Joffrey Lupul is one of the few athletes I follow on Twitter. For the most part, if an athlete says something interesting it's bound to be retweeted into my timeline so I don't have to follow the inane "bro tweets" (see Brett Lawrie) that you have to filter through to get the lone nugget of interesting information.

Lupul, however, is a different case. While not as funny as Roberto Luongo, who has the most brilliant Twitter feed of any athlete, Lupul comes off as a likeable, genuine guy and is a really good follow.

He took over the NHL account for a few hours on Wednesday and was funny, interesting, and enlightening.

A deal needs to get done in a matter of days, or else the season will be cancelled.

At least that's what an anonymous league source has told the Winnipeg Free Press' Gary Lawless.

In Lawless' latest article the league source, a veteran member of the NHL's board of governors, says Gary Bettman is prepared to cancel the season next Thursday (Jan. 10) if the two sides cannot agree on a new CBA. Using a tired league tactic, the source lays the blame solely with Donald Fehr.

The NHLPA made a big step towards the owners on Wednesday, only to be summarily rejected in about the time it takes to get your pizza delivered.

Now the NHLPA is fuming and for the first time this lockout the whispers of decertification are turning into shouts.

But what exactly is decertification and how can it help end the lockout? Below is an easy to read guide to everything you need to know about decertification.

Big thanks to sports lawyer Gabe Feldman for much of the information used in this article. For Feldman's full and much more detailed legal description of decertification, you can read his FAQ at the Huffington Post and Grantland.

The first real ripple of dissent has ripped through the NHLPA.

In an interview with the Czech newspaper Daily Sport, Washington defenceman Roman Hamrlik blasted NHLPA head Donald Fehr.

"I am disgusted," Hamrlik told Daily Sport (translated by TV Nova's Roman Jedlicka). "We have to push Fehr to the wall to get the deal. Time is against us. We lost (one-quarter) of the season, it is $425 million. Who will give it back to us, Mr. Fehr?"

Barring a shocking lockout resolution after today's "secret" bargaining session, the closest thing to NHL hockey is taking place in AHL rinks across the continent.

And although AHL hockey is great, it can't replace NHL hockey. Sure, I want to see the Marlies do well, but I don't hang on every shot like I do with the Maple Leafs. In fact, I'm largely watching the AHL to see if the players can eventually help the Leafs.

Many Leafs fans clung to the fact that the Marlies made last year's Calder Cup Final as evidence that the future was bright for the parent club. A slow start to the season doesn't have everyone putting the same stock into results, which made me wonder how predictive AHL success is of NHL success.

Today's post at The Good Point looks at how well AHL success translates into NHL success. Do NHL teams that have good farm teams eventually become better teams themselves? Is the relationship between the two stronger after a lockout?

Click the link to find out!

But...I also have some additional content on the matter. If a strong AHL team means a strong NHL team, which teams will follow the path set by their AHL counterparts and blaze a trail into the playoff? More specifically, which NHL teams that were bad in 2011-12 (ala Toronto) will reverse the trend and play hockey in the spring?

Amazingly, this picture was not Photoshopped.

Labour negotiations between the league and the players' association are still in their infancy, despite the lockout deadline looming ever larger. The two sides are set to meet again today after the league tabled a new proposal that is much softer than their initial ludicrous demand. It still likely isn't going to go over well with the player's association, but it's a start.

The league's offer would cut the salary cap to $58 million next season, down more than $12 million from the current figure. As it stands now, there are 16 teams already over that limit, yet the league's offer did not include any sort of salary rollback. How are teams supposed to become cap compliant? Well, a contract amnesty would be a good start.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article for The Good Point on the benefits of a one-time contract amnesty. With the league's proposal there would have to be a five-time contract amnesty for some teams (looking at you, Calgary).

This was the hardest post I’ve ever written. I can barely comprehend what happened, so how can I write about it? I can’t write anything that comes close to explaining what happened, and, ultimately, no words can. Instead, I wrote about my memories of Wade and what this all means for the NHL, from that point the words just started to come out. It is my humble submission and my inadequate attempt to answer one question: why?

After the lockout, fans and management alike were quick to congratulate the game for ridding itself of clutching and grabbing and creating a much more exciting product on the ice. Goal scoring was up and teams could no longer sit on a lead in the third period, otherwise they would quickly find themselves on the losing end of the scoreboard.

Flash-forward to the present day and most people agree that the league is as strong as it has ever been.

People generally acknowledge that an increase in goal-scoring is the cause of the league’s revival, but the numbers actually paint a different story.

Just slightly over 17 years ago Sports Illustrated ran a cover story that proclaimed the NHL was hot, while the NBA was not. Yes, at one point hockey was cool in a mainstream way.

The New York Rangers just won their first Stanley Cup in over 50 years. There were major stars in all the major American markets: Wayne Gretzky in LA, Mark Messier in New York, Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr in Pittsburgh, Jeremy Roenick in Chicago, Steve Yzerman in Detroit, and Cam Neely in Boston. It was a good time for the NHL.

It was such a good time that newly appointed commissioner Gary Bettman continued aggressively expanding the NHL into non-traditional markets. It seemed like a good idea at the time (well, as long as you weren’t Canadian and violently opposed to such things).

What happened next was a decade of decline. 

Last night was the season finale of the Jersey Shore. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months then you may not know about the Jersey Shore. It’s a reality TV show produced by MTV (who else) surrounding the lives of 8 self proclaimed guidos and guidettes living in a beach house in Seaside Heights. It’s absolutely terrible, probably the worst TV show ever made and that’s bad considering The Hills has a dozen spin-offs. But in its odiousness it is actually pretty brilliant. It’s like watching a sex show in Amsterdam featuring a midget and a half-ton chick. You don’t want to watch, but you’re absolutely absorbed by the horrific scene in front of you.

