Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Andreychuk to NBA players: Get a deal done

Dave Andreychuk

We’re a few days late on this one, but the Orlando Sentinel published a story Wednesday in which former NHL player Dave Andreychuk advised NBA players to get a deal done and end the lockout before the season is officially canceled.

“In the end, it will be worse,” warned Andreychuk, now Tampa Bay’s Vice President of Fans. (Seriously, that’s his title. Guess it’s better than Senior Associate of Fans.)

Andreychuk isn’t the first former NHL player to implore NBA players to suck it up and take what the owners are offering. Bill Guerin said the same thing in October.

Looking back on the lost 2004-05 NHL season, Andreychuk remembers what it was like to be locked out.

“As the pressure built — after a month, two months, three months — it started to sink in,” he said. “Guys were saying to themselves, ‘I’m 25 years old and hockey is how I make my living. We need to get a deal done.’”

Andreychuk concludes, “At the end, we were so willing to sign, we had to agree to what the owners wanted. We gave back a tremendous amount just to get a deal done so we could go back to work.”

In a related story, NHLPA chief Donald Fehr has emailed Andreychuk the link to the following video: