I do love the sport of hockey.  I love what it stands for and I enjoy the down-to-earth people who play it, but after 113-days of another lockout, the fourth in 20-years, I can't act overly enthused about the NHL returning and that's the key-it's the NHL, not the sport.  The sport has always been around in some form while millionaires squabble with billionaires, you just had to look harder to find it-like the world juniors, college hockey, or the OHL.  Fans should be mad and should stay mad until this league stops taking them for granted. How you show that is up to the individual, but this league has made it commonplace to hold its fan base hostage and prove that it is incapable of working together for the betterment of the sport. While they were trading barbs and frustrating the limited fan base they currently possess, the league and its players conveniently forgot the hard-working people who help pay their salaries.  They showed no remorse for those who rely on the games to pay their own bills and they've used lip service to the people who fill the arenas.  The league will have to do more than it did last time when it just painted "thank you fans" across each blue line.  There has been talk and suggestions on twitter that the league offer the "Center Ice" package free for the rest of the season, but how does that help owners get bodies through the turnstyles?  The league should slash ticket prices in half; offer free parking and have give aways other than bobbleheads or stuffed animals.  They need to raffle off signed jerseys and sticks and pucks at every timeout of every game and keep doing it.  Fans deserve a thank you in more ways than words or sound bytes and maybe, just maybe, they'll help the NHL regain the momentum it had, but so foolishly took for granted.

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Shep talks to Ansar Khan of MLive.com about the Detroit Red Wings season outlook and who is likely to be on the team at the start of the season.

[PODCAST] Ansar Khan

Shep talks to Rob Simpson of the NHL Network for the national perspective on the end of the lockout, including how the deal finally got done.

[PODCAST] Rob Simpson