FINALLY!

The season is dead. I'm glad they killed it. A 28 game season would have been stupid, and the Cup meaningless. They should have sat down the day after they finished the last Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to hammer out something workable.

So finally in the last three days they sit down seriously and begin negotiating. Where the hell were they for the previous 9 months? Twiddling their thumbs in a stupid game of chicken that neither side was likely to win. I don't have sympathy for either side, really. Millionaires fighting over my money.

I can't really go to more than a game or two a season. The cheap seats at Madison Square Garden where my beloved and hopeless Rangers play now go for upwards of $40. Forty bucks for lousy hockey. Add in transportation and food, and just for ONE PERSON I can expect to spend $65. If I wanted to take the Missus, I'm looking at over a C-Note to watch the game live.

Look, this sport can't afford $10 million top salaries. There's no national TV contract, and no money coming in like in the other sports. This is not a league that can afford NFL-style money. What on earth is wrong with the top guys making $5 million per season? I'll never see that kind of money no matter how long I work. Paul Kariya left something like $9 million per year from Anaheim to go to Colorado for $1.5 Million. Because he wanted to win.

So there are guys who will play for less. And everybody could probably live on the salary capped money. So what's the problem? They're shafting regular guys like me to live slightly more comfortably? One extra Ferrari in the driveway?

I'm glad the season is dead. Dangling the possibility of a shortened season was just cruel. I'll go back to watching hockey if and when they come back. It would suck if the NHL disappears forever, but I would survive. They're killing the goose that lays the silver egg.

I know it's not as good as a gold egg, but it sure beats what these knuckleheads would be doing if they had to go out & get real jobs.