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ogreslayer

2012 Lockout Watch

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“What we expect to do tomorrow is to put forth an alternative view as to what we should do next,” Fehr said Monday. “That’s the best way I can put it.”

Despite that, the union thoroughly examined it over the last month before deciding there was no true counter-proposal to be made. Fehr will instead offer up a “different kind of an approach” — one that no doubt includes expanded revenue sharing and more flexibility under the league’s rigid salary cap system.

“It’s how the players see the world,” said Fehr.

This should be great.

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As much as I'm interested in the league at least exploring the idea of a soft cap or luxury tax, there's no way a majority of owners or Bettman will go for that. But it at least tries to address what is one of the fundamental issues in the NHL today: the financial disparity between the franchises.

That's my biggest problem with the NHL's proposal. Their demands are not only idiotically extreme, most don't really address the fundamental problems. Taking greater and greater percentages of the players money is not really a viable long-term solution for the league. The rich teams will still find ways to use their financial advantage to lure star players away from small market teams.

My fear is that the two sides aren't even talking about the same problems, so it's not even really a negotiation.

It should be a very interesting day tomorrow.

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While Fehr did not get into specific line-by-line details of the proposal, he did indicate that the players were willing to take reduced hockey-related revenue for the next three seasons and that it did not suggest the elimination of the league's hard cap.

Fehr added that the union also asked that no changes be made in regards to player contracting rules.

Well that's very good news that the players are willing to take reduced revenues and not trying to get rid of the hard cap.

Even if it's the only change to contract rules though, they absolutely need to put some limit on length.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=403068

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"It's clear to me (the NHLPA) didn't put (the proposal) together in an hour or two," Bettman told reporters on Tuesday, confirming the league would evaluate the proposal at their offices.

No truth to the rumor that Bettman finished that sentance with "...but it will only take us an hour or two to reject it".

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With what little info we have on the NHLPA proposal, to me the biggest sticking point is the CBA "snapping back" to the current one after three or four years. Unless Bettman allows these struggling franchises to fail, it's unrealistic to think that after a few seasons under this proposal things will be fixed enough that reverting to the current CBA makes sense.

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article posted on tsn regarding the NHLPA proposal. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=403068

The union says its proposal to the league includes a smaller percentage of revenues for players and an expanded revenue sharing program to help struggling teams.
Fehr also said the union's proposal does not call for the removal of the hard salary cap the league won in the last round of negotiations.

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"Union leader Donald Fehr says players could give up as much as US$465 million in revenue under the proposal if the league continues to grow at an average rate. If the league grows at the rate it has over the past two seasons, he says the amount could reach $800 million."

Today must be my "off day"...can someone explain to me WHY the players are giving this up??

Why would the Owners agree to return to the current system after three years of the new one? They have stated they have no interest in the current system and will not return to it. I wonder why this was even added.

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"Union leader Donald Fehr says players could give up as much as US$465 million in revenue under the proposal if the league continues to grow at an average rate. If the league grows at the rate it has over the past two seasons, he says the amount could reach $800 million."

Today must be my "off day"...can someone explain to me WHY the players are giving this up??

Why would the Owners agree to return to the current system after three years of the new one? They have stated they have no interest in the current system and will not return to it. I wonder why this was even added.

My interpretation of it (which is a best guess given what few details we know) is this is the unions way of saying they'll cut the ownership a break for a few years while they get their franchises in order and figure out how to make these smaller markets profitable.

It doesn't seem very realistic that the owners will ever go back to the current CBA, but I think the NHLPA is at least talking about about the right issue, unlike the owners.

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Well, I admit I am wrong. I thought Fehr and the players were going to lowball the union. This is good progress made by the players. Instead of being pricks like the owners, they took the high road and they put forward a good proposal. Lets see what happens with the owners now.

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Well that's very good news that the players are willing to take reduced revenues and not trying to get rid of the hard cap.

Even if it's the only change to contract rules though, they absolutely need to put some limit on length.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=403068

After finally getting around to reading that article, I liked that the players are being more reasonable than the initial dickweed proposal from the NHL, but at the same time, they didn't go into great detail as to what else was in the proposal and there's some things like contract length that seemed quite important to the owners. I hope that TSN isn't just leaving key info out of their stories to make a villian/hero scenarion with the owners/players. I'd like to see what else is in the players proposal. Don't want to read 8000 pages, but point form of each topic would be nice.

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A few quotes from Bettman's response, from THN's "The Stats Guy"...

Bettman "its a little disapointing to not have their full slate of proposals with a month to go"
Bettman: "still a wide gap between us with not much time to go"
Bettman "sides are still far apart, different views of the issues"

Not surprising, as I don't think anyone expected the League to accept the PA's first proposal any more than the PA would accept the League's first offer. That said, sure seems like Bettman's trying to angle towards the player's being the ones dragging their feet.

Next meeting is set for one week from today.

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He's such a prick.

The NHLPA's response might have been more timely had they known the league's offer would be insane and not worth waiting to see before responding.

Fehr had a pretty good followup response, as per Chris Johnston from The Hockey News...

Don Fehr says the reason a wide economic gulf remains between the sides is because of the NHL's original proposal.

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