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Jimmy D is a high school dropout who grew up in the bad part of Toronto (yes, they exist in Canada). Eloquence is not his strong suit, but I frankly love it. But the man is a hockey genius and has been a key component on 8 Stanley Cup winning teams. Yeah, fire him.

Doc burns the stove and yells "FIRE!"

While I side with the owners that percentage of revenue going to the players should go down, contracts signed before the old CBA should be grandfathered in. That's a very legitimate player gripe. It also happens to greatly favor the Wings, who really have not signed any outrageous deals.

Ok, it's Saturday night, I'm drunk and despite my poor English speaking, I 'll speak about Swiss league. Tonight was the 4th night of our regular season. Davos vs Lakers: Nash put an hat trick with one assist and Thornton 4 assists in a 9-2 win. Ok, we don't care about them. So Brunner scored twice in a 6-3 win over ambri, à team from the italian side of Switzerland. For the people who don't know about Swiss, we speak 3 languages: French (for me) German and Italian. There is an another one but nobodies knows it: romanche. A mix between the 3. Very strange.

I'm thinking the SPEED network would be a perfect fit for Doc. Plus, ice rinks are already shaped like ovals

Don Cherry forces all European born producers off the set during his show. They don't have the toughness to make a good meal.

^^ This.

I agree. I've resorted to making paper Yzermans...somebody shoot me now.

Dang, Jimmy, tell us how you really feel! The players are cattle on the owners' cattle ranches? If that's true, then they best be taking good care of their cattle, or else no one's going to want to buy their product. I get that the owners are running a business and not a charity organization, but I think that metaphor is taking it a little far, and I think the players deserve a little more credit for what they do. Also, I don't buy his argument that the players should be so incredibly grateful and bow down to the owners for what they receive from them. Let's face it, both sides are grubbing for as much money as possible, so one side can't play the victim and say the other is being greedy and unfair when they both have the same goal in mind - making money. I just find it a little hard to swallow that he tries to justify the owners making bazillions and then criticizes the players for going to Russia when a) they have jack all else to do and b) have just as much right as anyone else under the capitalist system to make as much money as possible.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

HAHA! And Jimmy D really stuck up for Bettman! I guess that won't happen again...

I can think of 3.3 billion reasons why they get paid as much as they do.

I blame everyone associated with the NHL for this debacle. Part of me wishes the league would fold, since they're stupid enough to have 2 lockouts within one decade.

With all due respect Mr.D, I think the players only need to be 76% fit, because you are going to pay them only 76% of what you agreed and promised to.

Did anyone Catch this in the interview? He seems to be throwing his own players under the bus including the best player on the team in Datsyuk Maybe jimmy d was in a really bad mood the day he gave this interview. This just seems so unredwing like

Yup. I don't really care that they are overpaid but I do get annoyed when people try to justify entertainers/pro athletes getting paid millions of dollars. There is none

The percentages have no meaning unless we know what all the clubs expenses are. Without this information now can anybody say what is a good deal or bad deal for either side. And maybe 50% for doctors is fair. I have no clue. But the clubs did sign players to certain contracts and now they want to basically renegotiate them. Players agreed to this once and now owners are coming back for me. Unless players have the desire to keep giving back every few years they have to resist. Lets take Datsyuk for example. 24% rollback would turn his $6.7M into about $5M. There is a different between cattle and people, cattle can't leave the ranch.

Love Jimmy D interviews - his frankness is refreshing. Flipping it, to 43% players and 57% owners still seems like a good deal to me. That's still a huge chunk to the players, but you have to remember the owners still have to pay coaches, scouts, doctors, vendors, trainers, administrators, insurance, marketing and maintenance. Imagine if doctors at a hospital demanded 50% of all revenues? It's getting real hard for me to side with the players as this keeps going on. My biggest worry is contracts coming down so much the NHL can not compete with a league like the KHL for top salaries. It's just too bad the top dogs on each side are famous for relating poorly with the other side - Fehr and Bettman.

Both. After reading this interview, it is painfully clear that they both are pretty disgusting.

I like it that he spoke honestly. The part about this whole thing being way too complicated for the average Joe to understand was a bit condescending, but maybe I'm over-estimating the average Joe. I do agree that the owners run the thing, but owners have to take their employees into consideration. If this was the players just demanding more money, I'd be on the owners' side, but this is about the players getting paid what the owners have said they will pay them. Good read, even if I didn't particularly like what was said. It's nice to hear someone just answering the questions rather than going all PC.

Great interview, what a straight shooter! It's quite refreshing to hear someone say it like it is.

Haha, sheep f***er. That made me laugh. If all the owners are cattle farmers, words like these are certainly prodding for trouble. It's pretty obvious there's a power struggle element to all of this and I fear symbollically whoever is grossing more than 50% is the one wearing the pants in the relationship. What a petty situation to be in.

Because the NHL's original proposal was so utterly outrageous that "meeting in the middle" would still represent a massive reduction in pay and rights for the players. As I said earlier, the NHL's started out not with a basis for negotiation between 2 parties, but an ultimatum of surrender for a vanquished foe. And all because a handful of teams have bad business models/bad markets, and the majority of owners keep handing out bonkers contracts.

i knew the nhl would be destroyed once lids retired

He doesn't sound threatening to me. Maybe I'm not reading between the lines enough, but it sounds to me like somebody asked him what he thought of the situation, so he gave them an honest answer, which is that he agrees Edmonton needs a new arena. I agree that it's none of his business what the taxpayers and government of Edmonton decide to do with their money, and the fact that he IS putting his nose in Quebec City's business bugs me, but it doesn't sound like it's gotten to that point yet here. It sounds like it's the Oilers who are forcing the city to do something by saying they won't play at Rexall Place after the lease is up in 2014. Somehow I really doubt the Oilers would leave Edmonton. Don't they have some of the best attendance numbers in the league, percentage-wise? I mean, I would imagine that's why Bettman wants them to build a new stadium, right? If the Oilers can suck that bad and still fill 17,000 seats, those are some enthusiastic people you've got there, so why not see what you can do with 20,000 seats? I mean, I know QC has some enthusiastic fans, too, but hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It makes a lot more sense to me (at least in my pea brain) to take a team like Phoenix, who has awful attendance, and relocate it, rather than doing the Canadian Team Shuffle.