LOCKOUT: Day 40 – It could get Biblical.

September 12, 2012; New York, NY, USA; NHLPA executive director Don Fehr speaks during a press conference at the 2012 NHLPA summer player meetings at the Marriott Marquis. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE

The current work stoppage is now at forty days. Overall, the NHL has lost three hundred and twenty six games to the lockout. Today was also the last possible day for the NHL to have an eighty-two game season.  Sadly, the NHLPA didn’t like the NHL’s conditional 50/50 split offer, and the NHL blatantly ignored the three proposals offered by the players union within ten minutes. So we know the full season is out. What’s next on the chopping block Gary?  Will we have a season, or should we go ahead and cancel Christmas now?The Hall of Fame Game in Toronto scheduled for November 10th is probably the next big game to go.

Can the NHL keep slicing off parts of its nose to spite its face? Apparently so, Bettman pulled the NHL’s most recent(and closest to fair offer) as the deadline for a full season expired today. One can only assume they are going back to the boardroom or dungeon to hammer out a new fair and reasonable plan. (Fair and reasonable judged on the Orwellian or perhaps Stalinist scale.) For the moment, the Winter Classic is still safe, but the next block of cancellations will hit any moment now. To be honest, I expected Bettman’s announcement was to cancel games until Thanksgiving.  So on some small level, this was good news, but the overall lack of progress is not.  In fact, the degeneration of the process to the level of bickering and brinkmanship has gotten rather sad.

So, any good news?

On the bright side, goalie Tuukka Rask’s groin injury seems to be minor and he will be back playing for HC Plzen. On the downside, Patrice Bergeron, Bruins forward and future candidate for sainthood, sustained an injury while playing for HC Lugano in the Swiss league. His injury is listed as an upper-body injury. He is currently listed as day-to-day. He missed his last game, but he did practice today. He is listed as questionable for tomorrow’s game. I guess it could have been worse. He could have been battling for the puck with Tyler Seguin and they could have taken each other out.

So forty days and forty nights of a lockout. We’ve got the mother of all storms bearing down on New England, and Bettman has taken his ball and gone home.