Pskov Wings Fan

So you are basically saying that it is not teams fault paying more than they can afford. Normally if you can't pay for the stuff you want you do not buy it. And if you did it is too late to cry that the stuff is too expensive.

Free coffee and doughnuts?

Given that players share is a fixed percentage of league revenues and those increased by about 50% since the previous lockout how exactly did players manage to double their salaries?

Given that MLB has not lost any games to labor disputes since one can argue that it was the price worth paying.

You appear to be starting from the premise that players have to give to the owners. Why? Should not players be getting something in return for reduced share? Yet NHL wanted to restrict their contracting rights as well at the same time. I think Fehr at this point has support of the players. And only they can fire him. I actually have no idea what the procedure is for removing NHL commissioner. Might be interesting to find out.

This is truly bizarre. There only 30 teams. It is a small enough number so that each owner can represent himself rather than delegate all the decisions to three individuals. Jeremy Jacobs is 72 and apparently has no shortage of money. It would take a better psychologist than me to figure out what motivates him in the CBA fight. Show players who is the boss?

So the new CBA takes precedence over the old contracts. It does not make the point about honoring previous contracts moot. It just means that players have to make sure that the new CBA contains are clause that existing contracts are to be paid in full (or whatever they are looking for). So it remains a stumbling block regardless of what that writer is saying.

Well, If we are calculating return on investment we should not forget that franchises tend to rise in value. Current Minnesota Wild owner (Craig Leipold) bought Predators for 80M and sold them for 193M. He claims to have had 70M in operating losses, which still leaves him 43M in the black.

I haven't said that "long negotiation session is hard". My point was that if they can agree in 2 hours they will no do so in 10 hours either. Each side appear to come to each meeting with well defined set of deal parameters they are willing to accept. As long as those do not overlap more time would not help. They are not trying at achieve peace in the Middle East here.

What is the obsession with the long negotiation sessions? What is the rationale here? They will get so bored/hungry/thirsty (or affected by any number of other pressing concerns) that they will sign a deal just to get out. There seem to be an assumption that just a few more hours at the table would produce movement toward an agreement. I just do not see why that would be the case.

This is why they should go with a good looking gal rather than "the next guy".

Switzerland is beautiful. I understand why many star players go there instead of KHL despite of higher salaries in the latter. Also the longest road trip is probably less than 200 miles

If you can't beat 'em, beat 'em up. I find it somewhat unsportsmanlike. Also, clutching and grabbing was pure garbage to watch. Dumping the puck followed by scrum in the corner is not the most entertaining brand of hockey.

Lengthen then how exactly? For example, if a player has 5 year contract would he still become free agent in 5 years? Or is it just the length of time over which value of the contract is payed out gets lengthened? It actually quite close to the third option proposed by NHLPA (including the bit about not counting portion of the existing contracts against the cap). Sorry, missed your answer to the similar question earlier in the thread.

I disagree. I think the immediate salary cut is the issue preventing deal from happening. I think if NHL were to propose to freeze players share at 1.87B (or whatever it was last year) until league revenues grow to the point when it represents 50% then they may got some constructive response back. I think one of NHLPA proposals had similar scheme but with higher frozen numbers.

It is not about missing or getting the next paycheck. It is about getting all that they have signed contracts for. So it is about money just not the immediate money. Otherwise the only strategy for players is to give in to owners demands right away so that they would not lose any of the (smaller) paychecks.

I think you are wrong. Employee compensation is the main expense of great many businesses especially in the services area. Owner gets whatever is left after all expenses are covered.

Union has never proposed 50/50 in the first year. It is just not possible to do it without cutting existing contracts. Their proposals include gradual reduction of the players share by giving larger portion of the future revenue growth to owners. So it might be getting to 50/50 by the end of the deal assuming some particular rate of revenue growth.

Pigs or not but the owners who signed huge contracts this summer anticipating never to honor their full value (Craig Leipold comes to mind) need a lesson in fair dealing. I do not know if NHLPA has enough leverage and determination to win but I do not fault them for trying.

Why bother? NHL hockey is an entertainment. Just find some other purpose for your time and money previously devoted to watching NHL hockey. When they come back if the price and product is right get back to it. Otherwise, move on to better things in life.

So NHLPA read the "Made Whole" clause from NHL proposal and found that it does not make existing contracts whole in any way.

At the very least players would be giving a interest-free load to NHL through "deferred compensation" even if current contracts were to be paid in full at some point.

Which specific part do you think would be an issue for players? I do not see anything, which would make the offer unacceptable. Players might ask for contract limit to be longer than 5 years. Maybe a gradual move from 57% to 50%.

I am pretty sure that in absolute numbers the costs have went up if only because of inflation. But the number we should be looking at are the costs as the percentage of the league revenues. The revenues went up 50% under previous CBA. Did the costs increase by more than 50% in the same period of time? I do not know but I doubt it to be the case. It would be very interesting to see NHL team budget in order to understand how money gets spent. For example, how significant is the share of travel expenses in the average teams budgets and so on. Without data we can argue forever without any conclusion. But then again is that not the purpose of the forum discussion where people not involved in the process being discussed come to vent.

Dynamo - Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Eremenko (played in goal for Russian national team) Amur - nobody Few other players on each team were drafted by NHL teams. Some even played few games in NHL but I can't say I remember them.