State of the League: we're done here folks. Check back next year.

People, the National Hockey League is sure to nosedive into another year long lockout. While some have remained optimistic, others have rang the death bell. It was assumed that the season would be compromised. Some have assumed that a compressed 82 game schedule would be placed. Others have speculated anywhere from a 41 game season to none at all. With this latest rejection by the league, the naysayers have gained more traction.

Earlier today, the NHLPA put forth another proposal that made considerable concessions pertaining to Hockey Related Revenue in hopes, that I can only speculate to mean, that they wanted to move on to contracting issues. Specifically, while the league was willing to put aside 6% of the NHL's revenue for sharing, the players' proposal had the audacity to propose the equivalent of 12% of last year's revenue to sharing over the course of four years. Since this was a higher number than the league thought of, they naturally rejected.

This move has only confirmed what many people have known for months: that this CBA agreement is not about what is best for the league, its earnings, or the players in their eyes. To the Board of Governors, it's a clash of ideals. They think that the extra $1.5 billion they made is theirs and theirs alone. Damn to the players they pay, or the arena staff under their payroll. They supply the capital, so what else would be more important? Never mind that their labour and product are intertwined, or that their marketing is only as good as what they put on the ice. They deserve all the money because they are wealthy. Beer leaguers will play for free, so why can't the stars?

At this point, if an agreement was made, it would mean a 50-60 game season that stretched an extra month, at best. And that's without an All-Star Game or a Winter Classic. The bargaining chips are done with, so what's there to fight for? If I'm right, the owners' camp will want to maintain the status quo so the (profiting) owners can keep the bottom line. The players are holding on because they remember what happened when they caved seven years ago. There's a pattern that the most publicized party is called to take a pay cut regardless if they deserve it or not. The NHL could be making eight billion dollars with current player salaries, and people would still be demanding player pay cuts.

I would to end this with a statement to the NHL owners and executives. It may be a little vulgar, so I'll hide this behind a jump cut. Without further ado, dear NHL...

Dear fans, you haven't lost jack in this lockout.

This is what I'm talking about. Quit it.

I would like to watch hockey again. I want to bicker with my friends whether Alex Galchenyuk is NHL ready as a rookie or not. However, it's getting more obvious that it's not happening this year. There will be no hockey past November, and the Winter Classic is next on the chopping block. The lack of a season however, doesn't faze me, and it shouldn't. There's plenty of things to fill my life with non-hockey related. Which brings me to what I want to say to a lot of you in a similar situation as me. To all of you saying that players are a bunch of greedy millionaires, that the fans are the real losers in this lockout, that this lockout is a strike, shut the hell up.

The whole bunch of you railing at the players for not taking whatever terrible offer the Board of Governors throws at them would be doing the same if you were in their shoes. How many of you would honestly say to your boss, "Good job on making the company worth more. Please take more of my money as a reward?"And before you start going into how you only make five figures and they won't miss the money being so rich, here's another reason why your argument is dumb: not every contract in professional hockey makes Crosby money. For a lot of these players, they only have a three to five year window to make as much money as they possibly can. You're quite familiar with the best case scenario, so I won't reiterate it. However, for every all star, there are 50-100 players, after their window for major earnings passes, are stuck making $50,000 a year in the AHL, or $500 a week in the ECHL. It's almost as if they're working stiffs or something!

With that in mind, look back on all the times in the last few months you said, "It's the fans that lose the most out of this." You're not losing income or livelihood over this, so what's the real cost? All you've lost is three hours of entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights. That's the same as one and a half movies on Netflix. It's not hard to kill that much time. You could...

• Read a book
• Learn a language
• Learn to skate
• Spend time with your family
• Start a creative project
• Move the bodies out of your baseme...forget I said that.

In fact, if you regularly go to games, think of the money you're saving from tickets. You could pay your debts faster, or take someone out for a nice meal.

Last, but not least, a lockout is not a strike. Pay attention, because I'm only doing this once.

strike/strīk/

Noun:

A refusal to work organized by a body of employees as a form of protest, typically in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions...: "local workers went on strike"

lock·out/ˈläkˌout/

Noun:

The exclusion of employees by their employer from their place of work until certain terms are agreed to. There hasn't been a players' strike in pro sports since 1994. Quit calling it that!

A desperate fan's plea to the NHLPA

Hi there, players. GFH here. We don't talk much, but I just wanted to say hi, and I heard that the league is starting to compromise. I heard about the 50/50 split, the contract cap, and everything, but I think you should stop asking questions and sign the agreement. Please.

