from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,

The problem now, is how to get things unstuck. One of the two sides – likely whichever one grows most desperate – will need to compromise. In the meantime, neither side wants to show its hand first, believing that that would only undermine the strengths of its bargaining position.

Unfortunately, both players and owners have proved in the past that they can’t play nice in the negotiating sandbox, Fehr as leader of the baseball players’ union, Bettman in almost two decades of running the NHL.

You can only hope that all their cheap, specious arguments and bland motherhood statements will give way to legitimate, behind-closed-doors bargaining. Because if they don’t – if this is all they have – then the doors to NHL arenas will remain shuttered for a long time.

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