"Siding with ownership has been difficult in any of sport’s 'labor wars' of the last 30-40 years. But the NHL owners may have captured the gold medal for incompetence with their threats to lock out the players in three weeks. Seriously, this [lockout] is going to happen. And for many of you, I realize the next question is: So what?

That’s one of the problems that commissioner Gary Bettman and the owners just don’t get. I’ve always thought instead of having league offices in New York and Toronto, they should move them to say, Raleigh, N.C., and Phoenix to get a better grip on just how relevant their sport isn’t in some of their own communities."