Star-struck Canton

On the other hand, as Curry sees it, "What the owners are really doing is trying to substitute pick-up football for true collective bargaining." Dolphin Owner Joe Robbie virulently disagrees: "This is no longer a strike in the ordinary sense. It is now a mission by the players to search and destroy."

And so the crossfire goes. In a week of seemingly endless rhetoric, perhaps the one single thought that all combatants might agree with was uttered by owners' negotiator Kheel. "Let's face it," he said, "the fans are primarily interested in having this damn thing over with, not in the arbitrability of the issues."