You have to believe the owners will eventually gravitate toward accepting 50-50 as well, but right now the hardliners are simply not willing to go there. Those hardliners, we presume, include commissioner Gary Bettman and the owners whose teams are better off with no games being played than they would be if the season were a go.

Owners in bad markets (we’d put money on places like Florida, Tampa, Dallas, Columbus, Nashville, Phoenix and Carolina) have reportedly hijacked this entire process and are not willing to entertain a moderate deal.

At the same time, there are plenty of owners who want to get a deal done and are willing to come to a compromise, but at this point it seems their voices are not being heard.

-Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun where more can be read on this topic.