NHL and NBA 'Family Day': What Are They Doing Right Now?

To those from Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario: Happy Family Day.

To our neighbours to the South: Happy President's Day.

To professional athletes everywhere: Business as usual.

Despite being named a holiday in four Canadian provinces and the United States, today is just another day for the NBA, the NHL, and the MLB—games will be played, practices will be scheduled, seats will be filled, and pay-cheques will be earned.

But for some of these players, the opportunity to see their families (like most people do on days such as these) is nonexistent.

The National Hockey League has four games going today:

• Carolina @ New Jersey 1:00pm Eastern
  
• San Jose @ New York Islanders 2:00pm Eastern
  
• Detroit @ Colorado 8:00pm Eastern
  
• Phoenix @ Los Angeles 10:00pm Eastern 

Meanwhile, for some NBA players today will be a day of travel, one day after All-Star game, so that twenty of it's teams can prepare for games tomorrow.

Now, it's understood that professional sports have become more of a business than anything. People are more concerned with the revenue generated from filling the seats, rather than just filling the seats. The bottom line has become more important than the foul line, and the third (or sometimes fourth) color on teams' jerseys these days is green (unless you're in Canada where it could be one of blue, brown, red, or purple too).

I also get the fact that Presidents' and Family Day aren't necessarily the biggest holidays in the world.

But on Christmas day, six NBA teams had to play(Miami @ Cleveland, Phoenix @ Lakers, Seattle @ Portland)—and when a trip to see your family is a cross country flight, that would seem like a pretty blue Christmas to me.

The NHL played through both the Canadian Thanksgiving and the American Thanksgiving.

And although the work schedule decreases ever so slightly, both leagues play straight through Easter weekend. 

Maybe we could add a few extra days here and there? Maybe a Christmas day off for the NBA, and a Thanksgiving Thursday for the NHL, and an Easter Sunday?

Sure it adds an extra three days to an already intense schedule, but it's an extra three days off, not an extra three games. 

Sure the athletes get anywhere from a two to four month off-season (depending on their team's success in the playoffs), but a majority of that time is spent training or rehabbing.

And sure most of them make well over a million dollars—but is that any right to make them work through days anyone else (aside from Essential services) would have off?

The last time I checked, police and firemen were more of a necessity when the house lights on fire from an over-cooked turkey or Uncle Biff comes over in a drunken rage and shoves the cat in the fireplace than NBA games are.

Then again, I guess the 60,086 fans that attended NBA games on Christmas Day can't be wrong can they?