Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis talks to reporters outside Rogers Arena about Friday’s big free agency moves around the National Hockey League. Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann , Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER — Each man would be appalled at the association, but seven hours and $350-million US into National Hockey League free agency on Friday, we discovered that Mike Gillis and Brian Burke have something in common.

It was 12 years ago that Burke, then general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, famously stood before reporters and said how embarrassed he was to work in the NHL when so many GMs were “nuts, absolutely out of their minds” when it came to free-agent spending.

On Friday, Gillis merely wanted to say it. You could tell.

This is the league that locked out players for four months, then tried to justify it by telling fans the hockey business needed fixing and that this would be achieved if owners got a bigger share of revenue by lowering the salary cap.

Then on the fifth day of the seventh month — lucky seven to anyone with a pair of skates and an agent with a working telephone — these fiscally-responsible and wary owners allowed their top employees to gorge on free agents.

General managers stuffed themselves in a feeding frenzy unseen in league history, pouring more than $350 million into free agents’ bank accounts by Friday afternoon. Including the $128 million paid to players this week to buy them out of contracts, a procedure intended to allow these cornered GMs to duck under the plunging salary cap, the player tab is nearly a half-billion dollars. And it far exceeds that when all the money committed players signed or re-signed by teams before the opening bell Friday is counted.

Within two hours, spending had already surpassed last year’s opening-day record of $201 million. Imagine if the salary cap wasn’t plummeting, dropping to $64.3 million next year from $70.2 million. Imagine if these free agents were not universally regarded as the mangiest crop in years.

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David Clarkson, a 29-year-old who has 170 points in 426 NHL games, got a seven-year contract worth $36.75 million from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ryane Clowe cashed in on his three-goal season with a five-year, $24.25-million deal from the New Jersey Devils.

The Tampa Bay Lightning agreed to pay Valtteri Filppula, who once in six seasons has surpassed 40 points, $25 million over five years. Chronic under-achiever Stephen Weiss got the same from the Detroit Red Wings.

“Uh, you know, I don’t know how to describe it actually,” Gillis began when asked about the gush of money from teams to players.

Expert commentators described nearly every signing as good, great or fabulous for the team. History will prove otherwise on many of the transactions. Certainly, they were fabulous for the players.

Told how Burke once described his colleagues’ spending, Gillis smiled, fidgeted slightly and said: “I’m not embarrassed being part of the NHL but I am surprised. I’m surprised about the (length) of a lot of the contracts that came down. But you know what? That’s those teams and their operation. They do things for the reasons they think are right. We weren’t part of it this year, but we have been in the past.”