"We're excited to get back in front of our fans and just be together on a daily basis," he told the paper. "But the realistic thing that sets in is: Did it really have to go this far? Did we really have to miss over three months?
"It's unfortunate. We know we've got a long road ahead of us to try and build this game back and earn the respect from the fans again."
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman issued an apology to everyone affected by the lockout yesterday, after the NHL's Board of Governors voted unanimously to ratify the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Toews didn't really care for the apology, and hopes he never has to deal with another lockout again.
"There is definitely some resentment, just from the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of trust," he said. "There wasn't a whole lot of give-and-take these past couple of months. I just hope that now that we have a deal, we don't want to talk about that type of thing too much.
"But hopefully this is something that for now has kind of hurt our game a little bit, but in the long run and decades from now is going to make it one of the best leagues in the world. We know it's the best sport. Hopefully in the long run this is going to help everybody."
