The NHL spent last week playing in its sandbox: test-driving a slew of potential rule changes at its research and development camp.
This week it's been one big yak-fest, as the league joined the rest of the hockey community for the World Hockey Summit. Lots of navel-gazing, sparring and brainstorming about what it is, where it's going and what it all means.
Sort of like those giddy, all-night stoner sessions you might recall from freshman year.
But the NHL Players' Association is ready to kill the party.
While the formal decision hasn't come yet, it now appears certain that Donald Fehr will lead the players in their next collective bargaining showdown against the league.
Given the strife that characterized his leadership of the Major League Baseball players, does Fehr's arrival signal Armageddon for the NHL?
Useless to speculate until he gets the job and 2012 approaches.
But while lots of folks worry that the NHL can't have another season interrupted or cancelled by labor war, Donald Fehr surely isn't one them.
He was never reluctant to shut down baseball seasons and endure the rage of countless fans.
And baseball survived.
When people insist that the league "can't survive" or "can't afford" a work stoppage, it's just meaningless rhetoric.
Do they believe the NHL would literally cease to exist if the 2012-13 season was cancelled?
Fehr knows better. He knows better than anyone that pro sport is a resilient, lucrative racket.
That's because true fans always come back, no matter how often they get kicked in the teeth.
If Donald Fehr feels the NHL has no choice but to reprise the 2005 nightmare, he'll go into it confident that the potential rewards outweigh the risks.
He'll know that dedicated, hardcore hockey fans aren't going anywhere, no matter how much they hate him.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
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