haroldsnepsts

Well, Sherlock Holmes mostly used abductive reasoning. That might be your problem. If anything, the articles from the Times and the Post quoted one page back make it sound like the NHL are the ones who won't concede on contract issues. I'm hoping they're not true. If both sides get to 50/50 and can agree on make whole, the NHL needs to give up most of their ridiculous contract demands except for the one eliminating cap circumvention (the 5% restriction).

link?

That article is basically saying the same thing regarding contract rights. Here's the sentences immediately after the portion you quoted.

I didn't dodge the question. If you've been following this thread at all you'll see why I didn't respond to him. I honestly don't know about the 4 pm thing and don't really care. If Fehr was sitting there sipping coffee intentionally making the league wait, then obviously yes it was a stupid move. But I don't know what the actual context was, if it was a childish tactic by Fehr, if it's being misrepresented to try and make Fehr look bad. I'm sick of both Bettman and D. Fehr's posturing at this point. If they were paying attention the fans at all they'd sense by now they need to shut up and keep working on a deal if they ever want us to come back. No more finger pointing, no more publicity stunts. Cut the crap and make a deal. I'm far from thinking Fehr and the union are perfect but any criticism I've had is ignored as some people label me a union slappy anyway. Why do people care about my opinion on something that may or may not have happened? On this I completely agree with you. The owners are still expecting huge concessions from the players and conceding relatively little. As you point out the 5% variance (which I honestly think is a little low) will end the circumvention. So throw the players a bone and give them some job security in terms of contract length, like 8 years. I'm hoping this isn't true (Larry Brooks is pretty openly for the players as far as I've seen), but he reported this. http://www.nypost.co...afgPLGAnT5fPrJN If that's what's really being said in the room, I don't see how a deal is coming anytime soon.

You very clearly quoted me one page back in this post. http://www.letsgowin...40#entry2333848 So you agree with me about us not discussing the CBA situation. But then in the same post you ask me a question and want me to discuss it with you? Are you kidding me? Please don't answer that. Seriously.

per McKenzie's twitter, CBA talks are done for the day.

Technically the players voted to end the strike if the courts supported the unfair labor practices complaint. But if you reread my post you'll see I never claimed Fehr ended the strike. I said he's negotiated two CBA's after that without any work stoppage. There has been labor peace in baseball ever since the 95 strike. Bettman on the other hand has never negotiated a CBA without locking the players out. Three CBA negotiations. Three lockouts. More lost games than any of the other major sports. He's not the only one at fault, but I think that track record is pretty damning. I'm not claiming Fehr is innocent, but painting a bigger picture of Fehr's role in CBA negotiations beyond the 95 strike that everyone keeps referring to. When they do finally agree on a CBA, the most important part will be the date it expires so we know when Bettman will lock players out again and can plan accordingly. Remember how we talked about there not being any point in discussing this with each other and not replying ? I think that's still the best choice.

Why would Fehr be canned? The NHLPA has been a mess over the years but this seems the most stable they've been in a while. And though people like to point to Fehr's strike that cost the MLB playoffs in 95 they overlook the massive collusion he busted the league on and the fact that he negotiated to two CBA's after 95 and that there's been labor peace in baseball since that strike. Gary Bettman has never negotiated a CBA without a work stoppage. Fehr has. Twice.

663 regular season goals, over 1400 points. That's amazing especially considering he lost half a season in 95 and a whole season in 2005. He almost certainly would've become the 7th player with 700 goals or more.

The reality is that with the amount of concessions the owners are asking for, there's no way the union would ever agree to anything close to what the league wants until they've lost paychecks and had their careers shortened. The owners are using lost games and paychecks as their best leverage. There's no way they'd ever start a season without a new CBA. In the exact same way, a deal wouldn't have been struck earlier no matter when they started negotiations. Players had paychecks coming and were busy playing hockey. There's no way they'd agree to the league's terms.

Your feeling sounds correct. Per Aaron Ward's twitter:

That's what I wondered. It could very easily be an intentional PR leak. But it could also be a former player like Aaron Ward talking to one of his buddies. And Bettman can actually fine teams up to a million dollars. He just hit the Wings with $250k for Devallano's comments.

That's depressing. It's great that they're finally actually meeting for longer sessions and for the first time are not lying when they say they don't negotiate publicly. But the situation sounds very much the same. An immediate 50/50 AND those contract restrictions? It doesn't sound like we're anywhere close to a deal. It's so stupid. A 3 year step down to 50/50 seems pretty fair to me. It would make it less painful for teams to be under the cap with their existing contracts, and minimize the rollback on players salary. Then modify contract restrictions somewhat, specifically the term length to something like 6 or 7 years. 5% is too restrictive for variation, but some restriction (20%?) does make sense to prevent more cap circumvention. Leave the other ones alone, give or take tweaks. I'm not even going to speculate on what's a fair "make-whole" provision because it's so convoluted. But the owners should definitely share the burden of paying out existing contracts.

So the owners had nothing to gain by rejecting it and souring relations, but the union somehow did? Bettman and the league basically dropped this on the union and didn't provide them good information or a reasonable amount of time to look over a plan that would dramatically affect the players professionally and personally. Even if they didn't technically have to include the union, it was a pretty insulting move to not include your talent when making a major decision like this. The only thing the league really had to gain was trying to make the union look bad by putting them in the position of stopping it. The realignment plan was the beginning of this mess and set a very hostile tone before negotiations even began.

Please keep the discussion about the lockout and addressing the content of people's posts, not about the person themselves. Posts that cross over into personal insults will be deleted and could result in warnings/suspensions. (I've already had to delete a few) Thanks.

Please keep the discussion about the lockout and addressing the content of people's posts, not about the person themselves. Posts that cross over into personal insults will be deleted and could result in warnings/suspensions (I've already had to delete a few). Thanks.

Is it against the rules to burn it in effigy if you win?

Per Dreger: I hope this is true. It'd be great if there's pressure from both owners and players for the leaders to spend less time on press releases and more time locked in a room hashing out a deal.

I know what you mean. I read the NHL's proposal with the make whole provision, I read Fehr's explanation to players, and while I get the basic concept or make whole I can't say I really understood all the nuts and bolts of how it worked in the proposals. So once again I'm trying to look at this in a positive light but the issue is pretty convoluted and the NHL offered to pay for "a share" of the make whole provision. Who knows what percentage that will be.

After the "50/50" deal the NHL proposed, I'm not surprised. Considering where both sides are at the moment, they're certainly not going to take anything on faith. It all comes down to if the math (and legalese) is in line with what they're claiming.

Per Dreger's twitter: If this turns out to be true (both that the NHL actually said it would do this and that the math supports their claim), then they better be able to knock out a friggin deal very very soon.

I'm as frustrated about this lockout as anyone, but you might want to step back from the keyboard for a second and take some deep breaths. Or at the very least take off the caps lock.

For O'Donnell at least it's a very real thing. He's 41 years old and I don't think he currently has a contract with any team, does he? Sad way for his career to come to a close if there's no hockey this season. I always liked O'Donnell.

I know it's a fine line, but let's keep posts specific to this thread about junior hockey players forming a union and not about broader political comments. This forum is ultimately about hockey, not politics.

I didn't accuse anyone of hypocrisy or make an argument about the new CBA. In response to a post pointing out how players already have their contracts affected by escrow, I speculated on one example of why they still may find the salary reductions in these negotiations difficult to take. I didn't make any argument about the logic of it.