I swear, I want to laugh at this but the only true recourse is :rolleyes and shaking my head in disgust.

Steve Thomas, live on The Score in Canada last night, broke rank with the NHLPA and seemed to be his own man with the following comments:

“The fact that football and basketball both have a salary cap … we can learn from how the day-to-day operations of those two entities work out and try and find some kind of a common ground between what they’re going through and what we have right now.”

All NHL fans would smile upon this — the 41 year old Thomas breaking rank and actually showing the LEAGUE as a whole (players and owners) matter more than just petty squabbling.

But wait! There’s more ladies and gentlemen! Hours after this live interview on Canadian Television, a written statement was released by Steve Thomas, denouncing what had been said:

“I never have and never will support a salary cap and any reports that say otherwise are totally inaccurate.”

If that letter released was signed by Thomas himself or Bob Goodenow on behalf of Thomas remains to be seen.

Contradictions such as these are normally seen in rhetoric from the current United States Presidential Administraiton, which has denied comments it has made on television programs ever happened.

Whatever the case, the fans are still getting screwed as incompetance meets ineptitude in the NHL Labor War.

Lately a lot of people have been jumping to this site from Google’s Image Search, trying to find Lightning Championship wallpaper…

Of course, I am letting them down because I only have a large image of the Southeastern Division Championship desktop wallpaper on the site.

So let me see what I can do? I can give you guys links to other sites or perchance design an image of my own? We’ll see if I can do the latter in the future but in the meantime — I’m scanning the web trying to find Lightning wallpaper from the championship:

The St. Petersburg Times offers in-game photos as Wallpaper for your desktop

Tampa Bay LIghtning Entertainment hosts two Desktop images of the Lightning Ice Girls

Mccanner.com offers several different wallpapers for you.

I found the following two wallpapers online at one point or another:

Here’s the 2003-04 playoffs from the CBC for you to love as your own:

For all the Vincent Lecavalier fans, here’s another one I found on the web:

Bolted Down provides the following Wallpaper for users:

And Boltsmag offers you these wallpaper images:

Big thanks go out to reader Joshua Bernard who sent in this desktop wallpaper image to Boltsmag:

Just click on either image to get a bigger size version, then right click and select SET AS WALLPAPER or SAVE AS…

If you have a lead to Lightning desktop wallpaper — post a link on the comments or email me

Update: December 20th, 2007: Everything SEEMS to be working now. I would appreciate it if anyone experiencing problems (ie not seeing all the graphics) would email me or post a comment and let me know

It would seem Shane Willis continues to be stuck with the Tampa Bay Lightning, re-signing with the team. Shane has played mostly in the minors since his acquisition with Chris Dingman for KEvin Weekes…. While Dingman has earned a roster spot as a 4th line grinder.

Willis seems destined for Springfield as it stands….