haroldsnepsts

Oh and by the way, the league cancelled more games and the All-Star game. http://www.nhl.com/i...s.htm?id=646209 Add 422 games to Bettman's total.

At this point I'm so sick of it all I almost want them to just run the whole league into the ground instead of just crippling it every 7 to 10 years. Hopefully it'll get rid of Bettman, likely Fehr too. Then try and repair the damage with a new commissioner and try to get back the greatness of the NHL.

I don't think so, as I think that's a big part of what the lawsuit is. If the union decertifies they declare the lockout illegal and say that the owners are basically colluding to not honor existing contracts. I'm not totally sure though. Decertification is so complicated and convoluted.

Honestly I don't know what their thinking is on the term. The players may feel that if the economics of this deal end up really screwing them they can get out of it sooner, but that's based on the likely bad assumption that the next CBA negotiation would go any better for them. Either way, if this deal is only 5 to 7 years I'm afraid were just going to do this all over again then.

yeah, that built in failsafe for the NHLPA is unrealistic. I don't know if that's in there so they have something else to negotiate off of or what, but it's ridiculous if they think they'd ever get that at this stage of the game. They also need to make the CBA for a longer term than 5 years so we get more seasons of hockey in before Bettman locks them out again.

Mark Spector is hilarious. At least once a week he comes out with a new article demonizing a different party in the lockout. His journalistic perspective shifts with whichever way the wind is blowing. As fot the contracting issues, I think the league needs to go longer than 5 years for contracts. Everything in this deal is worse for the players, the NHL could at least give a little more job security with longer contracts. Go 7 or 8 and have a solid back-diving provision. It's hard to sift through all the different proposals and variables but in spite of the rhetoric it sure seems like the two sides aren't incredibly far apart. And I don't really follow the NBA but didn't they just go to 50/50? I know they have a more flexible cap system with a luxury tax and all, but I'm wondering how they handle existing contracts. Because I thought I read somewhere that it's only the NHL where not paying existing contracts in full is even up for negotiation. Can't remember where I saw it though.

On the day the union puts forward a proposal with pretty significant concessions Bettman says this. (per Dreger) Gotta love ol Gary.

And any sense of optimism quickly dissipating. Dreger: Aaron Ward: Dan Rosen: Daly to speak shortly (if he isn't already). I'm sure part of this is posturing but it's still frustrating that the meeting is over so quickly.

Quoted as another reminder. When Jedi says to stay on topic about the lockout, that doesn't mean take your parting shots. Talk about the lockout and discuss the issues. Discuss the points people have made in their posts and not the people themselves. Discussions about who's on what side and what arguments they've made and anything along those lines will be deleted. It's really that simple. I've deleted some posts and edited a few that were mostly on topic. Please don't make me clean up threads when there's not even any hockey. Any future posts that go even partially off topic will be deleted entirely, even the on-topic portion.

Exactly. I'm not mad at Holland for not getting Suter in the bidding war. I was disappointed he put the team in the position where he had to go for a hail mary like that. Add to that giving up a first rounder to get back a player he gave away as a stopgap move for Stuart's departure.

They already have. It sounds like they're at 50/50. I don't know what the current situation is regarding the make whole payments. So at this point is the holdup just contracting rights? I'm really not sure due to disbelief and waning interest in the whole mess.

But that ignores the fact that the players are the reason people pay so much to follow the NHL. They are elite talent and what generates billions of dollars for the league. The owners take the financial risks but they depend on a very small and skilled labor pool to generate revenue. If people just want to watch any old hockey played by above average athletes, there's plenty of minor leagues available. But fans won't shell out 3 billion dollars to follow those leagues.

I had typed out a lengthy response but read your last line and realized you're not interested in an actual discussion. carry on.

