from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

The insistence that all players must have their contracts honoured in full — and that is their side of the idiocy that is the current NHL lockout — is a foolhardy and costly stance that is not supported by historical evidence.

It raises the question: What exactly are the players fighting for?

While the salaries of NHL players were momentarily cut back after the lockout of 2004-05 — and Donald Fehr references this give back often — the truth is, not all players’ salaries were cut at that time and tracking the salary structure of the years that followed demonstrated that the 24% rollback was basically as irrelevant for the players as was their fight against the salary cap.

A certainty: Anyone and everyone who can play in the league and who has played in the league at any reasonable level has not been affected post-lockout of 2005 regarding the size of their salary.

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