I know that Bettman looks like he's trying to give you a raw deal, but he's a nice guy, seriously! Please, stop laughing; I mean it. Okay, I admit that he steals money from me all the time, but every once in a while, he buys me something nice, and says he sorry. I honestly believe that he'll come through this time when he says that he'll never do this again. Especially after he gave me a black eye when I told him I thought the Guardian Project was a little dumb.

Gary is just so happy with the league's progress. He said he was going buy me two new teams soon! Last weekp I asked him about when I could expect to go pick them up, and he threw a highball glass at me screaming, "I only made $7 million this year! I'm not made of money!" I'm sure he was just stressed. He doesn't do it all the time, just when he's mad!

Despite the promises of good things later, he's been in a mood lately. All this lockout stress isn't very good for him. It makes his blood pressure go up, just like all the other times he doesn't get what he wants; like Sidney Crosby getting eliminated in the playoffs, getting booed at the Stanley Cup presentation, or getting barred from setting up a team in Mexico City for the fourth time. I tried to cheer him up by giving him a cute pet name, "Goblin Looking Napoleon Punkass", but then he thought it would be funny to threaten that he was moving the Oilers to Houston. It's this funny little game we play, you see.

I know he means well. It's only the third time that Gary's done something like this, and he already started calling me the best fan in the world! Thanks to that, I'm sure I'll be ready to go through all this again at least once or twice more. I mean, that's how it works right? I don't go blaming him for locking me outside in the cold every chance he gets. It's just what he does. You understand that too, right?

Consider taking the offer. It'll make me happy, and more importantly, it'll make Gary happy. Then we can all continue on like nothing's wrong...oh no! I just heard the front door open! He'll go ballistic if he sees you here! Head out the back door- oh no I hear him getting his belt...

What if Elle magazine had a sports section?

Over the last couple of weeks, a certain blog attracted a lot of attention after being commissioned by the CBC. They've broken new (old) ground with their streaming commentaries of hockey games by introducing women to the subtle nuances of the game, such as some players have penises AND cute faces. Yeah, that's basically how While the Men Watch rolls. Their MO is essentially to watch games and go, "I have no idea what's happening, ha ha ha. By the way, I'd totally have sex with Henrik Lundqvist." Now while I too would have sex with Hank, despite being a straight male (excuses, excuses), I've got to wonder what they were setting out to do.

It's not to lend a female perspective to hockey, that's for sure. Between Kate Beirness, Ellen Etchingham, Cassie Campbell, and many other respectable female hockey authorities, there's a wealth of insight from a woman's point of view. They don't deal in asking Ken Daneyko if he likes sex or not. So considering that, maybe I'm just not getting it. I'm outside the target audience; not every woman is the same, and they're having fun with it. So it's not that bad, right? I thought so too until I found out they actually wrote an article saying to coddle your man with beer and sex if his team gets eliminated.

This isn't a blog about women's outside take on sports. A large amount of the articles are about looking good for men, period analogies, celebrities, and "what this means about your man". It's Cosmo with a sports veneer. You know how Onion Sportsdome had that panel with the girlfriends of guys who watched last night's NBA game? This is that panel, except it's not a joke.

Again, maybe I should calm down about this. Yeah, I think what they do is foul, but it's their right to do so. Here's the thing though. My mom watches hockey and pays attention. My sister can put guys to shame with her knowledge, even with baseball being her #1. I know women that are die hard fans, and woman referees. My second cousin played with someone who won gold in women's hockey at Salt Lake. For these two tarts to come in and claim to be a voice for women in regards to sports is a flat out insult. CBC ought to be ashamed for alienating their woman fans like this.

Jules and Lena, your show is bad and you should feel bad.

Alternate reality: What if the Toronto Raptors got the LA Kings media treatment?

Why root for Canada when when there are Canadiens on all the teams?

I've thought about for a while, and though it still causes bile in my throat to admit it, I'm not rooting for Canada in the world championship. I know, I know. I'm writing this while drinking my last Sleeman ever, and waiting for immigration services to deport me to Montana. But before they take the maple leaf tattoo off my ass with sandpaper, I should at least explain my reasoning.

First and foremost, if Canada wins the gold medal this year, people are going to think that Brent Sutter is a good coach. Assuming you actually watch hockey, you can easily figure out that ol' mumbles is as good at his job as he is handsome. Nobody liked him on the Red Deer Rebels, especially when he took that Memorial Cup winning team, and took them to consistently last in the division faster than you can say "Mike Milbury". The only times I ever see him coach a successful team these days is whenever he coaches Canada in international competition. This is about as brag worthy as me saying I won the Stanley Cup singlehandedly in NHL '12 on easy. Enough about coaches though. What about the players?