I agree on both points. If he hasn't already, Fehr should tell the players to generally avoid off the cuff comments like that. And certainly to avoid calling Bettman names. It's not helping anything. I don't fault GM's for trying to make their teams better but when the cost exceeds something your franchise can afford, you stop bidding. If they keep getting outbid then it gets back to the underlying problem of disparity between franchises. That's not the fault of the players.

This part made me laugh out loud. Yes, those poor poor GM's, who with their approval of their owners extended ridiculous contracts to the players, which the players then signed. The economic model of the NHL was not sustainable, which is why a cap was installed. The owners drove contracts up amongst themselves. Of course players (and certainly agents) were happy to take advantage of that. It's not realistic to think a player would pass up money for the good of the league, as if they gave up $3 million, the owner would use that money to somehow benefit all of the NHL instead of just putting it in his pocket. The responsibility of running a successful franchise ultimately is on the owners and GM's. We're lucky enough with Detroit to have a great owner who knows what he's doing.

Exactly. My main point was the absurdity of Daly claiming the union doesn't want to negotiate or make concessions. That's all they've done. One of the only "concessions" where the league moved towards the union's proposal was regarding revenue sharing, which doesn't really even help the players. That helps the league and works toward addressing the biggest problem in the league, the disparity between franchises. All the fans and the media have a pretty good guess as to what the final CBA will look like and the two sides aren't that far away. It's what makes this whole thing so idiotic.

Exactly. Every single element of every proposal is worse for the players. The league should hang tough on the back-diving restrictions because they prevent cap circumvention, but the other contract restrictions don't affect how much owners will spend on players. It only affects the allocation of those dollars among a franchise. The league may have gotten less than the absurd amount they wanted at the start, but so far they're the ones who've gained everything in this negotiation. To claim they union doesn't want to concede anything is idiotic.

The NHL is using the faulty logic that they've conceded a lot because they moved off their insane first proposal. I guess Daly would've preferred that Fehr's first counter was to remove salary cap. Then the players could've made the large concession of agreeing to the cap all over again. It would also likely mean we'd lose hockey for the whole year. Instead, they started by accepting that the cap was here to stay. The players have moved from 57% to 50%. That doesn't count? It's also not a coincidence that the league started with the ridiculous 43% demand, so 50/50 would actually seem like a concession by the NHL (a falsehood that people seem to be falling for) instead of what it actually is, the players making the large concession. The league's concessions involve reducing the absurd demands they began with. The players concessions involve actually giving up millions of dollars.

More things about the lockout I'm hoping aren't true. From Aaron Ward's Twitter: Apparently it's true. Dreger's Twitter: So more finger pointing and blame game and no negotiating. Perfect. f*** this league.

With about as much sense as this lockout has made, it couldn't hurt.

Great point. I hated the Avs with a passion but couldn't even manage a healthy dislike for Sakic.

Per Dreger's twitter: This is ridiculous. Just keep getting in a room together! Stop putting requirements on even meeting. At the very least have S. Fehr and Daly meet and leave Don and Gary out of it. They can have their pissing contest somewhere else. If they actually have nearly settled the 50/50 and the make whole provisions but now it's contract restrictions holding things up, then this lockout has gotten even stupider than I ever thought it could have. The only thing the league really needs to fight for is the restrictions that eliminate back diving contracts.

They can't even agree on whether to be optimistic or pessimistic. Dreger's Twitter:

At first I read the topic title as "Shanahan." Sheahan needs to decide where he wants to be in a few years. Telling stories in a bar about his brief pro hockey career, or playing for the Red Wings.

I just don't see why the NHL cares so strongly about most of these issues. The ones that prevent cap circumvention I totally understand. But why not settle on the others? lighten up francis. I was talking about the one sidedness in your reasoning. You made it sound like only the union had this all picked from the beginning. I'm sure both sides had some sense of what they might settle for, but that's pretty much par for the course in any negotiation. Honestly with your second post on the issue we both basically feel the same way about them arriving at 50/50. I guess I just didn't get that from your first one.