With somewhere north of 270 NHLPA members to 30 members of the Board of Governors and Gary Bettman's entourage all in New York at the same time for separate CBA meetings, you'd think that it'd be a simple matter of getting enough people in the same room--and a small enough room--at the same time to force people to talk, but instead, the Board of Governors will rubber-stamp an all but inevitable lockout just after the PA's player meetings break up, and starting on Saturday, we'll be missing planned NHL hockey.

The Sporting News's Jesse Spector, the Globe and Mail's Eric Duhatschek and Yahoo Sports' Nicholas J. Cotsonika all penned superb later-evening missives which rightfully shoulder blame for the canceled games to come on both sides, but the NHLPA's resident Twitter warrior poet, Paul Bissonnette, reflected the pickle the players find themselves in as I prepare to print t-shirts saying, "I went to my team's NHL rink, and all they refused to do was take my money"...

Before the part-time grinder reminded us all that if the owners are the ones presenting the venues and the players the talent that draws fans to on-ice concerts whose ticket prices have nothing to do with player salaries, the NHL's collective bargaining plan is pretty damn weird given that they all but authored a CBA they now find untenable...