This NHL lockout has been quite the roller coaster ride. Sometimes things are up and sometimes they are down with sudden abrupt changes and inversions to make anyone dizzy.

Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr have butted heads again and again in some sort of, I assume, exhibition of male dominance (don't know why they think the fans want to mate with either of them right now) going at each other again and again.

Just like two warring parents, the worst is felt for the kids at home, locking themselves in their room, hoping for things to get settled so they can be a family again but yet listening to each parent berate and insult the other.

Now, I am as much a fan of roller coasters as anyone. The adrenaline kick of doing to corkscrews and loop-DI-loops is wonderful and the terror of being on one is sometimes the best part.

However, the time has come for me to get off the NHL lockout coaster. Emotionally, it has been tough to hear the two sides say they might be working toward a real, viable solution only to then say they are "far apart" and the coaster banks into a 180 degree turn in a downward spiral.

This ride has gone on long enough and I am getting off. I can't ride this coaster to watch the NHL and NHLPA bicker at one another while they just are delaying, deluding and destroying their fan base from truly appreciating their product.

I'm not going to choose which parent to live with, I'm not going to go up or down on this roller coaster and I am not going to say which side I like better than one another because, frankly, I'm disgusted with both right now.

The time has come for me to stand up, get off and go watch a Denver Cutthroats game or a DU Pioneers game or any other brand of hockey. When the NHL comes back, I'll be happy to watch the team I grew up watching, to sit in the Pepsi Center drinking $8 beer and watching the players play the game that I love the most.

However, it will be that each time I watch them, a little part of me will always remember what both sides of this abominable conflict negotiation did to ensure that I wouldn't watch NHL hockey for the 2012-13 year and that part will never forgive them.

In time I might be able to move past this but for now, my stomach is sick, I am dizzy and it has come time for me to disembark this roller coaster.

Go ahead Fehr and Bettman, sign a new deal or don't. At this point, I can't care anymore, the cost is just too high.

Join the Discussion: » 12 Comments » Post New Comment

» Farewell Hockeybuzz

» We are the 18.8 percent

» Joe Sacco fired

» Is Semyon Varlamov the Goalie of the Future?

» Sami Aittokallio to make his NHL debut