"If there is a season...."

I can't believe we're even having a conversation about this.

Did the NHL learn nothing from the MLB lockout in the mid 90's, their own lockout that cost them an entire season, or the NBA's lockout that cost them nearly half a season, or the NFL lockout that nearly led to missed games?

Hockey is a tough sell in the US anyway, outside of the Northeast and the states that border Canada. Doing this does nothing but alienate fans.

And the worst part is that most of us saw this coming a few years back. Within a year or two after the lockout, the huge guaranteed contracts started coming back, and the league just doesn't have the kind of money that the NFL has (partly due to Bettman's incompetence in getting decent TV deals- going with OLN/VS was stupid as hell).

I honestly haven't read much about this situation yet, so I don't know if I should be blaming the owners or the players, but the reality is that a lockout/strike isn't good for either side, and it will just further harm the image of the NHL in the minds of the fans, particularly the American ones.

Link?

Pretty confident they'll avoid a lock-out this time around.

One of the football guys I follow on Twitter was RT'ing somebody hockey related the other day, advocating for a lockout. He said a lockout would cause the NHL as we all know it to implode and probably shrink in size. Non-Hockey markets like teams in the south would likely dissolve and the league would have to reorganize. Short term the effects would be devastating but long term he said it could be a better and stronger NHL.

Not sure if he was just pontificating or was on to something. The league clearly needs to do something at this point facing its 2nd potential labor stoppage in less than a decade.

Downsizing wouldn't be a bad thing for the NHL.

Downsizing raises the odds of the Sabres winning the cup.

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Downsizing raises the odds of the Sabres winning the cup.