... the NHL is no different from the NBA and NFL, which experienced 130 and 181-day lockouts, respectively, when those leagues' collective bargaining agreements were up for renewal last year. It turns out that NFL and NBA owners had risked very little in attempting to strong-arm players into a more favorable split of revenue. The NFL season began on time, and last year's NBA playoffs were amongst the most watched in history, despite the cancelation of 16 regular season games per team. For NBA owners, gambling with largely-meaningless early-season games was worth the potential billions in future revenue they secured for themselves by taking a hard line against the league's players' union.

There's no better evidence that NHL owners were watching the other leagues' aggressive tactics--as well as the players' eventual capitulation--than their demand for an astronomical 57% of league revenue when CBA negotiations opened two weeks ago. The NHL owners still want a 50-50 or better split in revenue, and they are convinced that they get it at relatively little risk. "The players are not stupid," says Allen Sanderson, an economist at the University of Chicago. "But the owners are not stupid either. They've got to be looking at what happened at in the NFL and NBA and betting that they're going to prevail."

-The Atlantic where you can read more on the CBA negotiations.