[Predarat]

Here is a message I pulled from the Preds board, hope these folks can make some noise.

Howdy, folks. I'm a Red Wings fan from Texas, and lately I've been going around the league's message boards trying to consolidate ideas coming from fans interested in ending this lockout. There's a lot of bickering going on about who to blame, but I'm confident that every one of you will agree that we want to see some NHL hockey played, and the sooner the better.

Some folks on the Hurricanes message boards are drawing a line in the sand to cancel their season tickets if the lockout is not resolved by Thanksgiving. We could all be doing much more enjoyable things with our money during the holiday season than letting a league that takes its fans for granted hold onto it. If you're a season ticket holder call or email your ticket rep and let them know that you intend to do this along with fans in multiple markets. The threat alone might be enough to encourage owners to move towards the middle, and if we followed through it would undoubtedly shake the alleged 100% unanimity of owners in support of the lockout. This is especially true for small- and struggling-market teams. In particular, one that has to pay Shea Weber millions of dollars whether there's a season or not.

A Blackhawks fan posted a link that lists many other businesses of NHL team owners for those who aren't season ticket holders, but are interested in taking the boycott route. If all these people care about is their bottom line, hurt their bottom line all the way across the board.

http://youhavetwoweeks.com/index.html

I think the Janne Makkonen video touched a telling nerve for many, and the petition associated with it is certainly worth signing, but it seems to me that we need to hit the NHL more directly.

To that end I suggest we start a website whose primary goal will be to divert traffic away from NHL.com and the team sites that they host. Dallas Stars fans came up with a great name: National Hockey League Fans Union, or NHLFU. It can be very simple, stating on the front page "The NHL has been locked out for X days, resulting in X canceled games, and that's all I care about." I'm no web designer and haven't got the money to spare for hosting domains, but it's entirely possible that if we set up a message board where fans from all 30 markets can come to vent, plan actions, and get all of their hockey news from a source that doesn't generate ad-traffic for "the bosses" we can make our presence felt now, rather than waiting passively for the end of the lockout to launch boycotts. We might even be able to get some players to help out. Don't read their articles about how great the NHL used to be, or what coaches and owners and players and Zamboni drivers think about the latest developments in negotiations. We don't care. We care about hockey, and that's all we want from you people.

Let's make hockey happen, y'all.