Your reaction to the cancelation

[Puckguy14]

As some of you know, I also work for thefeeder.com, a hockey news site. I will be writing an article as this season is officially cancelled. Please post your thoughts and try to keep it clean and simple. For me its... it took an influenza epidemic to cancel the Cup being presented. World Wars didn't stop the Cup from being handed out. In the end, greed and the egos of two heads with millionaire bickering stopped the oldest trophy in professional sports from being presented. THANKS FOR NOTHING! If you're as and as I am. Make your face on my poster be seen!

[slapshot]

This sucks big fluffing donkey balls.

And you may quote me on that.

[DEAD!]

Words cannot express how I truly feel about all this.

Ten things for NHL fans to do

[hrivnak]

They're putting the game in jeopardy for $6.5 million. Ridiculous. Can't they see how much damage they've already done? Well, they just screwed the pooch now. Especially now that linkage is back on the table... be ready to say R.I.P. to the 2005-2006 season as well.

Jackasses.

[LMU]

I'm pissed at the sure greed that has been exhibited, but I'll be quite happy with the discounts on jerseys that are sure to come as a result.

[Puckguy14]

I'm pissed at the sure greed that has been exhibited, but I'll be quite happy with the discounts on jerseys that are sure to come as a result.

Amen to that!

[plattopus]

A league can't work when you're running at a loss just to pay the players. Salary caps, revenue sharing and salary/revenue links have worked all over the world, and for the PA not to accept these initiatives it will only make them seem even more greedy in the eyes of the public.

It's a sad thing that the season has been cancelled, but one lost season is a hell of a lot better than the entire league going bust due to greedy players.

[Suigi]

The fact that there's going to be a blank spot on the Stanley Cup is reason enough for future generations to laugh at us, and for the current batch of players to be ashamed.

This is how much you "love" the game.

This is how much you greedy players want more money in a year than your fans make in a lifetime.

This is how much you owners want higher ticket prices, despite the fact that the on-ice product is shoddy.

This is how much both of you "feel sorry" for the fans you expect to return once you open up shop again.

Guess what, Bob and Gary? What good is revenue sharing when there's no one going to your games?

You realize it took 10 years for MLB to recover from its shutdown. How long do you think it'll take YOUR league, with no major TV contract in the US, little-to-no fans in many markets, and players who don't play for the love of the game, to recover? WILL it recover?

How can you live with yourselves?!

-Gabe Lerman

Toronto, Ontario

[Puckguy14]

PLEASE NOTE: Do not respond to another person's comments if you can. I can use as many quotes as I can get. Thanks in advance! :-)

[CaolinaJoe]

I think both sides got exactly what they wanted.

The owners stated long ago that they wanted a cap and would settle for nothing less. To them losing the season is not as expensive as playing.

The players waited 3 months to even approach the table. They counted on public pressure to force the owners to cave. They counted on European checks to help them stay the course. They supposedly didn't want a cap, but as a PR move accepted one in the end. They weren't serious about it, and wouldn't budge off their number.

Their 23rd hour move was simply to try and say it was all the owners fault. They don't care about losing the season cause they are either playing in Europe, retiring, or financially set and won't miss(that much) one years salary.

Neither ever wanted a season unless the other side completely caved. All they really want is the otherside to look like the bad guy, and neither sees they are both the problem.

[tmorss9]

I thought I loved hockey more than pretty much anything... In the worst times of my life, I could always turn on a game, or at the very least, pick up a book or video, and things would calm down for a little while... Now because a bunch of guys who make WAY too much money cant agree on how to spread their fortunes, we get to see the first cancellation of a full season. To me this is a very simply solved thing. I ask the players what more do you want??? Would you guys like a few days working on the assembly line at one of the auto company, just to see what your fans do before they go to watch you guys clutch and grab your way around the ice, playing that boring brand of hockey? To the owners.. If you cant afford the players, dont write the check.. As a business owner, I know that fiscal responsibility rests squarely on my shoulders... Its pretty simple guys, you should have hammered something out a long time ago.. Now we get to wait for both sides to come down off that ivory tower, only to see them bring back a game that leaves fans yearning to see the game they grew to love, which unfortunately never returned the feeling.... Keep your slashed ticket prices, keep your atrocious, non-entertaining product... If you had made the game as fun to watch as it was in the 80's, maybe more people would have paid to get into the building, and maybe more people would have watched on TV, and you would actually have someone wanting to pay you to be on their network.. It has happened before.

