from Roy MacGregor of the Globe and Mail,

Fan loyalty is proving not quite as deep as the ocean, as proved to be the case in 2004-05. There is this time a growing sense that, given the chance, fans might turn on the league and its players if 2012-13 is lost entirely.

And since we are discussing strategy, he (unnamed lawyer) adds, you have to presume that the league and its teams had a strategy in place that presumed – perhaps even planned – that there would be a lockout on Sept. 15.

That, he says, raises the possibility that teams sold season tickets fully aware there would be, at best, a shortened season, and, at worst, no season at all. He would call this “false pretenses.” Even if those tickets have caveats in small print regarding the possibility of lost games, he still believes a legal argument could be made.

Season-ticket holders are a powerful force in hockey. Well more than half the available seats are dedicated to their loyalty.

The legal mind thinks there would be judges – also hockey fans – out there who would entertain such a legal question, even if it went nowhere.

Just imagine the squirming, he says, if a court were discussing a forensic examination of league and team e-mails to determine whether the lockout was a certainty even as season tickets were being sold to games that were never going to be played.

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