The Barnstormer has secured the cooperation of a locked-out NHL player who has agreed to document each day he is kept out of action on the condition that we do not reveal his identity. Ever. Read all the daily diary entries of “Cheap Throat” here.

9:08AM — Read the news this morning that players refused the new deal. Goodun boys. Goodun.

I know their strategy is to put the fan against us but the failure of the league is that they bank on fans being stupid. Look I know we make a lot and I hate it that folks are losing their jobs – I really do – and it eats us up – trust me. But imagine you work for a company – and you fight your ass off for some rights and when your union contract is up and it’s time to negotiate again the owners of your company try to take away those rights? That would suck, right? They ask you to take less money and you say, okay okay the company is struggling and we have to do this – but what if the company is not struggling. What if you and your co-workers worked your ass off to make the best product possible and the company was making record profits – and THEN they ask you to take a salary reduction by 12.3 percent.

It’s not about us making millions, it’s about us not wanting our work exploited. Look, if the team only made a million bucks total or something and could only afford to pay us 20K each – we’d probably all take that because we love the game. We would. Well, I would. Marchand wouldn’t. But when the league makes billions and it’s because of the work we do on the ice, we’re entitled to a bit of that – well not a bit – a fair share. I’m not the maths guy but I think the fact that our salaries count for a little sprinkle over half the revenue means it’s already being divied up pretty good.

Ugh I can’t talk about this. Just…think of the company thing I was talking about.

11:18AM — Want players to shoot harder when they get back to camp? Put a photo of Bettman on the tender’ jerseys. Actually don’t. I’d prolly fire a hole through the goalie and then he would be dead and then everything after that would just get weird. I’d probably curl into a hole if that happened. If i killed a guy.

4:55PM — Went to a concentration camp this afternoon. Kind of puts the whole hockey thing into perspective. Then I got this idea for a prison camp movie where some of the prisoners throw together a hockey team and play the Nazis and beat them and escape. Someone needs to make a sports movie where a team plays the Nazis and wins and escapes.

5:03PM — Someone a long time ago made a sports movie about a soccer team that beats the Nazis. And it’s got Sly Stallone. How in God’s name did I miss that?

7:11PM — Turns out I didn’t have rabies. Was just a cat bite. But I was definitely taking birth control pills for a day.

9:12PM — Figured out how I got to this barn in Deseau. Has to do with maybe not drinking so much after a date ends. Date was going great…like really great. Finally told Sonja I was a hockey player and she was really into until about three hours later when she finally pieced together that I played hockey and not field hockey. In europe you have to say ice first. Otherwise they think you play field hockey. Cool that she was cool with that though. We’re going to watch handball tomorrow. She’s a huge fan.

• “Cheap Throat: The Diary of a Locked-Out NHLer“. Read all the other entries here.
• “A Fan’s Note: How to Fix the NHL” by Mike Spry 
• “Complicit in the NHL’s Demise: How the NHL & its players hate hockey, and how the fan is at fault” by Mike Spry
• The Barnstormer’s Take Hockey Back fan protest event