The Barrister
Yesterday, following a night where I got little sleep due to fatherly duties and an ill-conceived desire to bait racist Obama-haters on the internets at 4 am, I awoke to a familiar theme in my Twitter feed from a familiar source. Jeremy White, WGR morning show pocket rocket, was criticizing the NHLPA and players for their (alleged) insistence on portraying themselves as victims. He doesn't think fans - not most fans, but ANY fans - buy that kind of meme, and he thinks fans - not some fans, but ALL fans - will eventually turn on the players as a result. In a stunning bit of word gymnastics, he criticized the NHLPA for a PR strategy while, in a subsequent response, claiming that PR is irrelevant.
Yesterday, following a night where I got little sleep due to fatherly duties and an ill-conceived desire to bait racist Obama-haters on the internets at 4 am, I awoke to a familiar theme in my Twitter feed from a familiar source. Jeremy White, WGR morning show pocket rocket, was criticizing the NHLPA and players for their (alleged) insistence on portraying themselves as victims. He doesn't think fans - not most fans, but ANY fans - buy that kind of meme, and he thinks fans - not some fans, but ALL fans - will eventually turn on the players as a result. In a stunning bit of word gymnastics, he criticized the NHLPA for a PR strategy while, in a subsequent response, claiming that PR is irrelevant.
This wasn't the first time I heard something similar from him about how stupid the players are to whine about their situation and about how their "playing the victim" routine is bound to backfire. I haven't seen much about the owners "whining" (as if a forced work stoppage was anything other than a petulant tantrum in grownup terms) in his critiques, of course, so you're definitely right, before we continue, to question whether I chose a nonstarter and whether an employee at the "Radio Home of the Buffalo Sabres" would bother conceding any points about the quality of the players' position in this whole fiasco. (More on that in the future, I'm sure...)
Though, perhaps stupidly, I chose to engage. I had points to make, what with White's consistent anti-labor diatribes and my general sympathy for those wishing to adhere to contractual principles of fairness. Out of character for me, I had enough restraint to make my points without calling Mr. White a douchebag or fascist or idiot or any number of things that I thought then and have thought since. I'm a documented asshole, and these are the kinds of things I think sometimes. I went to law school, in part, to channel my energy more constructively so people would like me more. So, I tried to be nice, tried to be persuasive, and generally found myself colliding with a brick wall of contrarian nonsense in consistent support of NHL ownership's power grab. Huh. #StateSponsoredRadio
Using my conversation with White as a point of reference, Outlander talked yesterday about how disappointing WGR and the Buffalo News tend to be with their lockout coverage - something not exclusive to WNY - and how it's especially disappointing given the general sophistication (meaning attention to details, not necessarily expertise or general intelligence) of Buffalo hockey fans. Outlander made the point, long obvious, but no less true, that we deserve better.
Outlander also left the door open for future debate. And since the lockout may or may not be close to ending, and since my conversation with Mr. White, by it's nature on twitter, was character limited and, perhaps more importantly, unavailable to fans of the Deeg not on Twitter, I wanted to take an opportunity to flesh a few things out.
And since I (and others) already did the polite discussion routine to no avail, I can't promise I'm not about to be a huge dick right now. You've been warned.
Though, perhaps stupidly, I chose to engage. I had points to make, what with White's consistent anti-labor diatribes and my general sympathy for those wishing to adhere to contractual principles of fairness. Out of character for me, I had enough restraint to make my points without calling Mr. White a douchebag or fascist or idiot or any number of things that I thought then and have thought since. I'm a documented asshole, and these are the kinds of things I think sometimes. I went to law school, in part, to channel my energy more constructively so people would like me more. So, I tried to be nice, tried to be persuasive, and generally found myself colliding with a brick wall of contrarian nonsense in consistent support of NHL ownership's power grab. Huh. #StateSponsoredRadio
Using my conversation with White as a point of reference, Outlander talked yesterday about how disappointing WGR and the Buffalo News tend to be with their lockout coverage - something not exclusive to WNY - and how it's especially disappointing given the general sophistication (meaning attention to details, not necessarily expertise or general intelligence) of Buffalo hockey fans. Outlander made the point, long obvious, but no less true, that we deserve better.
