from Jack Todd at Canada.com,

It’s up to us to prove him wrong. Because there is no reason for this lockout, none whatsoever. Bettman is throwing a lockout because he can, it’s that simple. It’s happening because of the bully-boy tactics of Bettman himself, backed by a coterie of ideology-driven right-wing U.S. billionaires who are in this not because they love the game, but because they love money and attention.

This lockout is wholly unnecessary. It’s also maddening, frustrating, disgusting, absurd and infuriating. What is hardest to swallow, up here where the game really matters, is that Canadians have so little say in what’s going on.

Even as we celebrate (if that’s the word) the great victory over the Soviets in the Summit Series of ’72, you have to wonder if we weren’t facing off with the wrong enemy. The NHL and the game (and in the minds of many Canadians, they’re one and the same) have been damaged far more by the U.S. than by the Soviets or the Russians.

The harm is coming, not from U.S. players or fans, but from the U.S. owners and their pit-bull proxy, Bettman, a little man with a huge ego who would rather destroy the league than lose.

more