Yea ok so the title sucks...sue me.
Obviously I haven't been on in quite some time, work sucks up all my time. And Borderlands 2, Battlefield 3 and alcohol suck up the rest of my time. But I've been following this lockout with some attentiveness, naturally, and I need to vent 'cause this is getting ridiculous.
When the NHLPA brought in Donald Fehr last year I knew that it would eventually come to this, Fehr is the poster child for lockouts and arguing with owners on the players behalf. When they brought him in, I figured things would probably get a little nasty between the two. But seriously guys, knock the shit off...I'm sick and tired of hearing who's fault it is and all that garbage.
Seeing the shift of hate go from mostly on the owners to the NHLPA has been quite a spectacle. In the beginning, everyone was on board on the hate train for the owners. We all saw them as greedy fucks who wanted to bleed the players of every dime they possibly could, and would do anything to get it; including locking the players out and depriving us of the sport we all love. Which we all know is horse shit, the league grossed over $3 billion last season (which, I might add, is an all time record for the league). The owners have raked in a ton of money off of us over the last few years, yet they act like they are on welfare and need every penny just to stay afloat. Then there was that giant used tampon of a commissioner Bettman who basically said "fuck the fans, we can lock out the players all season if we want....they'll be back when the doors open again." When I heard that I wanted to find out where the prick lives and burn his house down with him inside. What a dick slap right to our faces, that's one of the most heartless and arrogant things I've ever heard. I know it's been established that it's not all Bettman's fault, but having 3 lockouts under your belt in 20 years....fuck face needs to go!
Now for the NHLPA.
I was in lock step behind them in the beginning, especially after the first offer that the owners threw towards the players. It was absolutely ridiculous and nobody in their right mind thought that the NHLPA would accept. But since then, all I've heard is both sides not moving a muscle and refusing to give an inch. More recently, the NHLPA has just straight up pointed the finger owners and said "they're mean, and we're not gonna play with them until they apologize." Look guys, I don't wanna hear that the owners aren't playing nice. And I certainly don't wanna hear players crying and bitching about what they're gonna do and how they're gonna provide for their families and all that shit. While some people will blindly support you just because you are heroes to the fans, let's be real here for a minute. The league minimum is $500 thousand, the national average income for a family of 4 as of last month....$50,054. Your MINIMUM salary that you could possibly be paid is literally 10x what the average American family of 4 is expected to bring in over the year. If you're so fiscally irresponsible that you don't have any money saved up from your six figure salary...I don't have much sympathy. I head to P.T. in the morning at 0530 and get home at 5 in the afternoon at the earliest, I make somewhere around $38 thousand a year. So you can take your bitching and moaning about how you won't be able to afford private school for your kids and that 3rd car and 2nd house and shove it right up your ass, cause this dude isn't impressed.
Now I'm just fed up with the whole thing. I just wanna see Groo undressing goalies left and right and Simmonds steamrolling people and taking pucks to the face like a fucking boss again. Split HRR 50/50 just like we know you'll eventually get to, and unlock the fucking doors so we can enjoy our favorite sport. Stop acting like a bunch of pussies, stop insulting our intelligence, and for the love of christ...stop having these 2 hour meetings and then just not talk for weeks. This is how children settle matters, do you think we could maybe act like adults? We'll see what happens, rumors are roaming about the NHLPA writing up a new proposal...I'm not getting my hopes up but at this point, I'll take any step in any direction
