There is a great piece by Damien Cox in the Toronto Star. You may have to register to get to it but I'll start you off with the first bit:

"As long as the (luxury) tax plan is on the table, there won't be a season ... the tax plan is a non-negotiable thing."

—Jeremy Roenick

"There will be no season if there is a tax."

—Patrick Roy.

"If they insist on a tax, it'll kill the whole year."

—Larry Murphy.

Mike Gartner admits that it looks kind of funny now.

But those three quotes were actually uttered by Roenick, Roy and Murphy almost 10 years ago at a time when, like now, NHL players were locked out of their workplaces by the league's owners.

Then, avoiding the implementation of a mild, 20-cents-on-the-dollar luxury tax system was the top priority of the players' association under Bob Goodenow.

Today, a decade later, it is the players who are offering a tax system as they seek to connect with the league on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Then, it was the unthinkable, a theoretical line the players vowed never, ever to cross.

Today, it's their notion of a fair solution.

"I can see what you're saying," said Gartner, the union president back in 1994 and currently an executive with the players' association. "I guess the answer is you change simply because you have to.

Right, boys. You do need to change. Rethink the cap thing, OK? Yes, it's a change but it's needed and no one is starving in the NBA or NFL.