I also watched a horrific scene unfold in the Leafs game last night against the Lightning. No point talking about a loss that has a dozen identical games. Either they get blown out huge or lose late in gut wrenching fashion. Where’s the intrigue?

In honour of these two monstrosities I’m unveiling the most vacuous post you will ever see on this site. I’m going to attempt to analyze each Jersey Shore cast member and find their Toronto Maple Leafs counterpart. Have I undertaken a task too large? Have I completely lost it? Watching the Toronto Maple Leafs play this season has done this to me.

Enjoy.

I’m a hater. Big time. It’s already well documented in the brief history of this website. I also hate pickles, incorrect use of there/their/they’re, and tennis. I do not hate Bryan McCabe. Neither should you. Booing McCabe’s returns to Toronto is ignorant.

Here’s a man who did everything he possibly could have as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs and is now hated unconditionally. Cheering the return of Darcy Tucker, while simultaneously condemning McCabe’s is hypocritical.

The end of the decade has everyone trying to wrap up the previous 10 years in convenient top-10 lists.

The NHL’s previous ten years were tumultuous. The first half of the decade may well be the league’s nadir, while the latter portion of the decade saw the NHL slowly rise from its ashes (unfortunately that doesn’t include the Hamilton Coyotes rising from the ashes of the Phoenix Coyotes). Hopefully, the last five years in the NHL are a harbinger for a successful 2010s. Remember, this is a league that less than 15 years ago was infinitely cooler than the NBA. Gary Bettman ruined it and, unfortunately, that’s reflected in a lot of this list.

Here are the top moments that defined the decade.

Sidney Crosby owns an impressive resume. He’s a three-time all-star, winner of the Art Ross, Lester B. Pearson, and Hart trophies, Stanley Cup champion, youngest captain in league history, not to mention recipient of the Order of Nova Scotia! Plus he’s carried the Olympic torch and will soon own a 2010 Olympic gold medal (fuck you Russia). But there is one aspect of Sidney’s resume that should be emphasized: prolonging the careers of the game’s elder statesmen. Let’s examine.

Rick DiPietro, initially slated for a mid-December return, had a set-back in his rehab from knee injury. The Islanders are seeking additional medical opinions on their young netminder who left an AHL game last Friday with leg stiffness. It was only his second game of a conditioning assignment. He hasn’t played in the NHL since last January. Since signing a 15-year, $67.5 million contract before the start of the 2006-2007 season DiPietro has played a total of 130 games. However, he has only played five since last season. This is only one of the major reasons teams should be wary of signing their players to such long-term deals.

The DiPietro deal was perplexing on multiple levels. First, he really only had one good year prior to the contract extension. In the year before the lockout he won 23 games with a 2.36 GAA and .911 save percentage. He even recorded 5 shutouts. After sitting out the lockout, DiPietro returned with mediocre numbers in 2005-2006 and was then rewarded with his major deal. I can’t fault the Isles for re-signing their franchise goalie, but the term is ridiculous. How can you give a 15-year deal to a young player you don’t really know much about. It wasn’t like he was consistently producing since draft day. The second reason this deal was perplexing is because the Islanders already locked up a 28 year-old Alexei Yashin for 10 years and $87.5 million in 2001. Didn’t they learn after Yashin’s production declined precipitously to the point where the Isles bought him out in March 2007? In fact, the Isles will be paying for Yashin until the 2015.

The Islanders case study should be a warning to the rest of the league. Long-term deals are very risky. I guess the real effects of these long-term contracts won’t be realized until the next decade when many of today’s stars begin to age. Over the past years we’ve seen long-term deals given to Marian Hossa (12 years, $62.8 million), Duncan Keith (13 years, $72 million), Henrik Zetterberg (12 year, $73 million), Johan Franzen (11 years, $43.5 million), Mike Richards (12 years, $69 million), Vincent Lecavalier (11 years, $85 million), Roberto Luongo (12 years, $64 million), and Alexander Ovechkin (13 years, $124 million). This does not even include players like Chris Pronger who signed long-term deals in their mid-30s that will last until their early 40s.

Each of these deals has varying degrees of risk to them. The Mike Richards deal is probably the safest considering the reasonable cap hit and the contract will conclude before he is 35. Both the Hossa and Lecavalier deals are probably the riskiest considering they were both signed close to 30 years old and are signed until their early 40s. These deals are risky because there is no way that near the end of these deals, when they are mid-to-late 30s, these players can match their production in the 20s.

Just the second post and I'm beginning to wonder if this season will be too psychologically damaging for me to handle, especially if I need to write about it. Well, I last said I was a classic Leafs fan in the way that I experience the highs and lows and tonight's match-up really tested this means of "enjoying" the Leafs. When Ian White scored to make it 5-4 I let out an emphatic "yes!" Unfortunately, when Erik Cole responded I was in shambles. I thought I was going to cry. After that the finale was a foregone conclusion. I needed a shower to cleanse myself.

I've decided that in order to get through this rough spell, which encompasses the entire post-lockout, I can't dwell on the negatives. Therefore, I'm embarking on the first post in a series called Reasons To Keep Watching. This way I can shield myself from self-inflicting psychological damage and avoid moving to a country that watches soccer.

The first reason to keep watching the Leafs is the continued progression of Ian White.

There is a disturbing sub-type of Leafs fan developing. They are the self-loathing Leafs fan. There is a striking similarity between this Leafs fan and the fans of the Boston Red Sox prior to their cathartic 2004 World Series win. (I should note that I mean cathartic for Red Sox fans, not for everyone else who now has to experience an even more aggravating Bostonian).