Pskov Wings Fan

The goal of each side is to get the best deal for their side. All the talk about partnership is just that - talk. When it comes to money players and owners are not friends. So if NHL was indeed ready to start negotiating in January then my guess would be that NHLPA thought that it was not in their best interest to do so. Also the fact that Bettman is still the commissioner is clearly not NHLPA's fault and there is not much they can do about it.

Jokes about the value of people with MBA's are not just jokes.

I believe neither of the NHLPA offers had a rollback of existing contracts in it. As far as I understand players are very much against it (to the point of Ovechkin stating that he is not coming back from KHL if his contract if not honored in full). I think if NHL continues to insist on immediate salary rollback we might not see NHL hockey for a while. On the other hand KHL hockey is not that bad. At least they make a difference between regulation and overtime/shootout wins and losses. TV production quality is not up to NHL's standard. But Datsyuk plays for a team (CSKA) where Sergei Fedorov is GM.

Unless owners agree that players share would get reduced over time without immediate cut to existing contracts I also think that new CBA would not be forthcoming any time soon.

I agree that revenue spit should be determined based on the profitability of the league as a whole and not the fortunes of the individual teams. Otherwise having a few "non performing" teams would result in artificially lowered players share and financial benefits for the owners (which is basically the nature of all league's proposals to date).

But they do have interest in playing hockey. Just today Datsyuk had two assists and Malkin scored a goal and added two assists. Players just do want to play in NHL given the conditions owners are demanding.

Today Pavel got his first KHL point (an assist) of the season.

I am not sure that your couch the analogy describes the Balsillie case correctly. Some of the stuff happening with that couch is plain illegal. My point was that if NHL can afford to be selective when choosing a buyer and force conditions like keeping team in Phoenix than maybe owners are not really in as desperate position as they are trying to portray themselves.

So this exclusive club, members of which are crying poor now, was not willing to sell and cut their losses because the buyer did not meet their high standards. I am sorry but I do not feel much sympathy for owners due to their troubles being self-inflicted.

To me "right to make a profit" means that owners are entitled to it. This I do not agree with. Owners have a right to try to make a profit. But there should be no guarantees.

I generally support the players because when I go to a hockey game I pay money to see the players. I do not care who the owner is and what his/her financial situation is. For me as a fan league profits mean that I am paying too much for the tickets. If NHL would have decided to cut ticket prices 24% across the board. Now that would have been a deal I can support.

I am not going to see that for the price of NHL ticket. At $5 a game maybe.

The math is suspect in this article. Dropping players share from 57% to 49% in the first year is not an 8% pay cut as the article states, but about 14%. 57% from $3.28B = $1.87B 49% from $3.28B = $1.61B This is not 8% difference.

Pavel played wing on the second line, which is a strange place for him.

It is true enough for an average employee because there exists a large enough pool of people with similar skills to provide downward pressure on wages. Not so much for elite hockey players. There are no comparable replacement players to be found. Because of that players got a reasonably strong bargaining position and regardless of what owners think they do not have the leverage to make players comply with their every demand. So I do not think Jimmy D is in charge as much as he thinks he is. Maybe he got great relationship with Red Wings players and they would laugh about it over a beer or something. Otherwise there might be some awkward moments later on.

This got nothing to do with free speech. NHL can be viewed as a private club, which is free to fine its members (teams) per its own by-laws.

They have it already. Just in reverse. It is called escrow. If league as a whole does not make quite enough money it gets to take some back from the players.

The percentages have no meaning unless we know what all the clubs expenses are. Without this information now can anybody say what is a good deal or bad deal for either side. And maybe 50% for doctors is fair. I have no clue. But the clubs did sign players to certain contracts and now they want to basically renegotiate them. Players agreed to this once and now owners are coming back for me. Unless players have the desire to keep giving back every few years they have to resist. Lets take Datsyuk for example. 24% rollback would turn his $6.7M into about $5M. There is a different between cattle and people, cattle can't leave the ranch.

As far as I understand it was pretty much free market before the last lockout. And it was the owners who wanted cap because apparently they did not have the money to pay what they (owners) thought was reasonable when they signed players. I am saying that past evidence do not support the idea that owners want free market and players don't.

I watch players more than teams. I did watch Anaheim and then Columbus when Fedorov was there. I do watch Washington. So I probably would not watch replacements play (at least I would not pay money for it).

That is correct. I was making more of a general statement as far as the nature of the relationship between the league and the players.

Players want guaranteed paychecks. Owners want guaranteed profits. I do not see a difference here. Both sides want more money. From my point of view as a fan I do not care which side makes more money as long as I can watch hockey and pay least possible amount of my money for it. Emotionally I am more inclined to support the players. They are the ones I am watching play the game of hockey.

Sergei Fedorov.

The way I understand it players are not willing to take an immediate pay cut. I think league can get a 50-50 deal if they move slowly toward that goal (no more that 1-2% a year) so that players get paid the amount what they have signed contract for.

If you want to appear balanced you should not call coming NHL work stoppage "strike". Strike is an action by players. What NHL is moving to is a lockout. And to be precise, players are not asking for more. They are asking that absolute amount of money spent on players compensation is not reduced and then allowing NHL to take greater share of the future revenue growth. I think that projected NHL revenue growth in NHLPA proposal is too high (something like 7%). They should be able to drop it to be inline with overall inflation numbers (under 3%). It would remove another thing for owners to complain about and probably would not cost players whole lot.