re: NHL on the verge of another lockout

In a way, the last lockout kind of helped the sport. OK, cancelling the whole season was bad, but the agreement did solve a lot of issues the sport had which were quite real. The salary structure was out of whack and more importantly, they revolutionized the rulebook to end the Dead Puck Era. They tried to emphasize speed and skill right after the lockout.

Then, five years later, they slowly forgot to enforce the rules and we're back to the clutch and grab sluggish hockey of the late 90s. And the financial issues are now more of the owners trying to completely break the union (their rules on free agency combined with draft rules essentially make it so a player can never get paid market value when he is at his peak skills).

stupid frickers.

league just getting back on its feet. actually drawing TV audiences and getting back on "regular" tv.

if it happens again, it's over for the NHL.

Don't get me wrong, I agree the lockout did help some things. I was talking about how bad it was for the NHL brand to lose an entire season, I mean you basically lost your entire casual fan base plus any shot to get them back since the NHL was no longer on ESPN (god do I miss NHL on ESPN).

This lockout has the potential to be far worse than that one, hopefully everyone involved sees that and compromises.