[yh]

Cancellation of the season was the only tool the owners could use in order to resist the will of, if not altogether break, the players' union. The players' union gambled that the owners would either cave or make serious concessions toward their demands rather than scrap the entire season. The owners gambled that the players' union would rather concede certain key elements of their platform than risk a potential union-breaking cancellation of the NHL season.

What this situation proves is that both sides are bad gamblers.

Both sides are to blame for not making a more serious effort to negotiate a settlement. Each side relied too heavily on doomsday scenarios serving as some kind of boogeyman that would scare the other side to the bargaining table. Each side should be ashamed of itself for not making more of a good faith effort to either resolve their differences or at least do a better job of exploring more creative alternatives. Somewhere out there is a mutually acceptable solution but nobody really wanted to look for it.

[oz615]

Words cannot express how I truly feel about all this.

Ten things for NHL fans to do

well i got 1.) down pack,now if only i can find a copy of slap shot on dvd somewhere,and mystery,MVP and Miracle for that,Not listed in the top 10,table hockey game,i got Stiga game in my closet,with 7 team (Red Wings Maple Leafs,Canadiens,Black Hawks,Predators,USA,Canada) that i can play w/,and i directv which means college hockey and hopefully some minor league hockey.

[Saintsfan]

Very very sad. That the people who run the game cannot act as guardians of its legacy then who can. If the Players representatives can't work out that alienating fans, the fans who pay the wages of the players, is not a great idea, then who can. That the Stanley Cup won't be presented in 2005 is just terrible.

[wheateater]

For the life of me, I will never understand why these players would be willing to play for the proverbial piss in the bucket in European leagues and the almighty UHL, among others. To those who actually stayed at home and waited for a phone call, not stealing jobs from less-talented guys ho actually NEED to play in those lesser leagues, I applaud you. The owners (and Bettman) got themselves into this mess, and they should rightfully pull themselves out. But for these spoiled little punks who cross the Atlantic and steal jobs from honest hard-working Sven and Hans, or tough-as-nails Joe and Mike here in North America, I have no sympathy. They can go play for a hundred grand there with a cap smaller than their weiners, but they are not willing to play under a $40-some million cap in the best hockey league in the world?!? That's the last time I ever buy a poster with one of their ugly mugs on it, or one of their jerseys, or one of their McFarlane figures, or one of their flimsier-than-paper $200 hockey sticks. Fluff 'em all. I always thought it'd be a cold day in hell before the NHL cancelled a season. Well guess what, guys: Satan's got his ice ready for ya.

[Mings]

They can go play with a cap smaller than their weiners

isnt that those weird german condoms you are talking about?

[Brian in Boston]

Frankly, this die-hard hockey fan couldn't care any less if he tried.

Top-tier, major professional ice hockey will return to the North American landscape. Of this, I am sure.

What form said return takes is anybody's guess. It may be that the National Hockey League's owners and players get their respective houses in order and the NHL is the entity that fills that role. It may be that an entirely new league launches in the wake of this lost season. Perhaps a group of larger-market teams from the upper-tier of minor-league hockey will form the core of reconfigured AHL or ECHL.

Bottom line? I don't know how - or when - major professional ice hockey will return to the United States and Canada. However, I do know that it will. I also know that I'll judge it on its merits when it returns. I may not be quite the die-hard fan I was before this "lost" season, but I'll be open to seeing what the top level of the game has to offer. Hopefully the sport's financial stability - and future - will be solidified the second time around.

That said, my life goes on.

[BB61]

If Gary Bettman wants this league to be a "major" league, he, the owners, and the players are doing a bad job at projecting that image. I think everyone is to blame here. It's a group of people being too stubborn to care about the state of the sport (it is, in essence, the sport, because some people are going to hold this against the sport in general and not just the NHL), and so they got what they earned.

I saw this coming a while ago, but now that it's done, I'm fed up. Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow don't have the cranial capacity nor the gumption for the jobs that they hold -- they should be working at McDonald's, and even then I'd be worried about them messing up my Big Mac.

We need REAL fans to run this league, not people who are overobsessed with numbers. I want hockey, not excuses.

If they come back next year, I will watch, because I'm a fan of the sport. I could not possibly care less who is in what uniform. If they think they can get more money playing in Russia, fine. Go ahead. I want people who actually give a rat's leg about the people who care about this sport and the league.

[mac]

I've known this was gonna happen eventually, but it still burns my ass, I am one of the anchors on the school news show and tomorrow I'm wearing my all star game jersey from two years ago with tape making an X over the logo on TV.

[BB61]

Oh, almost forgot. Puckguy: (or anyone else) where is that thread for how to send entries for your posters? I want in.