>>>I side with the management, as always.
>>>I don't see how the players can complain.
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>>Uh, like the owners never offered those huge salaries in the first place????
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>LOL.
>Hi again Jim.
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>Well, it's their business. They can run it anyway they want. They're still offering the players hundreds of thousand, and in many cases millions, of dollars each.
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>Yeah there's enough blame to go around, including the fans. But I blame the players the most.
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>The cost of going to see a hockey game was outrageous. Two tickets upper deck for $150.00. Add a hotdog and beer, $200.00 easy.

I stopped going years ago for that very reason.
While I think that MarkM basically had it right - BOTH are greedy B*S%A&D$ - I tend to get upset with OWNERS who can't exercise SELF CONTROL!!!
They don't need a contract to impose self control, they can do it themselves. When contracts lapse just offer less. If the player goes, he goes. SIMPLE.
These guys call themselves "businessmen" yet they can't make decisions - they have to have contracts to IMPOSE discipline on THEMSELVES???? What a pile of crap!!!

As long as an owner - and there will always be some - is willing to pay ANYTHING to have a winner I don't see how you can blame a player for taking the $$$.

If you knew anything about the history of hockey you'd know that players got royally screwed in the first 50+ years of the league. They even got screwed by their own "player representative", Alan Eagleson. They NEEDED a union to get some value for their services.

Why do we put owners in a special category... the players are just ordinary Joes but the owners are special in some way? The owners have done this to themselves. I think it's a safe bet that even if they had agreed to the terms some owners would have found 'legal' ways to breach, or would have paid the 'fine' to pay more. So what would that have resulted in?... same problems imposed by the same people, with players only too happy to take the extra $$$ that the owners are only too happy to dole out.

Do you think the owners would have cut ticket prices if they had won? I can't see it. But suppose they did. Likely that a hot dog or nachos & cheese would have doubled in price.

I simply can't side with the owners because THEY engineered the current situation and they will continue to put ego before rules anyway, as they always have.

cheers

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>>>>Well the idiot millionaires and billionaires have successfully achieved being the first North American pro sport to cancel an entire season. They have managed to royally screw the fans. Not to mention all the arena/game workers, concessionaires working for charities and families who depend on the pitance of dollars needed to just get by in alot of cases. Selfish b@$t@rd$, all of 'em.