Outlander also left the door open for future debate. And since the lockout may or may not be close to ending, and since my conversation with Mr. White, by it's nature on twitter, was character limited and, perhaps more importantly, unavailable to fans of the Deeg not on Twitter, I wanted to take an opportunity to flesh a few things out.
And since I (and others) already did the polite discussion routine to no avail, I can't promise I'm not about to be a huge dick right now. You've been warned.
My first gripe with White as the morning started was his claim to be speaking to the opinions of all fans. When friend of the Deeg, Dave Kelly, opined that most fans side with the players, White made the blanket claim that, well, no they don't.
@davekellywny No they don't.Very few do.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
To be fair in a way that White was not today, it bears mentioning that I can't be sure of the answer here. I know what I think. I know what my friends think, generally. I know what Dave Kelly thinks, and that he, apparently, thinks that most agree: the players are being wronged here. But maybe our small sample sizes make us unreliable on the issue of what the "majority of fans" believe. However, does Jeremy White - employee at small market sports radio who would, presumably, have almost exclusive exposure to a small market fan base (and, even more limited, the portion of the fan base that chooses to engage with WGR) - have a real sense of fan opinion? Well, maybe he does. Maybe he's got facts I don't.
@theycallmedubs @davekellywny Yes I do.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
@theycallmedubs My job puts me in a position to speak to more hockey fans than 99.99% of people.Emails, texts, calls, conversations.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
Oh. Or not.
So, you're saying you know more than us because you associate with more fans than us? And you're willing to use the impossible to disprove, but still looks bullshit on its face, "I'm different than 99.9% of everyone else, so don't bother trying to disagree, since there's no way you could understand" rebuttal. Well done. Though, that may be the last compliment you get, you milquetoast pile of obfuscation, so don't get used to it.
This is, of course, a dumbfuckingly stupid argument from White, and is sort of tangential to my thoughts on the lockout. But, if you work for sports radio and think that the folks that call in are a representative sampling of sports fans in your market, you are (a) completely delusional as to the importance of your craft, and (b) completely delusional as to the quality of your audience. Or, as more aptly summed up by The Yachtsman,
So, you're saying you know more than us because you associate with more fans than us? And you're willing to use the impossible to disprove, but still looks bullshit on its face, "I'm different than 99.9% of everyone else, so don't bother trying to disagree, since there's no way you could understand" rebuttal. Well done. Though, that may be the last compliment you get, you milquetoast pile of obfuscation, so don't get used to it.
This is, of course, a dumbfuckingly stupid argument from White, and is sort of tangential to my thoughts on the lockout. But, if you work for sports radio and think that the folks that call in are a representative sampling of sports fans in your market, you are (a) completely delusional as to the importance of your craft, and (b) completely delusional as to the quality of your audience. Or, as more aptly summed up by The Yachtsman,
But it shows that he has the pulse of the sports fans who don't give a shit about nuance or coherent thought. Kudos. Know your demographic.
— Oliver Hazard Yacht (@Y_vo) October 16, 2012
So, yeah, forgive me if I don't buy that ANYONE at WGR - or anyone who hasn't polled a representative sampling of the world of hockey fans in a fucking scientific way - has a complete and accurate sense of what all hockey fans think about the lockout and whether it makes any sense for the players to, from time to time, remind us that the owners chose this mess and chose these absurd contracts and chose to tell us all that the last CBA was a fair deal that would prevent further work stoppages.
But, dry hump us on the pants, Jeremy White knows what's what because he works in sports radio, and he's here to set the record straight.
Don't mind me, though. I'm just the guy that can't get in lockstep with the supposed majority opinion on overpaid players being big whining babies. White could smell blood in the water, and he was about to out me for the player-sympathetic pussy I am.
But, dry hump us on the pants, Jeremy White knows what's what because he works in sports radio, and he's here to set the record straight.
Don't mind me, though. I'm just the guy that can't get in lockstep with the supposed majority opinion on overpaid players being big whining babies. White could smell blood in the water, and he was about to out me for the player-sympathetic pussy I am.
@theycallmedubs Are you telling me that YOU think of the NHL players as victims?There's no way you do.No one does.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
Uh oh. He's got me. Maybe he's right. Maybe he really DOES have a better sense of the opinions of all fans, including MY OPINION. DO I EVEN HAVE CONTROL OVER MY OWN THOUGHTS? DID GOD NOT GIVE ME FREE WILL AND REASON AND ... oh shit. Maybe I am Borg and J. White is my Alice Krige.
