from Darren Rovell of ESPN,

The NHL has been through this many times, including, of course, the 2004-05 season, when it became the first league to miss an entire season due to a work stoppage. And fans came back in droves.

So what would be different this time?

The economy you say? I say you're wrong.

Fans are fans, and they find ways to make things work. If they go to fewer games, they're going to be watching more games on TV.

Sure, there will be some markets that will suffer -- how the Phoenix Coyotes will ever survive this lockout, I can't tell you. But as I go down the list of teams (including the Islanders, who will be moving to Brooklyn), I can't think of many that will automatically have empty arenas on game day.

In a Twitter poll I took Sunday morning, which had 430 votes at last check, 73 percent of people who say they were NHL fans would watch the same percentage of games as they had in previous seasons.

Did the NHL lockout really affect a quarter of its audience? Of course it didn't. Those fans will be back once they see the ice and the game that they've found so hard to resist.

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