The owners allowed gary to expand into the sahara and now wants the players to pay for it.  Makes sense to me.  There are hundreds of players that have a job in which their owner can't afford and is losing money.  The league wont con-tract any teams bc that would insinuate that gary the god was wrong.  So the league will keep these embarrassing franchises and have the players pay for it.  The only ones that should be upset are the players that are on teams that make money.  If i was a player on the Coyotes, i wouldn't say a peep bc you are not earning your pay.  There will be a strike unless the players bend over again, this is guaranteed.  But the issues aren't as deep as the last lockout, so the strike shouldn't last too long.  F U gary for ruining the best game on earth.

Man....... How many years has it been since the last walk out..?

All this time to figure something out....?

Nothing gets done and suddenly we are close to a downturn in a sport which has had to struggle to stay at number 4.... Above beach volley ball and soccer...............................

Profit sharing like football is the only answer..... There's only a few successful teams anyway.....................

Starting to dislike Hockey as much as American Politics..........

If I recall correctly the owners "won" the last time around and now once again they claim they can't operate under the current cba? The truth is this league is being held back by dead weight, seriously fuck Long Island, Phoenix, Columbus and who ever else can't even average 8,000 fans a game. I'm in favor of a system similar to the mlb where the big market teams can do whatever the fuck they want and the small market welfare teams are gratefull for the handouts.

To continue this uneducated, uninformed Malibu rum rant another example that this league needs to downsize a few teams is the goaltending situations in TB and Columbus, last year they were nothing short of brutal and what did they do this offseason? Bobrovsky and Lindback. Is there not more than 30 or so NHL calibre starting goaltenders on the fucking globe?

Dissolving a few teams would in theory reduce the amount of stupidity anytime a decent player is available via free agency, supply and demand people.

Hey Potvin I  beleive I used the work uniformed, anyways it's a damn shame a team with a rich history like the Isles play in a outdated arena in a market flooded with pro teams. In the late 90's the Nucks franchise was going down the toilet with a horrible on ice product, the whole currency exchange thing, poor attendance and unsteady ownership, John McCaw saved the franchise, took on heavy losses and only really got involved as a favor to the Griffiths family. As unpopular as Mike Keenan was around here at the time I wonder if the Nucks would even still be here if he didn't trade for Naslund and Bertuzzi, the cornerstones of the early 2000's and the turnaround of the franchise.

...

there are intelligent people on both sides of this dispute which makes it all the more amazing how the collective IQ can be so small as to defy measurement...

no sooner than owners reveal they  want to cap contract lengths at 5 yrs than philly signs wayne simmonds to a 6-yr deal...

karmanos/rutherford in carolina are big-time blowhards on controlling player costs so naturally they throw a fortune at jeff skinner...

small-market nashville can't afford weber; presto, they make him the 100+-million-dollar man...

the grassroots fan has zero impact on how/when this gets resolved; the sooner we accept that, the sooner the whinging, the 'how-can-they-do-this-to-us' mercifully ceases...

look, nhl hockey as it exists now is wayyyyyy beyond the limit of affordability for the average fan who bleeds his/her team colors; all that matters at league HQ and the NHLPA is sales of season tickets to corporations, merchandising revenue, and luxury boxes filled with CEOs, suits, assorted high rollers and their bootlickers, none of whom cares a whit beyond their wall/bay street portfolio holdings...everything else is fat-lip service

if fehr draws a line in the sand,im thinking this will be a long ugly affair...

think a slip-slidin bataan death march...

and yet i hope the players don't cave...

oh, it'll all be settled in due course; they'll slap silly the goose that lays the golden egg but nobody is dumb enough to euthanize it...

the thing is the nhl is already an afterthought in 30 per cent of its cities anyway; the rest of us who seriously give a damn have the baseball pennant races/playoffs/world serious and the NFL to amuse us till these morons decide to get over themselves (which they will...until the next set of  contract talks that is)...

Dear Sir/Madam:

For ever long now, “Hockey” has been a traditional sport started here in Canada! As of lately

though the “Stanley Cup” which is also traditionally Canadian, has been spread about the Americas

willi- nilly to the winner of the series! Up to this year 2012 we have been part of it! Now since the owners

of the Hockey League(s) are standing back and not letting hockey proceed and we may very well lose the whole

season, what a wonderfull time for we “Canadians” to back out of the leagues and series and even try to retain

ownership of our beloved “ Stanley Cup” once again permanently! We begin by forming coast to coast hockey teams

right here in Canada and proceed to hold our own “Canadian Hockey tournaments” and cups and prizes for our very

Own Canadians who deserve to have it back! Once and for All! Let the so called Billionaires in USA find something else

To be greedy about! Think of what I just said! We could have the game, the Stanley Cup, the prizes and better still the

Canadian teams as Canadians and all the money that is generated to help grow Canada instead of other countries!!

For your thoughts,

Edward Jones