drwscc

Boyle should have kept his mouth shut. Even if he was privy to some inside information (Which he probably isnt) does he honestly beleive there arent players out there who just want to play and arent in favor of asking for the moon? I am willing to bet my life savings (Granted it isnt much) that there is a MUCH higher percentage of players who just want to play then there are owners who do. This is why the players will cave first and revenue will probably end up being split some where close to 50 -50. Like every other sports league.
The best thing the owners have done is not say anything. Every single time a player opens his mouth in the press it ends up sounding selfish, immature and just plain stupid.

and Fehr would? Please.

and Fehr would? Please.

Nobody cares about the fans. They all want money. They want as much as they can get, both sides. If it was Bettman or Selig or Shanny up there, it'd be the same story. But keep believing that if Bettman magically disappeared that Jeremy Jacobs and Mike Illitch would stop caring about money.

Nobody cares about the fans. They all want money. They want as much as they can get, both sides. If it was Bettman or Selig or Shanny up there, it'd be the same story. But keep believing that if Bettman magically disappeared that Jeremy Jacobs and Mike Illitch would stop caring about money.

Nobody cares about the fans. They all want money. They want as much as they can get, both sides. If it was Bettman or Selig or Shanny up there, it'd be the same story. But keep believing that if Bettman magically disappeared that Jeremy Jacobs and Mike Illitch would stop caring about money.

Sure they can. The owners can lock out the players any time they want. That's what it means to be an owner.
Is it a good tactic, no, but they can absolutely call a lockout whenever they see fit, and nothing is going to take that power away from them.
As soon as enough Dan Cleary and Cal Clutterbuck types that don't have the option of signing a lucrative deal in Europe start missing paychecks, you're going to start seeing cracks on the NHLPA side.

Yup, lets start cancelling the regular season games.
Both sides meet for two hours and they got to the point where they "agree to disagree". I guess it is hard to split a $3.3 billion dollar pot. I would like to thank both sides for refusing to compromise in this situation. I would also like to thank both sides for making my decision to not purchase tickets to attend anymore NHL games an easy one. I am pretty pissed. The rampant greed of the NHL and NHLPA have killed the NHL brand as a whole. I hope they stay locked out for many years to come. I will watch KHL and AHL hockey for now. Yes, I will enjoy the games more than the greedy NHL fools that run or play in that league.
Fehr and Bettman can both jump off a very tall building.

Boy, people sure don't like to be reminded of the facts. Yes, the owners are the ranchers, and the players are the cattle. The club execs are like the ranch hands. Not sure why this riled everyone up. It's kind of obvious.
Unless you own your own business, you are cattle too. It's the way the world works. Get a helmet.

But the thing is that I think people seem to forget is that these owners were so rich that they went out just for the fun of it or maybe they saw a good investment of some of their money and bought an NHL team....They are holding all the chips and I think they got to a point where they didn't want it to end up like the NBA or the NFL or heck even baseball now where all you had was a bunch of spoiled players demanding and getting 100's of millions of dollars when they aren't worth that. Why is it now I'm seeing comments that the AHL is so much better because no big money is involved. Or I see people talking about how college football is sooo much better because the players are playing their hearts out for the game and not the big money...to a point because ncaa players are playing for those big contracts but you see my point.

Some of the stuff he said was refreshing to hear..some was just dumb as s***. Opinions are like assholes and to be honest this has just turned into a never ending loop of people blowing smoke up other peoples asses. The lockout 8 years ago was brought about because of billionaire owners complaining about escalating salaries and huge operating costs. New CBA was done and everything seemed good until they started to find loopholes and raising the cap every year ( i know it was based on revenue). Put a salary cap in place and make it stick for 5-10 years and then re entertain the idea of it going up or down. As Jimmy D said the owners WILL NOT lose in this process and it wont be the Shea Webers and Zach Parises who will be anxious to get back to work..it will be the Paul Bisonette's and the Drew Miller's who will start to miss their pay cheques in the near future. Players are greedy but the owners are greedier...you don't get to be billionaires by giving in to people. It's a fine line between being greedy and making shrewd smart business moves. I'll enjoy watching my local WHL team play while these d bags figure out how to stroke each others egos some more.

The same people criticizing Jimmy D would be applauding any player that gave a "color" interview vilifying Bettman and the owners. Hilarious stuff around here these days.
esteef

Sure it does. It's called the car gets repossessed, and the dealer gets to sell it again. There are ways to get out of destructive contracts, and people take them all the time. Buy more house than you can afford, and lose your job? Under your scenario, too bad, you're an indentured servant until you pay what you owe. I mean, why should the bank give you a break. You're the one who signed the contract. Noone put a gun to your head and made you get a house.

