lockout, once play resumed.
The boycott would also include a refusal to purchase any NHL merchandise.
Chase said the equation for boycotting games will have to be retooled if the season is lost completely. The 2004-05 NHL season was wiped out by a similar labor dispute.
As this season similarly disintegrates, Chase said his group supports awarding the Stanley Cup to Canada's top amateur team. The Stanley Cup is given to the NHL champion as a matter of custom, but no rules or laws require it, he said.
An amateur champion would be more desirable, Chase said, than awarding the Stanley Cup to the champion of an NHL season that will be reduced from 80 games to 48 if it is played at all.
"That's like having a 10-mile race and calling it a (26-mile) marathon,'' said Chase, who believes the NHL has "commandeered'' the Stanley Cup.
"Just Drop It'' has received healthy media attention in the United States, but it is much bigger news in Canada. Hockey is integral not just to that nation's economy, but to its soul.
"I've been on seven radio shows in Canada. It's a pretty big story there,'' Chase said.
It is admittedly difficult to listen to the men who drive "Just Drop It,'' without attaching a quixotic element to their effort. Even a plea by President Barack Obama to end the lockout has fallen on deaf ears.
Chase remains convinced the drive has been worthwhile and the message has been heard, even if the desired results have not occurred.
"If we had not done anything, we had no right to complain. How many times in our lives do we say we should have spoken up but didn't?'' he said. "There are two sides in that negotiating room. There should be three.''
"Just Drop It'' is purposely not taking sides in the labor dispute. Its goal is to represent that otherwise voiceless third party to which Chase refers - the fans.
"We're taking our side. Enough is enough,'' said actor Patrick "Paddy'' Demsey, a 34-year-old Danvers native who took on the role of 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team captain Mike Eruzione in the 2004 film, "Miracle.''
Demsey participated in a "Just Drop It'' video that has gone viral on the Internet. Twice a week, he and others in the movement gather to play hockey at a rink in the Los Angeles area.
The group includes Peloquin, who has been at the forefront of the movement.
Peloquin attended Holyoke Community College from 1992 through 1994. He then went to Barry University in Miami, Fla., on a baseball scholarship, and has since settled in southern California.
Led by former University of Massachusetts goaltender Jonathan Quick, the Los Angeles Kings won the 2012 Stanley Cup. Chase never renewed his Kings season tickets after the 2004-2005 lockout.
Demsey said this year's NHL season stoppage has ruined the momentum in hockey interest that was sparked by the 2012 Stanley Cup run.
A former Fitchburg State College hockey player, Demsey has been invited to play in a game involving former NHL players. His connection to hockey's legacy is first-hand, and it bothers him that the stoppage is abusing the sport's tradition.
"A few years ago, I painted the house of the widow of Ace Bailey. Players from the past used to play hockey and then go home to work on the farm,'' Demsey said.
Garnet "Ace'' Bailey played for the Boston Bruins in the 1970s. He was a victim of the terrorist attacks in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.
The stories of older players runs counter to what Demsey calls a current labor battle of "millionaires against millionaires.''
Chase, too, laments the "arrogance'' he says has infected the modern NHL.
That is why a small, tight-knit group that plays pick-up hockey under the shadow of the "Hollywood'' sign refuse to stop campaigning. To them, somebody has to stand up for the fans - in social and traditional media, and on principle.
"We have given people a place to yell. The fans need to be heard, and we needed to do something,'' Chase said. "We have tried not to take sides or point fingers, because that's not us. But we have needed to give the league a warning shot and tell them that if they ignore the fans, there will be consequences.''