Jeremy Jacobs takes his hockey net and stomps on home

"I wanna play center!"

"No, you can't."

"If I don't play center, I'm taking my net and going home."

"Go ahead."

*stomp, stomp, stomp*


Anyone who's played street hockey knows the scenario, and it's exactly what the NHL owners' reaction to the NHLPA "counter offer" sounded like to me.

It took 10 minutes for the NHL to take their net home. Apparently Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs just walked out followed by his younger "brother," Commisioner Gary Bettman, and his "cousin," Deputy Commisioner, Bill Daly.

We also know what happens after they leave. We continue playing on with what we have.

Eventually there's an agreement somewhere down the road as he's allowed to play some forward and everyone gets back to playing hockey.

Seems like the NHL is locked into bullying their way into an agreement that, in the words of Phoenix forward, Shane Doan, not only demands the money from the players, but hurts them as well.

“After the proposal was made, they did what they’ve done before,” NHLPA Director Donald Fehr said. “They take a very few minutes - they don’t think about it very much, they don’t analyze it, they don’t talk to the other owners, they don’t do anything. They take less than 10 minutes, maybe it was 15…and we are told two things. All three proposals are rejected in their entirety and secondly, the proposal we recently got is their best offer."

Ken Campbell of The Hockey News puts it plainly, "This is going to get nasty now," in his fine piece on the NHL rejection of the NHLPA's offers.

No matter what happens, the picture I get from this latest session is Jacobs, Bettman and Daly stomp on home saying, "I want to play center," and the players say, "Go ahead."