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Larry Brooks seems upset with the owners

Donald Fehr

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman speaks with reporters following talkswith the media following labor talks with the NHLPA in Toronto on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012. Negotiations continue between the league and the players’ union over collective bargaining as both sides try to avoid a potential lockout. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Chris Young)

AP

If there’s one writer out there you can bank on for being very much on the players’ side of things in a labor battle, it’s Larry Brooks of the New York Post.

In his Sunday column, he lays into the owners and commissioner Gary Bettman and offers up his own help for the situation.

Brooks says the league should offer cap escrow on all current contracts at 3.2 percent and up to as much as 5 percent. He says doing that would help get a deal done for the season to start on time. But...

But no. The league not only hasn’t made that sort of an offer, its people have repeatedly indicated the NHL’s requirement of immediate and dramatic take-backs from the players, or else.

Or else they won’t allow the league to open for business. They’re quite something, these corporate entities lined up on the NHL’s side of the table, a group absent the intention of honoring their collective word.

Ouch. Safe to say Brooks won’t be getting invited to any parties by James Dolan or Ed Snider any time soon.