Thursday Chum Bucket: Happy Turkey Day!

The league’s reaction to the NHLPA’s proposal yesterday was less than favorable to say the least. [Puck Daddy]
We’re almost certainly not having an All-Star Game at this point (oh, the humanity!) but if there’s been an All-Star this NHL season, it’s James Mirtle who has lapped the field with everyone in covering the lockout. He demonstrates (with charts!) that if you cut through the bullshit rhetoric, and there’s plenty of that from both sides, the league and union are only $182 million apart over a five-year span, as Donald Fehr made clear when presenting the latest proposal yesterday. The NHL has already lost $400 million with this lockout alone. Unless they’re complete masochists, either ownership or the PA will come to their senses within a few weeks and we’ll have a season. [The Globe & Mail]
More Mirtle, this time on the option of the players’ association to decertify. The move would enable them to file an anti-trust lawsuit against the NHL and is one the NBA and NFL players’ associations made during their leagues’ respective lockouts in 2011. [The Globe & Mail]
Here’s the full text of the players’ proposal from yesterday. Gary Bettman didn’t exactly elaborate on what the NHL was specifically unsatisfied with but presumably they’re pissed about everything from players attempting to de-link salary from league revenue, demanding that the salary cap never fall below $67.25 million, making arbitration decisions binding and a variety of other contracting stipulations. [TSN]
Or, more likely, the league is just trying to break the union. It’s already starting to show some cracks with Roman Hamrlik hammering Donald Fehr in perhaps the first public denunciation of the union boss by a player. [Pro Hockey Talk]
Like most of us, Logan Couture is pretty mad about this whole lockout thing. This was my favorite Tweet of his though. [CSN Bay Area]
Last but certainly not least: the Bulls are in town at the Cow Palace this weekend hosting Devin Setoguchi, Kyle Clifford and the Ontario Reign on Friday and the Stockton Thunder on Saturday. You can get a two-for-one coupon when you donate to the food drive hosted by Seton Medical Center and The Examiner on Friday, November 23rd or when you bring a toy to the SF Firefighters Local 798 toy drive on Saturday, November 24th. Purchase tickets here.

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