“Lines of communication remain open.”

That was the first thing I heard from my radio this morning.  Sound familiar, hockey fans?  Knowing my online life, you could assume that I was listening to sports radio, but no (in fact, for the record, I don’t listen to sports radio – not enough hockey).  This line came from NPR, and wasn’t referring to the NHL Lockout.  It was about the so-called Fiscal Cliff (or as I like to call it, the Financularity).

You would be forgiven for thinking it was about the ongoing “negotiations” and the slow creep towards the next CBA.  The two have plenty in common, and while the metaphors break down as soon as you get past the political party definitions, the reality is they share a lot of attributes.

• Each side seems close, and agrees what should be done to resolve the issues.  Neither side wants to budge.  Movement will happen, but how much each side is willing to go is the question.
• Both are totally solvable.  The details are what’s holding things up.
• The issue more important to each side is who saves the most face.
• Both sides demonize each other, which seems more important to them than actually resolving the issues at hand.
• This only hurts the ones they propose to love, be it the fans or the American people.

Think of the last few months as the debt-ceiling crisis of last year.  While everyone bickered before the inevitable, faith was lost in the US and it’s leaders, which resulted in a downgrading of the United States’ credit rating.  Compare that to the faith being lost in the NHL by sponsors and fans (Molson – Coors and Boston Pizza don’t write public letters to the NHL expressing their concerns when things are going well).

Now we sit at the cliff.  With games cancelled until the end of the year, on or two more shuffle-steps towards the edge is all it’s going to take to shove this thing over.  Don’t be fooled.  As they said in Battlestar Galactica, “All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.”

Stay frosty.