I took a lot of heat from player friends of mine for the last blog, saying I have become too pro owner in this dispute. To set the record straight, the last blog really was about trying to help players see the bigger picture, which is very hard to do when you are so invested in a dispute. I get that.

I was hoping to show how I feel the players are putting too much emphasis on the current CBA negotiations and trying to win the minutia...because history shows the ONLY time owners DON'T throw huge amounts of money at the players is the few months every 7 years or so the sides are negotiating a new CBA. All other times the players do pretty damn well. We can probably all agree that every July 1 we look at guys signing contracts and we see huge numbers being spent. WHY? Because apparently owners want to win more than they want to make money for the 7 years between these CBA negotiating nightmares.

Yes, the CBA's are designed to save them from themselves..but that doesn't mean they ever work that way!

The last lockout was about getting a salary cap. The cap happened, and for the first year things stunk, but then there were several years of growth. This lockout is about getting to 50/50, and I feel the first year will suck again, but from then on we will see MANY years of prosperity for NHL players...

The players look at this as giving back to the owners...
The owners look at it like honing in on a system that will keep all 30 teams stable...

The fans have a hard time looking beyond the fact that their own economy sucks and they have seen both players and owners making billions off of it. The longer this lockout goes the easier it is becoming for fans to learn how to survive without attending live games. Money is tough right now and people are going to be fine watching on TV. Attendance this year will be BRUTAL.

So if I was negotiating this for the players I would take the NHL's economic plan laid out but demand a 10 year CBA and get what I can out of the contactual issues. Why? Because in three years 50/50 will be better than you are currently and then the next 7 years will see massive growth of player salaries...Why? Because no matter what the contractual issues are, the players should know by now the owners will spend the life of this CBA doing what thy always do: Find ways to put as much money as possible into the players pockets.

The only way my plan doesn't work is if players hatred of Bettman and the owners hatred of Fehr get in the way. I have several friends who are players who keep telling me how Bettman talks down to them and how Fehr has them more unified tem more then ever against Gary.

Whatever your opinion of Bettman is, focusing on him, no matter how much he doesn't "get it" does nothing but hurt you and your families. Players are tough as nails on the ice, but they also are excellent at putting their families first. Ask yourself this...Has Gary Bettman stopped any of you from ever signing a huge contract?

And here is where I do blame Donld Fehr. He represents the players and yet is failing to show them how having players in these negotiation sessions is the WORST thing he could possibly do for them. I admire the players for going to the sessions and passionately fighting for this CBA, but what we are seeing as a result is how FAR out of their league a born and bred NHL Athlete is at handling the kind of cut throat talk that is just another normal day in a negotiating room.

We are seeing guys coming out of the room spitting nails and you can't blame them. To get what he wants a negotiator HAS to talk down to the other side...but people who spend their college years learning this know how to handle it and not take it personally. Pro negotiators can sit down and have a beer with the other side at 5pm, then go at it again the next day. NHL players, who spent their college years working on their skating, have no tools to separate the emotion out of it.

Fehr knows this and it gets hard for me to understand his reasoning sometimes. All who deal with him say he is excellent at keeping his own emotions out of it. But he seems to instead have no problem with players being totally emotional in these talks..

So instead we see NHL players head to Twitter and bad mouth Gary and then the other players, doing what players do naturally, back their fellow player up...and before you know it this whole mess becomes about how to get rid of Bettman instead of how to shrink the $180M keeping everyone from making billions.

It is time to take emotion out of this. For everyone's sake.

Don't mistake me not wanting players in the negotiating sessions as me not wanting players involved . Player involvement got the last proposal out there and that proposal has brought us closer than ever to settlement. Players need to make sure Fehr listens to you. Owners need to make sure Bettman listens to you. Both negotiators need to know that a cancelled season is NOT an option...both Gary and Don will then do their jobs and we will all have hockey again.

More to come.

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