True, which does make it semantically different, but both sides are stuck in the mud on their position...so it doesn't really matter. Yes, the NHLPA has said they would have played on good faith that a deal would get done, but that would have extended the old CBA, which both sides new the owners wouldn't allow. This whole situation is a hot mess at a time when the NHL was doing some of the best numbers in a long time. They had almost erased all the ill thoughts from the last lockout.

Instead you have owners scuttling money to make it look like they are loosing cash left and right while shelling out larger and larger contracts...and you have the players saying that they somehow deserve much more than a 50/50 split of the hockey related revenue.

It's a joke and as a hockey fan (whose son's initials happen to be NHL...mistake since there won't be a national hockey league soon) it leaves me nothing but frustrated at an already fringe sport that had the gall to think they are bigger than their fans.

...and it was mostly my wife's idea. With the last initial obvious...and the middle initial from a family name, she said if we went with Nolan then he would be NHL. How could I argue that?