from Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Province,

Sure, it is an effective, if modest, commercial for hockey, especially with the HBO component. But 3.6 million viewers for one afternoon a year is not going to be the tide to budge the sinking franchises which hang around the neck of the NHL like a cinder block necklace.

If the NHL depends on the Winter Classic to win over peripheral fans, the league is in more trouble than anyone thought.

The owners cancelled it. So what? With the amount of outrage spinning out of various media you’d have guessed the NHL stripped the Boston Bruins of their most-recent Stanley Cup, and put rings on Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Max Lapierre instead.

Fans shouldn’t care. It was always the owners’ baby. It was their schmooze fest. And when they take it out at the knees, the owners are the only people who should pay it any mind.

more plus some Luongo talk...