from Jen Floyd Engel of Fox Sports,

The meltdown has been epic, the insistence on Versus (now NBC Sports Network) instead of ESPN, the loss of a year, the obvious inability even with a year lost to reach long-lasting labor peace. This is how the league with the best playoff in sports, the most exciting up-and-down action, the nicest athletes you will ever encounter is teetering on the brink of irrelevance, if it is not already there.

The days of Gary Bettman speaking of the NHL as one of the “four major” sports are dead. The NHL is battling it out with the MLS for the most embarrassing TV ratings.

And as someone who loves the sport, it is painful to behold.

It is like LiLo (Lindsay Lohan) with the ankle bracelet, repeated cocaine arrests, trips to court, fights with her dad, her mom, her BFF, her lesbian lover. The mug shots and tabloid stories all conspired to turn her from starlet to joke, and it was all her own doing. The league, like LiLo, is killing us with its stupidity. The self-destruction is almost too much to behold and, as months drag on without games, there comes this point where you no longer miss it quite so much.

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