Jedi

From the Ottawa Sun. A particularly troubling line in a story about time running out on the league imposed deadline... Although I doubt it's a case of Bettman being "allowed" to do anything, it's still very disconcerting that the League may not be willing to concede anything more to the players to get a deal done... Although, two lines before that, Daly seems to indicate that the league will still bargain over the most recent proposal, which indicates some concessions could still be made. And yes, I realize that the "League sources" are unnamed, so take the story with your preferred amount of salt...

Friendly reminder. LGW is a politics-free zone. Although it might be easy to reference politics in this discussion, please keep your posts on topic regarding the lockout and hockey. Thank you!

Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan, Butthole Surfers, et al.

Twist of Cain - Danzig

The fact that the two divisions in the "Eastern" conference had 7 teams in them, while the two divisions in the "Western" conference had 8 teams each. SInce the top 4 teams from each division would make the playoffs, that means each of the teams in the "Western" divisions would have a harder time making the playoffs than the teams in the "Eastern" divisions, since they have one more team to compete with in their division. I don't know if the actual percentage is 10% (I'll leave the actual amount to someone who's better at math than I am), but it's clear that it's fundamentally harder for teams in the "Western" divisions to make the postseason than teams in the "Eastern" divisions.

Ryan Lambert with Puck Daddy had a scathing review of the League's (read: Bettman's) negotiating tactics. I'd recommend giving it a read. I've left out a good chunk of the middle, because you really should go and give the whole thing a read. But I've included the parts that I agree with most.

Well, the league did say the full season could be played if started by November 2nd. TECHNICALLY there's still time, but I'm not holding my breath...

Let There Be More Light - Pink Floyd

I never predicted that every single older generation Red Wing would lose to a newer generation player. I only said that the voting method tends to skew results towards more recent Alums, since the voting is only held by social media, which is by and large ignored by the generation who would identify with the older Alums. And, considering it's Ted Lindsay, it's not surprising that he won. Easily identified as one of the best players of all time, let along one of the best Red Wings of all time. Here's the bracket as it stands today...

I don't know the actual details, but I can't imagine it's Bettman himself who votes on behalf of Phoenix. While they're definitely on the same side, there could be a huge case for conflict of interest there (though, perhaps not an actual legal case, but definitely room for complaint). I'd imagine that the league has appointed someone to look out for the best interests of the Phoenix Coyotes, someone who will probably be in lockstep with Bettman, but isn't actually Uncle Gary himself. In other words, the 1st vote in Gary's corner.

Fehr brings up an excellent point, from Nick Cotsonika...

Lebrun has some early details. Several tweets in this post, so I only linked to his timeline... I find the bolded VERY telling. Bash the players for the "they don't see any reason to take less in terms of dollars" tweet all you want, but the Owners VERY clearly don't want to honor the existing contracts as is. If I were Fehr, I would have looked directly at Craig Leipold when I made that presentation.

You say you don't believe either blowhard, yet the post before this sounds like you've pretty much made up your mind as to who you believe... Dreger thinks that the next block of game cancellations will hit tomorrow. He's probably right, unfortunately...

David Backes to LeBrun in a txt, tweeted by LeBrun... Not looking good...

According to Bettman. I would be curious to know the details of the three proposals, perhaps the three outline three different ways in which the PA thinks are acceptable to get down to an equitable share? This, a hundred times over. The actual details of the 3 proposals haven't even been leaked, so it's far too early to say that the players didn't actually approach the 50/50 split. Everything said by BOTH Bettman/League and Fehr/PA needs to be taken with a grain of salt, because they're going to try and spin the story to be the other side's fault.

And LeBrun again... And Bettman pulls out the Winter Classic Cancellation card, per Chris Johnston with the Canadian Press...

OUCH. Not good news... Dreger... LeBrun... And Dreger again...

And here we go. Per Lebrun, the meeting is over and the NHL is going to address the media soon. McKenzie's tweeting that 3 offers were presented to the NHL.

That's a certain possibility, bringing 4 and deciding which one to present. If all 4 have 50/50 split, then perhaps we'll have a season after all. Of course, it could be that having a 50/50 split means the 7th year of a 7 year deal is 50/50, with the first 6 years being more player tilted, so... Still too early to get too excited.

Thought I'd share this interesting tidbit that Khan(!!!!) retweeted from L.A. Lariviere with TVA Sports in Montreal. To me, that sounds like the players are coming to the table with equally reasonable proposals. And that's a good sign, if you ask me...

Whole Lotta Trouble - Stevie Nicks

Agreed. Today is the biggest litmus test of the process so far. Hoping to hear news of "good progress, more talks, etc" instead of "sizeable gulf, no further scheduled talks, Bettman/BoG kick puppies, Fehr punches babies, etc". But Gary probably does kick puppies...

Bwahaha. Hardly. But that's a discussion for another time and place. I'm very anxious to see what the PA's response will be. Andy McDonald of the Blues appears to be the same, as he had this to say... *edit* CURSE YOU TOBY!!! Posting stuff that I was going to post a full 8 minutes before I even saw it...

As in... Just remember that the Onion is satire, and is not meant to be taken seriously... Looks like some big guns are coming to the table on both sides today. Beyond the usual 4 (Bettman, Daly, Fehr & Fehr), looks like Jacobs (Boston), Leipold (Minnesota), Edwards (Calgary) and Leonsis (Washington) will be present for the League. The PA will have Craig Adams, Brad Boyes, Chris Campoli, David Clarkson, Dan Cleary, Carlo Colaiacovo, Sidney Crosby, Mathieu Darche, Shane Doan, Shawn Horcoff, Jarome Iginla, Robyn Regehr, Eric Staal, Matt Stajan, Shawn Thornton, Jonathan Toews, Kevin Westgarth, and Dan Winnik. Good to see two Wings players there.

We're all thinking it, so Dreger decided to tweet it...