I have very little sympathy for the players. First it was with the salary cap deal. Every job in the world has some form of salary cap. You don't go around making what you want, you get pay range like $40,000 - $60,000. Yet the players don't get that for some reason.
The second thing with the salary cap is that they accepted. They knew they weren't going to win this time like they did in 1994 yet they still wasted months and months stating there's no way in hell they'll accept a salary cap.
The thing about hockey players is that a lot of them just don't get simple economics probably because while they were growing up they were more focused on hockey than education. I know this for a fact as I know a lot of guys who play on teams and hockey is their number one priority.