A chant heard in many college hockey arenas adequately describes the NHL lockout.

"It's all your fault! It's all your fault! It's all your fault!"

Although the actual cheer is in reference to a "sieve" goaltender, in this case, it's referring to the owners of the National Hockey League, who have managed to kill the favorite game of many, including myself, indefinitely.

In doing so, they have crucified two of the game's living legends in Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux to humiliate the players' association into thinking the two sides had an agreement, but then pulled a bait and switched when the two sides met on Saturday.

Optimism was running wild Saturday when I was at West Lafayette, Ind., and checked the headlines on my cell phone, seeing that the signing of the collective bargaining agreement was allegedly imminent.

I was so excited. I called my co-worker and State News hockey reporter Eric Fish, who was near a television to confirm the news. Fish even ran home out of sheer excitement from Munn Ice Arena after getting the scoop on the scheduled Saturday meeting during the game he covered.

Then I called my father, who had not seen the news, and he was excited about the prospect of the deal getting done. I told both of them to call me back if any news hit.

Neither of them called.

This was not because they don't like me, it was because the idiot owners pulled the heist of the century on the players and never even offered the $45-million cap that was supposedly agreed to the previous night.

I have never been more saddened to not receive a phone call in my life, and trust me, a lot of people have not called back.

This whole situation is totally ridiculous. Although both the players and the owners deserve to be sac-punched several times over for this whole fiasco, it is the owners who have decided they do not want to have a season and that is why the deal did not get done Saturday.

It also came out that the league called for a press conference in the afternoon, but that was mysteriously canceled, which means, obviously, something went seriously wrong in the time between the calling of the press and when it was actually supposed to happen.

Now, this probably happened because of certain hardline owners (Jeremy Jacobs of Boston and Bill "The only Bozo the Clown left in Chicago" Wirtz) used their puppet, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, and vetoed any deal that could've went down because they are probably saving money by not playing, even though they own the team and refuse to sell. Thanks for nothing, guys.

And yet these two remain as owners of teams and are as hypocritical as ever.

Jacobs, one of the biggest hard-liners in the league, is a hypocrite because just three years ago he signed former Detroit forward Martin Lapointe to a four-year, $20-million deal, probably double what he would have received elsewhere and a deal that threw a lot of salary structures out of sync.

I can't believe I let these morons get my hopes up for the second time in less than a week.

But I know that I am as big of a loser as Bettman because I will be crawling back to Joe Louis Arena once play hopefully resumes in October, and I will be jumping up and down with joy and cheering like no other because I will be excited to have hockey back.

Sadly, because of some of the hard-headed owners that run the sport, many will not be as willing as myself to come back.

Matt Bishop is a State News men's basketball reporter. He now cries himself to sleep every night on his huge pillow. He can be reached at bishop20@msu.edu.