Mind. (controlled by hapless sports radio personality). Blown.
Seriously, though, this is probably the first time I had to suppress the instinct to just call White a dickbag and pack it in. My better angels prevailed, so instead of freaking out at the insinuation that my well-thought opinion was too worthless to be held by anyone on Earth, I responded calmly.
Mind. (controlled by hapless sports radio personality). Blown.
Seriously, though, this is probably the first time I had to suppress the instinct to just call White a dickbag and pack it in. My better angels prevailed, so instead of freaking out at the insinuation that my well-thought opinion was too worthless to be held by anyone on Earth, I responded calmly.
@jeremywgr i don't need to;they're still right here. You're creating false choice. They don't need to be "victim" for them to be right.
— El Barristo (@theycallmedubs) October 16, 2012
I chose this as my line of attack, first, because (a) it seemed a waste of time to point out to White that his sampling of fans was so incredibly fucked that his view couldn't help but be incredibly distorted (though I did point that out at some point, receiving no substantive response), and (b) it genuinely seemed that there might have been some semantical disconnect between White and me. Maybe it was the use of the word victim that we were getting hung up on. Maybe White understood, as I do, that the players have been wronged in a sense, but that their PR strategy was, perhaps, pushing too far and crying foul a little too much considering they're generally millionaires. THAT is a point I can probably get behind, in the end, as the real breakdown is more accurately described here:
@jeremywgr @davekellywny @theycallmedubs The fans are the victims. The players are right. The owners are the ones screwing the fans.
— Timothy Then (@musicallutheran) October 16, 2012
As suggested in my initial response to White, I think the use of such a loaded word is unnecessary to still have sympathy for the players' position. In fact, since we're talking about sports, use of the word "victim" is probably inappropriate altogether.
But, let's be clear -- the owners signed deals that they're now trying to get out of - both the CBA and individual player contracts - and they're doing it while putting the season under the knife and pressuring fans to throw their hands up and demand a deal be done for the fans' sake. This is a smart strategy - many casual fans choose not to learn about or care about the intricacies of the labor dispute and are likely to just see a bunch of rich folks arguing over how to split a big fucking pie. Compared to the pleb NHL fans, the whole lot of them seem to be a bunch of douchebags.
There are those among us who choose a nuanced view, however, maybe because we think someone shouldn't get publicly fucked just because they happen to make a buttload of money, or maybe because we have an affinity with the players who bleed and sweat for us rather than the owners who charge us our ticket prices. After all, the truth of the lockout exists between the two bargaining sides - whether they're stupid rich or not - and it doesn't do me any good in understanding the dispute to just assume that everyone involves sucks a mean dick because they make more money than I do. Closing myself off to that kind of understanding is willful ignorance. I choose a different path.
White, on the other hand, sees the players' insistence on moral and ethical standards to be a petty nuisance within the context of what really matters.
But, let's be clear -- the owners signed deals that they're now trying to get out of - both the CBA and individual player contracts - and they're doing it while putting the season under the knife and pressuring fans to throw their hands up and demand a deal be done for the fans' sake. This is a smart strategy - many casual fans choose not to learn about or care about the intricacies of the labor dispute and are likely to just see a bunch of rich folks arguing over how to split a big fucking pie. Compared to the pleb NHL fans, the whole lot of them seem to be a bunch of douchebags.
There are those among us who choose a nuanced view, however, maybe because we think someone shouldn't get publicly fucked just because they happen to make a buttload of money, or maybe because we have an affinity with the players who bleed and sweat for us rather than the owners who charge us our ticket prices. After all, the truth of the lockout exists between the two bargaining sides - whether they're stupid rich or not - and it doesn't do me any good in understanding the dispute to just assume that everyone involves sucks a mean dick because they make more money than I do. Closing myself off to that kind of understanding is willful ignorance. I choose a different path.
White, on the other hand, sees the players' insistence on moral and ethical standards to be a petty nuisance within the context of what really matters.
@theycallmedubs The only argument is some bastardized right and wrong that is not relevant...but its what the players cling to worthlessly
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
Some bastardized view of right and wrong? What in the fuck?
