[Overpaid Slacker]

Hey, I'm all for eliminating a few teams; and shortening the season; and playing fewer games per week; and cutting salaries to reflect hockey's 4th tier as professional sports "entertainment"; but your points ... such as they are ... still don't get to why the NHLPA should insist on being paid without regard to income. If you go down that road then sooner or later EVERYbody loses b/c the franchises that pay them go away. And let's face it, these guys are not exactly fraught with other marketable skills.
To say that it's all about the owners is hopelessly myopic. You're not a union worker by any chance?

ALL CAPS or not, I still can't get so worked up about it -- if it's cheating, it's cheating that I really don't care about. Hell, holding in football is "cheating", that's why they have a penalty for it. Travelling in basketball is "cheating", that's why they have a penalty for it. How many World Series did any team with Giambi, Bonds, McGuire, Canseco or Sosa win? So this "cheating" amounts to individuals racking up personal statistics ... and I don't care. If you need to buy in to the cult of personality surrounding professional athletes, go right ahead; you've got plenty of company. I prefer to lionize people who do shyt that actually matters. But that's just me.

Brian -
As I said, I didn't hear the entire ESPNRadio interview yesterday (I pulled into work in the middle of the Bettman interview). However, today they recapped yesterday's interviews with the NHL and the PA, replaying sections of the interviews. Notably, they replayed Bettman's bit about offering to give the PA access to the NHL's books. As an aside, I want to mention two points -- first of all, Bettman said this offer has been open for years; and also, this is not for the players themselves to look in the books, but for their accountants to look, obviously. The PA could certainly hire some high-octane accountants to dig through the books and figure out where the chicanery is (if any). If there are accountants that can unravel the Enron nest of snakes, they can figure out the NHL's books and where they depart from reality.

Anyway, when Bettman's quote was played for the PA rep, he specifically did not deny that the offer had been made for the PA to look at the books; instead he went of on this ad hominem attack of Bettman. I wasn't convinced by his changement of the topic, to put it mildly.

The owners certainly aren't without blame for the situation; however, as I said above, it is the players that let the opportunity to come to a deal slip away. Hockey is really all the players can do, so it's incredibly stupid not to take something (which is still hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars a year) when your other options are wash cars or work at your brother-in-law's lumber yard.

The PA behaved like the classic awful debater, IMHO. The blunted "wit" that refuses to let you make a point by shouting you down before you get to the point, or by changing the subject, or getting "personal" ... because once your point is stated, is "out there", then it has to be dealt with. That's how I believe the PA handled the offer to look at the books.

But, as I said, I haven't followed this with rapt attention. Squabbles between billionaires and well-overpaid millionaires don't really excite me so much. Especially when I don't deify athletes.

JP