It may be hard for the NHL owners to find a less damaging approach, but they must. For all their talk of partnership over the years, they have always operated according to a very different standard, the one articulated by Red Wings vice president Jim Devellano during the interview last September that got his club fined $250,000: “The owners simply aren’t going to let a union push them around. It’s not going to happen.”

What shouldn’t happen is for the NHL to extend its antagonism toward the players any further. Even if this next CBA goes into effect for eight or 10 years, depending on how the final document is written, its conclusion should not be the excuse for yet another lockout, another suicidal chapter in the league’s history. It’s time to figure out how to turn the page on this nonsense, once and for all.

-Stu Hackel of the Red Light where you can read more of ffinding a true labor fix.