This is where I realized that I might be fighting an uphill battle against someone who simply doesn't believe right and wrong have any place in a debate about who to sympathize with. This struck me as mind-boggling - if we're all sitting here, trying to decide who to side with (since we have to side with SOMEONE, and blame SOMEONE), shouldn't right and wrong come into it? Not just the woefully inadequate position of "he seems like a dick because he's whining too much about his millions and won't just shut his mouth and play hockey for my enetertainment?" Especially because, when it comes to contracts and business, right and wrong isn't some nebulous concept but actually laid out in law?
This is where I realized that I might be fighting an uphill battle against someone who simply doesn't believe right and wrong have any place in a debate about who to sympathize with. This struck me as mind-boggling - if we're all sitting here, trying to decide who to side with (since we have to side with SOMEONE, and blame SOMEONE), shouldn't right and wrong come into it? Not just the woefully inadequate position of "he seems like a dick because he's whining too much about his millions and won't just shut his mouth and play hockey for my enetertainment?" Especially because, when it comes to contracts and business, right and wrong isn't some nebulous concept but actually laid out in law?
@jeremywgr it's not bastardized. It's contract law.
— El Barristo (@theycallmedubs) October 16, 2012
@jeremywgr and in THAT sense - contract law - they are being wronged. Owners agreed to pay for performance. Now they're backing out. Simple.
— El Barristo (@theycallmedubs) October 16, 2012
To make a simple point about fairness, I simplified the issues at hand with the lockout. Despite my burgeoning career as an unpaid sports blogger with no real desire to do this as a career even though I'm convinced I would rule at it, I will concede that I have never seen a player contract before, though I assume there is some basic, boilerplate provision that ties an individual contract to the CBA. In other words, in a technical sense, the owners have every right to craft a new status quo vis a vis a new CBA. But, since they're the same dipshits who signed these player deals - many of them just this past summer... I'm looking at you, Craig Leipold! - forgive me if I think they're being a little disingenuous when they push for a new agreement under the knife of a lockout.
Contract law, as a general principle, is built upon the idea that a contract creates certainty. Party A agrees to pay Party B, and Party B agrees to perform some task, whether it be service over a period of time or delivery of goods or playing center for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Time for performance and payment can be specified, to increase certainty, and the law exists to enforce the contract where one party shirks his duty to pay or to perform. What the NHL owners have chosen to do, seemingly because they just couldn't help themselves from signing a bunch of crazy ass deals, is throw certainty out the window and demand a change in the contractual terms they already agreed to.
Thing is, as another aspect of contract law, parties are generally not permitted to change the terms of a prior contract without giving something up. In other words, the consideration (a legal term of art) already on the table - money in exchange for goods or services - applies to the deal already made. A change in the deal - say, an alteration to the money paid for the performance or the length of the deal - would require additional consideration, not because the party to the contract says it needs something extra, but because contract law demands it. No consideration, no contract.
These rules, of course, don't apply so uniformly in the sports world. As I already mentioned, the collective bargaining agreements alter the rules a little bit. But, as an observer of this labor dispute who knows a little bit (and that's not an understatement, really) about contract law, I find the whole thing absurd. I find it absurd that owners can alter their own obligations under their players' contracts by creating duress for those players by locking them out. I find it absurd that they choose this tactic of duress at a time when the league was doing so well. I find it absurd that, just because they have the power, they get to make the rules, in contravention of the principles that apply consistently to the rest of us.
Of course there's another side to the debate. And OF COURSE I get that people are angry. But, laws are laws, and the whole concept that laws don't apply to a set of people because they're in power is fucking offensive to me. And it should, on some level, be offensive to us all.
But, apparently, not Jeremy White. At least not that he would admit on #StateSponsoredRadio.
Contract law, as a general principle, is built upon the idea that a contract creates certainty. Party A agrees to pay Party B, and Party B agrees to perform some task, whether it be service over a period of time or delivery of goods or playing center for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Time for performance and payment can be specified, to increase certainty, and the law exists to enforce the contract where one party shirks his duty to pay or to perform. What the NHL owners have chosen to do, seemingly because they just couldn't help themselves from signing a bunch of crazy ass deals, is throw certainty out the window and demand a change in the contractual terms they already agreed to.
