haroldsnepsts

According to McKenzie and several other people, after the first night of goodwill, things got heated and precarious. I honestly don't know why they'd bring in mediators since it didn't work last time, but I don't see why it's a stall tactic or why that would make any lick of sense as a strategy for the NHLPA. It could just as easily be a move to bring in a neutral third party to try and facilitate productive discussion when things get heated (futile as it may be). They're so friggin close to a deal I hope this is the darkest before the dawn moment. If the majority of players really do want to take what's on the table then absolutely Fehr should listen. But it's probably more difficult to get a real sense with 700 players (I think that's the number I heard the NHLPA represents) than 30 owners.

Your position seems to be that they NHLPA should accept whatever the league is offering right now. That's fine, but that has nothing to do with what Fehr actually thinks or what his strategy is.

Based on what? The prevailing opinion certainly isn't that the deal will get better for the players as the lockout drags on. It certainly didn't in 2005 when they lost a season and accepted a salary cap and had their wages tied to revenue. The players have finite careers so they have to weigh the deal against the lost wages from the lockout. Conventional wisdom is the longer it drags on the more leverage it gives the owners. The NHL franchise is only one of their businesses, where for players it's the only way they can generate income.

Strategically why would Fehr want to stall at this point in the negotiations? What advantage would that give the NHLPA?

I guess I took it more as a sign of the NHLPA feeling like the league is still not negotiating properly, but I definitely like your interpretation better.

That can't be a good sign. The good will from the first day appears to be gone.

I don't get it either. On some level I can understand that if they end up getting screwed they can get out earlier, but the more likely scenario (as you mention) is that in 5 years the owners will just lock them out again and try and get even more. There's an 8 year opt out for both sides. I'm not sure how likely either would be to use it though, as I'm guessing if you opt out that immediately makes your side look like the bad guy headed into a new CBA negotiation. Things would have to be pretty awful for the players for them to use it. I don't know if the opt out has been used in other sports though. Maybe it's not that big of a deal. Plus there's the 7 year for a re-signing free agents, or something like that. From tweets i've been reading it sounds like it's the combo of 5 year contracts and 5%. Agreed. Though I'd put them at equal morons because Bettman has made Jacobs his right hand man as much or more than Daly. He's given a ton of power to the most hard line owner that even Bruins fans hate. It sounds like all info and optimism should be taken with a grain of salt. McKenzie: Dreger:

Do we know for sure if the proposed contract restrictions only apply to new contracts and not existing ones? Because some time ago in the negotiations there was talk of them applying to current contracts, which is nuts.

I think they need limits for sure, but the owners could make a relatively painless concession by giving them a bit more long term job security of something like 7 years while still including the 5% back diving restriction. Plus it seems like being able to afford longer term contracts could give a competitive edge to more financially successful franchises like the Wings.

Agreed. I have a lot of nostalgia with the Joe, but having been to a few of the newer arenas, it became clear what a dump the Joe is. Hopefully they'll maintain the sightlines but will add some of the modern amenities of newer arenas.

18 players are attending the meeting this afternoon: Craig Adams David Backes Michael Cammalleri Sidney Crosby B.J. Crombeen Mathieu Darche Shane Doan Ron Hainsey Shawn Horcoff Jamal Mayers Manny Malhotra Andy McDonald Ryan Miller George Parros Brad Richards Martin St. Louis Jonathan Toews Kevin Westgarth http://www.nhlpa.com/news/players-and-owners-meet-in-nyc

I didn't miss anything. The players job is to play hockey. Bettman's job is to run the league. i'm not sure which offer you're talking about. link? Even if the NHL didn't agree with the offer, leaving the meeting after 15 minutes and literally leaving town is an a-hole move. The league's response to every single concession by the NHLPA is "not even close, bud." Not to say the NHLPA side is without blame. Fehr should be friggin embarrassed for not running the numbers on a proposal he was putting forth. One of the articles about why Bettman should go gave a pretty good synopsis of how awful he is at CBA negotiations. If the owners were headed into this wanting a 50/50 split and nothing but concessions from the players, it required the best sell job of all time. Instead Bettman led with "F You."

Fixed it for you. I'm sure it actually doesn't mean much, but I'd love to take this move as a sign that owners are unhappy with how he has handled these negotiations. If you're actually an asset in negotiating an agreement, you typically don't offer to remove yourself from the process. Of course the owners share the blame, but Bettman is greatly responsible for handling and setting the tone of the CBA negotiations. As commissioner, everything ultimately is channeled through him. And through actions like consistently having Jacobs be his right hand man in the meetings, making that awful first proposal, and rejecting the NHLPA's offers within minutes, the tone he's set again and again to the players is "F You."

