from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

This is what the NHL and Gary Bettman do when they don’t get their way: They take their puck and go home. Or stay home. They refuse to play. They did it through Owners’ Lockouts I, II and III in 1994, 2004 and 2012 and they’re doing it again with the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The only thing surprising about this is that anyone, least of all the players, would be surprised by this.

When the NHL persecuted and prosecuted the Devils in the 2010 Ilya Kovalchuk collusion cases (yes, plural), the league’s attorneys successfully charged that the spirit of the collective bargaining agreement, rather than the letter of the law, had been violated. Now, though, the spirit of the CBA means little to these folks.

Because though Bettman succeeded in removing the commitment to play in the Olympics from the 2013 CBA after it had been included in the 2005 treaty that codified the hard cap, the league signed off on Article 24.5, which states:

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