NHL rant

Here I am again pissed off at this whole NHL fiasco. Today Kris Draper, whom I've never liked as a player, did it.

From tsn.ca:

Draper insisted the players should not be on the hook to repair the damage done by Bettman and the owners.
''Bettman's plan was expansion,'' Draper told the Toronto Sun.''He brought in the Floridas and the Nashvilles of the world and now he wants the players to fix it.
''Well I don't think it's right he wants us to fix it.''

There's some unity from the union members! Nevermind the fact that if the league got rid of Florida and Nashville a good 100 or so of his union "brothers" would be out of work. Nevermind the fact that maybe fans in Florida and Nashville are happy to have teams there. You wonder why the majority of fans are siding with the owners, normally the dispised aspect of professional sport. It completely boggles my mind... they want an open market system - no salary cap. But they want guaranteed contracts. Bonehead, there's nothing open about a guaranteed contract. In an open market you essentially are paid for your performance or production, by that reasoning if you don't produce or perform you are paid less or released. Guaranteed contracts prevent that. Now Brian Burke, who I am a fan of, has said that the contracts are not guaranteed, nor have they ever been. What he's talking about is that fact that a player's contract can be bought out and player released. This buy out is expensive though - higher than 50% of the remaining contract - so that's not exactly not guaranteed either. All in all I'm sticking with Guy Lafleur's opinion that the league should just fold and start anew. Screw em', start fresh and make them deal with a salary cap.