Thing is, as another aspect of contract law, parties are generally not permitted to change the terms of a prior contract without giving something up. In other words, the consideration (a legal term of art) already on the table - money in exchange for goods or services - applies to the deal already made. A change in the deal - say, an alteration to the money paid for the performance or the length of the deal - would require additional consideration, not because the party to the contract says it needs something extra, but because contract law demands it. No consideration, no contract.
These rules, of course, don't apply so uniformly in the sports world. As I already mentioned, the collective bargaining agreements alter the rules a little bit. But, as an observer of this labor dispute who knows a little bit (and that's not an understatement, really) about contract law, I find the whole thing absurd. I find it absurd that owners can alter their own obligations under their players' contracts by creating duress for those players by locking them out. I find it absurd that they choose this tactic of duress at a time when the league was doing so well. I find it absurd that, just because they have the power, they get to make the rules, in contravention of the principles that apply consistently to the rest of us.
Of course there's another side to the debate. And OF COURSE I get that people are angry. But, laws are laws, and the whole concept that laws don't apply to a set of people because they're in power is fucking offensive to me. And it should, on some level, be offensive to us all.
But, apparently, not Jeremy White. At least not that he would admit on #StateSponsoredRadio.
@theycallmedubs But that doesn't matter.Players are still not victims.No one believes it.Waste of time.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
@theycallmedubs No.I'm choosing reality. I'm choosing "the bosses are in charge".Because they are.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
@theycallmedubs No.Owners can opt out of a CBA and renegotiate one.America.Better get used to it.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
This is the part of the discussion where I really started to lose hope and started earnestly trolling a guy increasingly showing himself to be a corporate shill who would be fine with undoing OSHA because employees sometimes get injured and if they don't like it fuck them they can just peace out. "America. Better get used to it." Oh, you mean the America I went to law school to learn the fundamentals of, and the America built on the contract laws you seem so willing to piss on between pounding the latest bottle of GSeries? Or, as Yachtsman again pointed out:
Throw basic tenets of Magna Carta out of nearest window, then obfuscate issue into victimhood. Skilled politician. Respect, @jeremywgr.
— Oliver Hazard Yacht (@Y_vo) October 16, 2012
Perhaps I was jumping to conclusions. Surely, White's opinion would be more nuanced than that? Surely he would cave when presented with the logical outgrowth of his "owner's have all the power so they make the rules" meme?
Not so much.
Not so much.
@theycallmedubs Rollbacks.America.Reality.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
@theycallmedubs ANY player that thinks they're being wronged can quit.Any one of them.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
And this is where Jeremy White goes, and where he has gone before on the twitters. "If the players don't like it, they can quit." He makes this argument A LOT when faced with a fan who defends the players' position (funny that this happens so often when NO ONE likes the players at all here), and argues that this is the same for everyone. Don't like it, find a new job. As Yachtsman just pointed out in a drunken 1:40 am phone call, this motherfucker, with a straight face and his local reputation at stake, has the gall to argue against laborers and unions in a blue collar town. Owners have all the cards, so don't you dare bitch about the fact that you - you worthless piece of shit laborer - don't have any of the cards.
The fucking balls on this guy. I'll give him that.
No matter that some powerful Americans (and NHL owners) got their wealth through inheritance, not merit, or through environmental exploitation, not virtuous pursuits. Remember: right and wrong don't matter to Buffalo's modern day Jeremiah Rusk.
The fucking balls on this guy. I'll give him that.
No matter that some powerful Americans (and NHL owners) got their wealth through inheritance, not merit, or through environmental exploitation, not virtuous pursuits. Remember: right and wrong don't matter to Buffalo's modern day Jeremiah Rusk.
@theycallmedubs So QUIT.You're being mistreated - QUIT.Apparently the KHL is so great right?GO THERE.GO AWAY.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
@frackingsabres @theycallmedubs Also...they dont HAVE to play hockey.Find another job.They're not entitled to anything.
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) October 16, 2012
Except, asshole, they are entitled to something under their current contracts. And the NHL is denying them that entitlement via the lockout. Hence my earlier points about your point being viciously narrow-minded.
White liked to pat himself on the back, over the course of our conversation, that he was concentrating on "reality"; on the "way things are." In a sense, he's absolutely right. It is true that the NHLPA must walk a fine line in PR or else risk losing fan support. It is true that they can easily overstate their position and, in the process, sour many fans.