Jim, there's no need to get so upset here. Besides, if the league had let you buy Phoenix, you'd be on the other side of this argument now.
A fair CBA does exist for all 30 teams, it's just a matter of getting there. The quickest thing to do would be substantially lower the cap floor. The floor, while a good idea in theory, just serves to drive up the cost of scrubs while cheap teams need to fill roster space to get to the floor. If it wasn't for Florida needing to get to the floor, does anyone seriously think Tomas Kopecky makes anywhere close to 3 mil per season? Your bottom dwelling teams are all offering these crazy contracts to the same scrubs they always have, but now you have Ville Leino saying "If Kopecky is worth 3.5 a year, then I know I'm worth 6." Of course the players love this. If you're Jeff Finger or Wiznewski, you love getting a fat check for a mediocre skillset. But that's not healthy longterm, and leads to escalations of salaries ala Suter/Parise/Weber.
You say noone forced the owners to give these guys the contracts. This is true. However, if the owners all got together and decided they wouldn't spend more than x dollars for any contract, everyone would be complaining about collusion and how the system's not fair. Can't have it both ways.
If they got rid of the salary floor, or made it a percentage rather than a hard number based on the cap, and removed revenue sharing, that would go a long way to sorting this out. Let the CBJ spend nothing on players, and let them die. But they players wouldn't accept that either. Teams going away means less jobs in the NHL, and Ericsson, Emmerton, Drew Miller, etc. would end up in the AHL.
There's no easy solution here, but you can't pretend the players are operating in a vacuum either, and that the only party at fault is the owners/league.

Jim, there's no need to get so upset here. Besides, if the league had let you buy Phoenix, you'd be on the other side of this argument now.
A fair CBA does exist for all 30 teams, it's just a matter of getting there. The quickest thing to do would be substantially lower the cap floor. The floor, while a good idea in theory, just serves to drive up the cost of scrubs while cheap teams need to fill roster space to get to the floor. If it wasn't for Florida needing to get to the floor, does anyone seriously think Tomas Kopecky makes anywhere close to 3 mil per season? Your bottom dwelling teams are all offering these crazy contracts to the same scrubs they always have, but now you have Ville Leino saying "If Kopecky is worth 3.5 a year, then I know I'm worth 6." Of course the players love this. If you're Jeff Finger or Wiznewski, you love getting a fat check for a mediocre skillset. But that's not healthy longterm, and leads to escalations of salaries ala Suter/Parise/Weber.
You say noone forced the owners to give these guys the contracts. This is true. However, if the owners all got together and decided they wouldn't spend more than x dollars for any contract, everyone would be complaining about collusion and how the system's not fair. Can't have it both ways.
If they got rid of the salary floor, or made it a percentage rather than a hard number based on the cap, and removed revenue sharing, that would go a long way to sorting this out. Let the CBJ spend nothing on players, and let them die. But they players wouldn't accept that either. Teams going away means less jobs in the NHL, and Ericsson, Emmerton, Drew Miller, etc. would end up in the AHL.
There's no easy solution here, but you can't pretend the players are operating in a vacuum either, and that the only party at fault is the owners/league.

Jim, there's no need to get so upset here. Besides, if the league had let you buy Phoenix, you'd be on the other side of this argument now.
A fair CBA does exist for all 30 teams, it's just a matter of getting there. The quickest thing to do would be substantially lower the cap floor. The floor, while a good idea in theory, just serves to drive up the cost of scrubs while cheap teams need to fill roster space to get to the floor. If it wasn't for Florida needing to get to the floor, does anyone seriously think Tomas Kopecky makes anywhere close to 3 mil per season? Your bottom dwelling teams are all offering these crazy contracts to the same scrubs they always have, but now you have Ville Leino saying "If Kopecky is worth 3.5 a year, then I know I'm worth 6." Of course the players love this. If you're Jeff Finger or Wiznewski, you love getting a fat check for a mediocre skillset. But that's not healthy longterm, and leads to escalations of salaries ala Suter/Parise/Weber.
You say noone forced the owners to give these guys the contracts. This is true. However, if the owners all got together and decided they wouldn't spend more than x dollars for any contract, everyone would be complaining about collusion and how the system's not fair. Can't have it both ways.
If they got rid of the salary floor, or made it a percentage rather than a hard number based on the cap, and removed revenue sharing, that would go a long way to sorting this out. Let the CBJ spend nothing on players, and let them die. But they players wouldn't accept that either. Teams going away means less jobs in the NHL, and Ericsson, Emmerton, Drew Miller, etc. would end up in the AHL.
There's no easy solution here, but you can't pretend the players are operating in a vacuum either, and that the only party at fault is the owners/league.

