Sayonara NHL Season

With nothing but bitterness, I bid adieu to the NHL season. Unless something drastic happens within the next hour the 2004-05 season will be officially cancelled by Gary Bettman today. I don't personally put a whole lot of blame on the owners, in a lot of cases they were screwed by situations caused by their own lot, but not by them alone. Sure, there was the odd Lapointe, Corson, Yashin or Holik - but really - the actions of a few GMs certainly impacted the actions of others. The players (as evidenced by numerous players' comments - see Sandison's Rant on Sean Avery's) absolutely think they are worth more than they truly are.
For them to think that the hockey players should be making 2 to 9 million is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is a $49Mil per team cap. That works out to approximately $1.5Billion in possible total team payroll - or 75% of league revenues from 2003-04 (and they won't be near that when things start up again). Most businesses strive for 40-70% margins, only commodity products can survive at lower margins in most cases. And while the NHL might appear like a commodity in the eyes of some (NASCAR and Arena Football outdraw them on TV broadcasts in their largest markets), it certainly isn't one. The owners have already gone further than I think they should have by taking linkage off the table, they have positioned themselves to lose money again.
Grrr... my blood boils when I think of the comments the players pull out... Once again, I'll say that I'm a Leaf fan, and not a Mats Sundin or Ed Belfour fan, and I'm most certainly not a Bryan McCabe fan.