By my dumb homer philosophy, the way I support countries in international competition is based on this equation: 3Xhabs + Ystyle of uniform - (Aleafs + 2Bbruins). Higher values denote the countries I support. So let's look at Canada. Carey Price and PK Subban are out due to injury, so X = 0. If we take a look at their uniform, it looks like the 80s have come back to haunt us yet again. I'll give Canada's uniform a Y value of 0.5. Looking at the rest of the lineup, we have Dion Phaneuf and Luke Schenn, but thankfully, no Bruins. A + 2B becomes a managable 2. So if we do the math, the equation translates to 0 + .5 - (2 + 0) = -1.5

How would this score compare to say, Team USA?

Right off the bat, we have Max Pacioretty on the roster, so that's an X value of 3 for the Americans. But wait, their sweaters must be uglier than sin right? After all, they have the letters U, S, and A in succession! It's a travesty on the eyes, right? Well, I'm nonplussed. So I'm gonna say something like 0.4 for a Y value. Thankfully, there's only Joey Crabb from Toronto on the team. So the final equation comes out to 3 + 0.4 - 1, for a very respectable 2.4. In the interest of fairness, we should examine a neutral team to see how the numbers match up. So let's look at Team Latvia.





Latvia as far as I can tell, has only one NHLer from the Ottawa Senators. So we have a value of 0 for three variables. So what about their sweater?

Oh. Oh my god. That is beautiful! This jersey is clearly at a value of 100 and automatically makes Latvia my choice for gold. Go Latvia!

Now that the government agents have arrived, I hope that I can enjoy my new life in Riga. Until then, uz redzēšanos!

A look at McGuire's Montreal Monsters

"Sid, have you ever considered jumping over to the Habs as a favour to me?"

Anyone checking the news knows that Montreal has been fielding candidates for the new General Manager spot for the last few days. The list of candidates has looked pretty strong to be honest, with Julien Brisebois, Marc Bergevin, Francois Giguere, Doug Risebrough...wait that can't be right. Pierre McGuire? Seriously? Well, what I get from lots of people is he knows about all the key players in all the junior squads and college teams in North America, and he won't hesitate to remind us of this every time he appears on NBC in some fashion. Seriously, if you ever meet him, ask him for details on someone like Rocco Grimaldi, and he won't stop at the basic stats. No sir, he even knows where the kid played in atom league, his grade seven homeroom teacher, and the fact that his parents got him a Nintendo with Bible Adventures when he was three. It's uncanny! It's borderline autistic!

Should Pierre be hired on to run the team (into the ground if you're particularly pessimistic/not crazy), it should be easy to predict some of his significant moves from his time on TV. His fetish for large defensemen, and generally large players has been on display many times. If I wanted to be an ass about it (which I am), I'd describe his ideal team as "size first, skill optional, and will you marry me Sidney Crosby". While I could definitely be surprised by a few moves of his, we should be looking forward to a few certain people wearing the CH.

Geoff Molson's Strategy for Winning Alain Vigenault

The Montreal front office has a lot of work ahead of them this season, looking for a new head coach and general manager. A daunting task in itself, it's made twice as difficult with the francophone culture requiring the ability to speak French. While there's a long list of candidates to comb through for the GM position, the Habs might have a prime coaching candidate fall right in their laps with Alain Vigneault. Yeah, I know. Mike Gillis didn't say that he was being let go, but he also said that he was building the Canucks around skill and speed, then traded Cody Hodgson for Zack "A Big Guy" Kassian.

So let's say AV is given his walking papers, and he's looking for a new team. The last time he worked for Montreal, they missed the playoffs twice in a row before he got canned. To be fair though, I don't even think Ken Hitchcock could save a team like this.

I don't think Vigneault is looking back on his time in the Bell Centre with nostalgia, and with the Canadiens coming off their worst season since he coached them, Geoff Molson and company will have to put together a solid strategy to win him over. Luckily for you, I've been leaked a few bar napkins that Mr. Molson used hammer out his pitch.

Here's a few talking points that I could make out the writing for.

• Talk up the two top scorers and remind him they're a lot less creepy.

• Don't have to worry about promising scoring talent demanding more ice time than what can be given, because they don't have any.
•  Fois. Gras. Poutine.
• The media in Montreal is way better. They just learned to stop blaming Carey Price for everything.
• Fans in Montreal know that you riot when you win.
• You only have to visit Edmonton once a year.
• Lightsaber hockey stick (It was at this point that Molson just started drawing himself swordfighting with John Labatt.)