Started a petition at Change.org (NHL Lockout) to protest the lockout.
I'm basically annoyed that the last lockout, where the owners won 100% of what they were looking for didn't result in peace for any significant duration. With a salary cap tied to the prior year revenue of the league, the owners still couldn't get along and stop signing players to $100,000,000 113 year contracts.
I understood the last lockout - players didn't want a cap, owners felt it was necessary. That level of mismatch is likely to cause a lockout or strike.
I don't understand this one, particularly as the owners are "negotiating" whether or not they have to honour the contracts they signed since the last lockout!!! What the heck does that mean? We'll sign a contract to lure you to our team, but have no intentions of actually paying you???
I understand the players make a lot of money, but they gave up 24% of their salary monies last time and accepted the cap. I think they gave their two cents for the league. This time the owners are just showing an absolutely terrible level of greed - they are throwing away an entire season to re-split the profits in a more favourable manner (for them).
Remember - the fight is over how to split the PROFITS. All the arguments about how difficult it is to run a team and all the risks they take go out the window - the league is (was) PROFITABLE.
What I'd really like to see is one home game in each arena that is empty - play and NHL game to crickets and beer vendors - let the league understand that there is a finite amount of patience the fans have, and how dangerously close they are to losing the fan base entirely.
Baseball had a strike in the '90's - as the Detroit Tigers (my team) weren't doing very well at that time, it took me until the 2006 season to care again about baseball. Before the strike, I was always aware of the game and watched the play-offs every year. After the strike, my attachment was noticeably reduced, and I think my son isn't as attached as a result - there are significant long-term costs to this foolishness.
Let's let the NHL see the type of damage they are doing before we all get too sick of the idiocy to even care enough to protest.
