Funny piece today in the St. Louis Post-Dispatchsaying that players just want to play. Oh, wish it were so! Well, that's a bit strong - I do believe that had they been under some leadership that cares more about them than it does about "the union", we'd be looking at the NHL Trade Deadline now instead of at an empty schedule.
The players do want to play but unless they make that clear to their leadership, they're going to be playing for far less than they could be already. As this piece in a college paper states, The NHL Players' Union Officially Stood for Nothing and that's the problem. They were against everything, proposed a 24% roll back of ficticious salaries (how can you call it otherwise when over half the league is unsigned?) and never really came to the table with a proposal based on their acceptance of the NHL's financial problems.
But wait. Imagine if the predictions of an $800 million revenue stream are correct! Let's give the NHLPA ALL THE MONEY and that's $26.6 million per team. Nice work, Bob. That's 15% less than a worst-case number the press threw around for months.
Leadership indeed.....