from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,

“He’s the little guy from New York who came from basketball,” said (Bruce) McNall. “If he was packaged a different way, it would be a whole different ballgame. He tends to get a little bit of the raw end of the deal because of that alone.

“Remember Gary is ultimately responsible to the owners and they are going to ultimately dictate what he does and doesn’t do. In the case of the lockout, remember a very small handful of teams made any money the last several years. Even the Kings didn’t make any money, even winning the Cup. So there wasn’t a lot of motivation for the owners – other than in the Canadian cities and a handful of the East Coast teams – to want to play. It was almost cheaper to lock the doors.

“So getting a 10-year deal, they were looking for a long-term deal to get something to stabilize things for the long term. Sad as it is, that’s the nature of the beast – and therefore, I think he accomplished the job they were looking for. In a way, it’s easy to blame Gary because fans only look to what they know and what they see. Either it’s greedy players – and they can’t understand why they’re making millions of dollars and it’s never enough – or it’ll be greedy owners – and they’re making millions of dollars and that’s never enough. I think it’s too simplistic to look at it that way. I think he did a pretty good job in all that.”

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