from Adrain Dater of All Things Avs,

I asked one “insider” today whether there was any hope for a season still. The response: “Zero hope…season is done.”

I told him “Please don’t mince words.”

So, not encouraging there. Of course, that could be posturing. No wait, it almost certainly is posturing. But we’re used to that aren’t we? This whole thing has been one big, grotesque charade on the good ticket-buying supporters of a league that is proving more with each farcical day that it does NOT deserve your support.

I’m not an advocate here. Not my job. But if it were me, a regular old fan of the NHL? I wouldn’t come back. No way. I’d make ‘em all feel the pain of my withheld money, however slight that pain might be. That goes for everyone, but especially to a league that has given one big middle finger to the people who were supposedly their “partners.”

Gary Bettman deserves ALL the blame for the league’s stupid, ridiculous, foolish, embarrassing, dumb, idiotic, brainless, irrational, inane, half-witted, absurd, preposterous, insane and mad initial offer to the players – the 43-percent, no arbitration, you-have-to-an-old-man-to-be-a-free-agent offer that also demanded one billion dollars in unmarked bills and a plane to Mexico.

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