While many fans are frustrated and intend to financially punish the NHL/NHLPA, it can be difficult to actually do it and not let it slide into nothing more than an empty threat. A number of psychological principles, however, can be used to maximize the probability that fans' threats actually become reality, including:

• making the threat tied logically to the NHL/NHLPA's behavior (... the lockout is about money, so the punishment is about money)
• relating the magnitude of the threat to the magnitude of the problem behavior (... the longer the CBA stalemate, the longer the duration of the punishment)
• making the threat as specific as possible (... NHLFanBoycott.com will specify a $ value and duration for the punishment, which will proportionally relate to the length of the Lockout)
• providing reminders of the threat over the duration of its intended execution (... NHLFanBoycott.com will stay up for the duration of intended punishment as determined by the length of the Lockout and will regularly tweet reminders to followers)

   Regardless of whether you are a diehard season ticket holder or the most casual of fans, you can make a difference by decreasing your spending on the NHL after the Lockout. There are a variety of ways you can do this:

• split season tickets with somebody instead of having your own

  

• resell a higher percentage of your season tickets

  

• purchase fewer game tickets

  

• if you are going to buy tickets, try to buy tickets from a season ticket holder first

  

• spend less money in the arena when you attend games

  

• buy less NHL/NHLPA related merchandise

  

• spend less on NHL-related TV (buy fewer pay-per-view games; don't buy NHL Center Ice or buy it for less of the season; don't buy games directly from NHL.com or buy fewer games)