But, this isn't the whole story. And Mr. White has to know that. Right?
Fans are allowed to have nuanced views on topics; to agree with White's point about PR but also see the broader truth that, in the end, the owners chose contracts and are now choosing to undo them at the expense of NHL fan experience. This is just as much "reality" as anything Jeremy White tweeted today, and I would argue that it's actually a more fundamental reality than his claim that owners have, and somehow deserve, carte blanche just because they have a financially advantageous position. They signed away that complete power when they signed a bunch of athletes to professional contracts. They GAVE the players certain rights at that point. Now they want to make changes and it's not insane to want to call bulllshit. It's fucking necessary unless we all want to be back here in another seven years griping about how Girgensons is missing a season in his prime.
Maybe I'm overly sympathetic to the players. As alluded to earlier, I have an affinity to their position because they're the handsome jacks out there on the ice on the other end of my cheers. And I like cheering for them.
But I also like cheering for predictable outcomes and fairness and the operation of law that I spent three years of my life learning and the last four years (and counting) practicing. These are things that matter to me. And, because they are also the things that provide the true backbone of this country - unlike rollbacks and outsourcing and whatever else Jeremy White wants to argue is the reality of this country - I feel like it's not asking too much to have those kinds of concepts be valued components of the debate about this lockout.
In choosing his tunnel-visioned "no one buys what the players are selling" conclusion today, and many recent days, White values a hollow version of the truth about the lockout. He values a conversation focused on appearances and accepting the arguably unjust imbalance of power held by owners - because, as he argues, that's just the way things work - rather than one concerned with fairness and the substance of the underlying negotiations going on between the NHL and the NHLPA. By choosing such a shallow value, he also allows those more fundamental questions about ownerships' culpability to go unacknowledged - even going so far as to say it "doesn't matter."
Well, and maybe it's just me, but I think it does matter. And, Mr. White, I think you're a hack for your adamant refusal to admit it.
Follow me on Twitter @theycallmedubs.
White liked to pat himself on the back, over the course of our conversation, that he was concentrating on "reality"; on the "way things are." In a sense, he's absolutely right. It is true that the NHLPA must walk a fine line in PR or else risk losing fan support. It is true that they can easily overstate their position and, in the process, sour many fans.
But, this isn't the whole story. And Mr. White has to know that. Right?
Fans are allowed to have nuanced views on topics; to agree with White's point about PR but also see the broader truth that, in the end, the owners chose contracts and are now choosing to undo them at the expense of NHL fan experience. This is just as much "reality" as anything Jeremy White tweeted today, and I would argue that it's actually a more fundamental reality than his claim that owners have, and somehow deserve, carte blanche just because they have a financially advantageous position. They signed away that complete power when they signed a bunch of athletes to professional contracts. They GAVE the players certain rights at that point. Now they want to make changes and it's not insane to want to call bulllshit. It's fucking necessary unless we all want to be back here in another seven years griping about how Girgensons is missing a season in his prime.
Maybe I'm overly sympathetic to the players. As alluded to earlier, I have an affinity to their position because they're the handsome jacks out there on the ice on the other end of my cheers. And I like cheering for them.
But I also like cheering for predictable outcomes and fairness and the operation of law that I spent three years of my life learning and the last four years (and counting) practicing. These are things that matter to me. And, because they are also the things that provide the true backbone of this country - unlike rollbacks and outsourcing and whatever else Jeremy White wants to argue is the reality of this country - I feel like it's not asking too much to have those kinds of concepts be valued components of the debate about this lockout.
In choosing his tunnel-visioned "no one buys what the players are selling" conclusion today, and many recent days, White values a hollow version of the truth about the lockout. He values a conversation focused on appearances and accepting the arguably unjust imbalance of power held by owners - because, as he argues, that's just the way things work - rather than one concerned with fairness and the substance of the underlying negotiations going on between the NHL and the NHLPA. By choosing such a shallow value, he also allows those more fundamental questions about ownerships' culpability to go unacknowledged - even going so far as to say it "doesn't matter."
Well, and maybe it's just me, but I think it does matter. And, Mr. White, I think you're a hack for your adamant refusal to admit it.
Follow me on Twitter @theycallmedubs.
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