deathbear said:
are they truly as ignorant and oblivious to basic facts as they appear to be?
The truth is they are very intelligent but are being swindled by Bob Goodenow. I credit Goodenow for having succeeded in getting the upper hand on the owners with the last CBA. He manipulated them enough with his deadline hunting back in 1995. At the time he had a naive group of owners who had the authority to ignore Bettman's advice and accept the bad deal. At the time, the owners were motivated by greed as they focused on the pot at the end of the rainbow.
The New York Rangers had just won the Stanley Cup. Sports Illustrated proclaimed the NHL was poised to usurp the NBA as the #3 sport in the USA. Additional expansion fee money was on the horizon and the virtual guarantee of the best TV money ever clouded their judgement.
The NHLPA milked the system for 10 years as the on-ice product deteriorated due to Bettman's refusal to address these problems. Over the last few years the majority of the NHL teams began to hemorrhage financially. The $600 million 5 year TV deal has turned into a $0 revenue share arrangment with NBC.
Here is where Goodenow has reversed the good he did for the players over the last ten years. He still believed he could pull a fast one on the NHL by deadline hunting. So much so, that even to the point of 3 days past the cancellation of the 2004-2005 NHL season he still played his game of non-negotiation convinced the owners would cave because they are all sitting on billions of dollars of undeclared revenues.
In conclusion, the players are not ignorant just blind to the facts due to their thirst, their thirst for free Koolaid. Hopefully on Tuesday the players who show up bring their own beverages and refuse to believe Bob Goodenow when he says the Koolaid is better for them. Their voices heard, news out of the meeting will be of forthcoming negotiations aimed at immediately forging a new CBA that will establish a partnership with the NHL that will benefit the players, owners and most importantly the fans.