"We think that the proposal the players have put forward is a clear road map to a fair and equitable deal," Fehr said. "We said that as revenues grow the players will take a much lower share of future revenues, that means their share is going to fall toward 50 per cent. The pundits have said that’s what the owners are interested in -- the owners haven’t said that, but that’s what some other people have said. We said secondly there needs to be a different form of revenue sharing that is targeted to the teams that need it to set up a plan so that they can hopefully work their way out of these difficulties. We have said, third, that if there are real problems out there we assume that some of the higher-revenue clubs will be willing to share and provide some additional revenue-sharing assistance.

"And, fourth, if there’s going to have to be sacrifice after seven years of record revenues and the enormous concessions the players made last time, more than $3 billion over the life of this agreement, that there has to be some other costs somewhere the owners could limit or cut. But we haven’t got very much traction from the owners on those things."

Somewhat ironically, Fehr also had this to say to the Buffalo News's John Vogl:

"We're not dealing with stupid people on the other side," Fehr said. "They know what they're doing. Hopefully, over time we'll be able to find some common ground. I hope the time doesn't take very long."

The PR war's going to continue, folks, and as neither side possesses "good guys" given that both are arguing about how to split up fans' money, all I can say is that you might want to disconnect emotionally if you don't feel like picking a side to which you can more readily relate, because it will get worse before it gets better.

Here's hoping the two sides actually start talking WITH each other instead of AT each other while the propaganda flows.