Agreed. NHLPA requested that the mediators be present, NHL rejected it. NHLPA wants "staff" member present for each side so the NHL chose Daly. McKenzie speculates the NHLPA will counter with Steve Fehr.* So in the end you have the same friggin owners, Daly, and Steve Fehr meeting with a handful of players. Same old crap. Since Jacobs is going to be there the NHLPA should pick Ian White, Lupul, and any other guys who've been critical of Bettman and the league. *per Aaron Ward and Bob McKenzie's twitter.

That is a good article on explaining why Bettman is a terrible commissioner. It's not just irrational hate. It also verifies another important point that's not being talked about when people compare this negotiation to the NFL and NBA CBA talks. Aside from the fact that the NBA also greatly increased revenue sharing in their deal, have a soft cap and a luxury tax, they're paying every single penny of player contracts that were signed before the new CBA. Only in the NHL is this considered an absolute necessity to renegotiate existing deals. And the players have even agreed to it, which didn't happen in the NBA. Another important point I've been trying to make that the article states well: It comes down to the part of his job as defined in the NHL constitution that is to protect the integrity and public faith in the league. There he has failed again and again. No matter when the NHL season resumes, I hope they get rid of Bettman. If the league loses an entire season again, firing him is an absolute necessity.

Agreed. Mule definitely runs his mouth. Sometimes his antagonizing guys is funny, like with Kane and his pacifier. But then there's the times where Franzen snaps and cheapshots someone too. He hasn't had many, but there's been a few good ones in his career.

Hell at this point they should try just about anything. I guess it's good Bettman actually asked the union this time before trying the end around of owners talking directly to players. Mostly I just meant that this definitely benefits the owners more than players. There's nothing they'd love more than to negotiate directly with players during contract negotiations and CBA negotiations. It'd be like the pre-NHLPA days. If hockey players were great at negotiations, they wouldn't need agents. Meanwhile they're sitting across from billionaire owners with extensive business and negotiating experience, as well as a massive support staff to help them. Either way, my main position is still f*** this league. With the growth this league has enjoyed during this last CBA, the prudent move would've been a compromise that wouldn't lose games and damage the integrity and public faith in the NHL. What both sides gave up on the negotiating table would've been recouped fairly quickly. Instead they're still arguing over how to arrange the deck chairs on the titanic.

Sounds like a plan to me. People love to quote the Forbes report from a couple years ago. Well Forbes just valued the Leafs franchise as being worth $1 billion dollars. That's a B, not an M. And last season the NHL experienced 9% growth in revenue, and the average value of an NHL team was worth 18% more than the previous season. Makes perfect sense they'd lock the players out and cost a season in that kind of terrible economic environment. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=410452

The "players and owners only" meeting is a terrible idea for the players. The players should counter by challenging the owners and bettman to a pickup game of hockey. Winner gets everything they want in the CBA.

People keep repeating that but it's not true. According to Forbes analysis with the financial info they have available to them, those teams have a negative operating income before things like taxes, depreciation and amortization. But it's inaccurate for them to simply say they're losing money. These owners have multiple corporations with revenue and expenses moving between one and the other. The goal with corps is not to show a huge profit because you want to reduce your tax burden. Clearly there are teams that are struggling financially but the Forbes report isn't a complete or accurate financial picture. In 2004 Bettman had an extensive audit of franchises to show in irrefutable detail how many were losing money. Strange how he didn't do that this time. There's the secondary issue of how much it's actually the players fault that these franchises aren't profitable. Unlike 2005 the real issue is the disparity of the franchises, not the un-capped costs of player salaries.

I can understand that. He probably has earned himself a lifetime position in that lineup for all the severe cheapshots he's pulled.

I didn't even notice that as I was making the list. No wonder I hate that team the last few seasons (they used to be one of my favorites some years ago). No, no player is really set in stone on that list, hence my not including Cooke. A couple seasons ago he would've been at the top. Though honestly he still probably deserves to be on there for his numerous sins, reformed player or not. If Tootoo would actually square up and not suckerpunch guys, and keep his skates on the ice more when he hit, he'd be off my list. If he could manage to be somewhat responsible defensively, I might actually like him as a player.

This thread needs a lot more Torres. Torres-Kesler-Burrows D. Sedin-H. Sedin - Lapierre Tootoo-Kane-Clowe Kopecky-Thornton-Carcillo Jackman-Subban Weber-Orpik Lebda-Bieksa Smith Luongo (lineup listed in terms of level of hate, not icetime or ability) It's crazy how many d-bags vancouver has on their team.

TSN puts the current total number of games lost under Bettman as 2,120 regular season games and an entire Stanley Cup playoffs.

I deleted more posts because they went from discussing the lockout to making personal comments about the person they're quoting. Want your posts to live in this thread? Stay on topic and discuss the lockout. Want them to disappear? Keep making personal accusations about each other. If you haven't noticed, the rules are being enforced tightly in this thread because of all the crap that's gone on and multiple warnings being ignored.