This is what it all comes down to.
Most people believe that the silly dwarf and the owners are all at fault. The simple fact of the matter is that neither side came down from their initial positions.
The owners insane offer was one the players took insult to. A rollback of over 10%? Limits on contracts? No arbitration? What an insult. Plus, as talks went on, they came down maybe a couple percent, but they didn't budge off the core points.
I know some people give the owners flack for dumbass expensive signings, but the simple fact of the matter is that you have 20 owners who want to compete for a cup so the contracts need some kind of limit on them. Loopholes do need to be closed.
Make no mistake, the players and rich franchises benefited from the current CBA. The players came down from 57% to 53%, but only fir the first year. It then went up to 55% in year 2, and then back up to 57% by year 3 with a player option the next year at the same rate. So, a temporary rollback, which is all fine and dandy, but no concessions aside from that?
The greed that both sides exhibited in this negotiation was surprising. $3.3 billion in revenues and you can't split the pie evenly? No deal to be had at all? Seriously?
I love the Wings. I love hockey. What I don't love is the greed. I am done spending money on the NHL. No more tickets. No more merchandise. Let both sides starve out. I will watch them on TV, but that is the extent of my involvement with the NHL. Oh, no more Center Ice Package. I am not giving these greedy pigs anymore money.
Speak with your wallets people!
My prediction: We are in for a long lockout, maybe another full season. Fehr is going to pull the salary cap off the table. That isn't a bad thing in the long run mind you. It works for baseball, and I would be all for it. If the owners are indeed stuck on their proposal, it is going to be a long fought battle. Keep in mind that while Bettman locked out the players for a full season, Fehr sacrificed a world series to get the deal he wanted. Oh, and I agree with Adam Proteau on his tweet....
The phrase we heard from NHL owners in 04-05 was "cost certainty". Now they want profit certainty. That's not business, that's entitlement.
Get ready for a long lockout everyone!

yeah...I still think we should of thrown like 200-250 mil at suter.

True, but thats not the case here.
The players are the only ones that will be missing paychecks. The owners are billionaires whose main income sources come from elsewhere. Some owners will actually be saving money from the lockout. The owners will keep the players locked out until the players cave. And unfortunately without their main, or in most cases, only source of income, the players will do just that, cave.

I was expecting this:

The players getting what they want won't lower prices for consumers either. If anything, prices are going to go up. That's an invalid argument. Everyone is being greedy. It's millionaires vs billionaires squabbling over crumbs.

The players don't care about the fans either. Noone in this situation cares about the fans. It's kind of obvious, but everyone is running around "Ohh...Buttman doesn't care. He's terrible" "The owners are greedy, they don't care." "If only those poor players could just get what they want, we can have hockey."
It's disingenuous to think that anyone at all cares about the fans, and that only Bettman is in the way, If the players really cared, why not accept the offer? Once it goes to a lockout, they're going to get a crappier deal anyway so they can start making money again.

You are correct, at least from what has been released so far. Bettman didn't mention the cap floor in his proposal. It could be in there, but lets assume he didn't mention it because its not an issue. He concentrated on rolling back salaries, limiting contracts, and getting rid of arbitration. Just further proof, as you and I have said about 10 pages ago, he doesn't recognize what the real problems are.
As has been demonstrated before, spending to the cap ceiling doesn't mean you are going to win a cup or even make the playoffs. We have small market teams beating big market teams all the time. The CBA that Bettman is proposing lowers the cap floor and ceiling for a few years with the rollback in salaries, but it doesn't address the long term health of the league. In 4 years, the owners will be in the same predicament that they are in right now. Just as the players proposal, while lowering salaries a couple percent for a few years, doesn't address the long term health of the league or teams in 3-4 years. Owners are going to be boneheads, and players will sign inflated contracts as a result.
IMHO, by eliminating the cap floor and imposing a luxury tax system, the small market teams will still be able to get players while the big market teams will share revenues with the small market ones. It works well in baseball, and should work well in hockey. Bettman obviously hates it, but I think Fehr would be a fan of it.
Teams were icing NHL level lineups even before the salary cap era.

Maybe players should just start their own league. Without best hockey players on the planet NHL is nothing. On the other hand if all the owners got replaced with whole new lot I doubt any hockey fan would notice.

