Hockey analyst Nick Kypreos is seen in the Sportsnet studio in Toronto on November 9, 2010. (JENNIFER ROBERTS For The Globe and Mail) They talk over each other. They have trouble staying on topic. They drink waaay too much water. They yell about "back diving" and "make whole." But Sportsnet's Hockey Central At Noon panel echoes the chaos as the NHL attempts to take out its own appendix without anesthesia. Former player Nick Kypreos personifies the defiant, prideful heart of player resistance. Former Columbus general manager and president Doug MacLean uses his small-market perspective to offer the pretzel logic of the league's business plan. Host Daren Millard tries to advance the issues before the bombs start flying. You can't watch it every day. The debate points are worn to the rims. The parties seem like actors being asked to do a hundredth scene take by Alfred Hitchcock. But it's the car-crash reality of the lockout in a way no other Sportsnet or TSN show has yet captured. This, ladies and gentleman, is what the NHL has become in the fall of 2012. A dysfunctional talk show. Pot-shots at Tebow It may not be the most base journalistic technique to sell papers, but it's got to be in the bottom three. Namely, citing unidentified teammates to launch ad hominem attacks on New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow. The New York Daily News printed quotes about the hapless Tebow from an unidentified defensive teammate saying he was, in effect, a useless player.