Blog Here
There are no good guys in the NHL’s labor dispute
There is an incessant need to assign blame in the way we analyze situations. We love our dichotomies. There are good guys and bad guys. People who are at fault and people who are victims. Winners. Losers. So on. So forth.
More often than not though, this isn’t how things work. Rarely, in the grand scheme of things, do things break up so conveniently. It would be magnificent for those of us who have to write about things, but it’s simply not the case. When it is broken up that way, it’s largely fabricated.
I’m here to tell you NHL Labor Dispute 2012 ™ is not Gary Bettman’s fault. It’s not Donald Fehr’s fault. It’s not the owners’ fault. It’s not the players’ fault. It’s their collective fault.
They are all utterly terrible.
Gary Bettman
Gary Bettman is a slime ball, I know this, you know this, your mother who hasn’t watched hockey since Bobby Orr’s rookie season knows this. There’s something incredibly offputting about his demeanor and general approach to dealing with human beings that ignites the rage furnace lying within each of us.
He is the Kurtz of this novel and the NHL, the league we watch 10 months of the year, is his vile abyss. He plucks teams from their homes, he locks the doors on seasons, he conducts boos from center ice like a maniacal conductor playing to the audience.
He postures on how the NHL is working diligently to solve the problems that they have played a starring role in creating. They’ve been ready to negotiate for months apparently, they want to talk it out, it’s that damn NHLPA holding up the process.
We just want to work to get the game back for our fans.
No, he doesn’t. He has a job to do and he doesn’t give a damn about you, or me, or your mother who hasn’t watched since Bobby Orr’s rookie season. He is a mouthpiece, nothing more. A smug, infuriating mouthpiece. Yet, for all of his cons, this is not his fault. He’s playing his part, doing his job and his job is to get what his bosses need and get out.
Donald Fehr
Donald Fehr is a weasel. For those of you who don’t follow the baseball circuit, you didn’t know this when he was hired, but you will soon find out. He causes problems. He did in baseball and he will maintain his performance across sports. Bo Jackson, meet your union head equivalent.
To clear up his track record, he presided over an MLB lockout and lost World Series in 1994 which put a hefty portion of people off the sport. This came before a nice segue into the Steroid Era which brought fans back to the game with DINGERS and alienated them at the same time when the fallout came.
If you’re a player you love this guy and it’s pretty clear why. He doesn’t take crap from the league, Bettman or the media. You know he’s going to get you closer to what you demand. And you know he literally doesn’t care what you think about him.
If you’re going to guess how many damns Donald Fehr gives, set the line at one and take the under.
Again though, like Bettman, he is a mouthpiece, nothing more. He is there to butt heads with Gary Bettman because the players pay him to, and regardless of how much of a jerk he appears to be, it’s barely more than a charade. Everybody has a mortgage to pay, and his need to pay the bill requires an unsavouryness that we have and will come to know.
The Owners
The owners are totally insufferable, aren’t they? I mean seriously. You get coaxed into signing these players for a decade plus and hundreds of millions of dollars and then cry poor come negotiation time. You weren’t poor two weeks ago, how are you poor now?
If you want a league with a sustainable economic structure, perhaps you shouldn’t be handing out contracts to the Rick DiPietro’s of the world which put them on various Forbes lists for the world’s wealthiest people despite the fact he doesn’t work very much. Wouldn’t it be nice to have 82 paid sick days a year?
Obviously this is hyperbole, but still. Completely ridiculous.
Again though, this is ultimately what the fans want from their teams. To assemble a winner at all costs, financial or otherwise. What do we care anyways? They’re loaded, they can afford it. Who cares if we’re stuck with Rick DiPietro for another 332 years? Or Alexei Yashin for the rest of his life? I want titles dammit!
Yet, we don’t want this. Nobody wants this. We have created a monster.
Charles Wang, you have set a dangerous precedent that became much much worse once you made Ed Snider think you were on to something.
The Players
I understand that it’s tough for people to see how the players are at fault in this scenario, but it’s really not that tough to understand. You can’t blame these guys for signing outrageous contracts because that’s not how things work. I have a hard time believing any of us wouldn’t take all of the money for several years if we had the offers, but the rhetoric gets tiring.
Just so we’re clear on a couple of things here… players complaining about the way rules are enforced for safety reasons is a joke. You want to stop getting hit in the head or plowed from behind? Don’t hit anyone in the head or plow them from behind. A riveting concept, I know.
Also, this hockey brotherhood business is a little confusing. I know they’re all brothers and such when the camera is rolling, but the on-ice atmosphere is considerably different. It’s very cute seeing guys with a history of run-ins bro-hugging their way through union meetings.
Also, do overseas players count as part of the hockey brotherhood? Because I don’t think it’ll feel that way when NHLers hop overseas to take their jobs during a lockout. I wouldn’t do that to my brother. Well, unless he was a real jerk.
The players here are completely self-interested and self-absorbed, like every other party here, only they have less riding on this than anyone because they will be hired no matter what. The players are just as guilty of jobbing the fans as our previous three nutbar parties and you better not let them off the hook in the court of public opinion.
Conclusions
Everybody in this situation sucks. They are all flat out terrible. Bettman is a fink, Fehr is a rat, the owners are hypocrites who need to be saved from themselves, and the players don’t give a damn because they’re going to get paid no matter what, it’s just a matter of where and whose job they’re taking.
The lockout, forthcoming at that, is not as simple as being Bettman’s fault, Fehr’s fault, the owners’ fault or the players’ fault. Anyone who tells you to zero in on one is lying to you and probably has an agenda. It’s not black and white but it is that simple.
Collective bargaining means collective blame.