2458 replies to this topic

[sleepwalker]

Players want guaranteed paychecks. Owners want guaranteed profits. I do not see a difference here. Both sides want more money.

The players just want to keep what they already have and what they were contractually promised. Its the owners that want more money.

[haroldsnepsts]

The players just want to keep what they already have and what they were contractually promised. Its the owners that want more money.

Good point.

The players are fighting to reduce the amount of money that will be taken from them. None of their proposals ask for an increase in salary. They ask for a smaller reduction.

[cusimano_brothers]

Neither side expects formal negotiations to begin until at least Wednesday, after the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah.

[BottleOfSmoke]

I just can't get over all the bad faith negotiating. I would take the owners bitching about contract lengths and ridiculous monetary compensation much more seriously if they weren't at the same time negotiating ridiculously long contracts with salary-cap skirting front loaded compensation. I know they want to ice a winning team and they feel that the current climate necessitates these contracts in order to secure the players, but they might as well be dealing in monopoly money signing deals with players they know they will never have to pay out on due to "rollbacks" or "escrow" or however they want to spin it.

[WMUCarGuy]

So how does this affect people with ticket plans/Winter Classic tickets that have already been paid for?

Will we get a refund??

[Jedi]

Hadn't heard this anywhere else, so I'm not sure how much I believe it. I've never heard of this guy, but apparently Bob McKenzie, the NHLPA, George Malik, and others are following him, so he might have a bit of legitimacy. Anywho, it's nothing official, so take it for what it's worth...

Bruce Dowbiggin

Hearing Bill Daly NHL wants to revive their 2004 pitch to have head office negotiate all player contracts. Might work for 20 of the clubs.

I cannot even imagine how this would work, and still leave the league as an impartial party that sanctions/hosts the games.

So how does this affect people with ticket plans/Winter Classic tickets that have already been paid for?

Will we get a refund??

At the moment, the WC is still going forward as planned, as nothing has been cancelled by the league. The NHL has the right to cancel the WC as late as January 1st, and I'd imagine that if they were going to cancel it, they'd wait until damn near the last possible minute to do so.

[Pskov Wings Fan]

The players just want to keep what they already have and what they were contractually promised. Its the owners that want more money.

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.

[Z Winged Dangler]

The last lockout wasn't even a blip on my radar once the next season began. Things will be much, much different this time around. My financial contribution to hockey will be inversely proportional to how long the lockout lasts - the longer they are locked out, the less I spend after hockey starts again. If they've killed the Winter Classic this year, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. Maybe we should start a bail fund now....

I'm gonna order the black Wings jersey from NHL shop cause i have the special edition NHL 13 coupon code and if the season starts, i will get the Jets channel to do my part to make sure we don't lose them again. other than that the NHL as a whole this year can eat my junk. this league will not move forward anymore until Bettman and his cancerous reign is over and someone takes over that cares more collectively about the owners, players and FANS and less about moving the game into non-hockey markets and having too much pride to admit mistakes and move on.

[ami]

Got a link to verify Fehr rejecting it in spite of the majority of fans and players liking it?

I can't find this article, but I'm pretty sure it was published on yahoo's nhl page.
At the time, most of writes/talking heads indicated similar opinion.

Because the biggest problem facing the league is not player salary but the financial disparity between large and small franchises. That's not the same as them losing money. The union's propsal, while far from perfect, actually acknowledges that disparity problem and tries to address it. The league's proposals involve just taking more from the players.

Who are running the league, teams? Don Fehr, players? No. Bettman, owners, managers? Yes.
Who has means to solve business problems? Don Fehr, players? No. Bettman, owners, managers? Yes.

The section I bolded has nothing do to with the NHL's and NHLPA's CBA negotiation or the lockout, which is the topic of this thread.

Though it does demonstrate that your opinion is based mostly on your hatred for unions and not what's actually transpiring in this lockout.

No. I kept on the topic. In this post, I was answering the following question:

Are you aware what the purpose of a union is? Foremost, it's the protection of it's membership ...

And I gave an example of protecting membership on somebody esle's expense. All unions have a lot in common.

And, yes, I don't like unions in general. This lockout is one more (one too many, actually) prove that my dislike has some ground.

Many talks about so well established purpose of unions in profesional sport, but few tried to elaborate...

The players just want to keep what they already have and what they were contractually promised. Its the owners that want more money.

And the league has reasons to believe, it is impossible to have viable business with current level of expenses.

[Esquire]

That does it for me and the NHL. I've already got someone buying my Winter Classic tickets that I spent $800 on and I've tossed all my merch in a box in the garage. I'm treating this like a breakup from an abusive spouse since that is exactly what it is.

[Nightfall]

Good point.

The players are fighting to reduce the amount of money that will be taken from them. None of their proposals ask for an increase in salary. They ask for a smaller reduction.

Being as that some of the clubs are not profitable right now, them asking the players for rollbacks doesn't surprise me. What surprises me are the levels of rollbacks the owners are asking for, which is just pure greed.

If anything, the owners in these areas that aren't selling tickets well need to be relocated. The owners don't see it this way though. I don't believe the players should have to go down to anything further than 52% of their share, with no rollbacks in salaries. The owners just have no interest in hearing any of that. The players don't believe they should drop their share except on a temporary basis.

Edited by Nightfall, 17 September 2012 - 02:55 PM.

[haroldsnepsts]

Being as that some of the clubs are not profitable right now, them asking the players for rollbacks doesn't surprise me. What surprises me are the levels of rollbacks the owners are asking for, which is just pure greed.

If anything, the owners in these areas that aren't selling tickets well need to be relocated. The owners don't see it this way though. I don't believe the players should have to go down to anything further than 52% of their share, with no rollbacks in salaries. The owners just have no interest in hearing any of that. The players don't believe they should drop their share except on a temporary basis.

Honestly them asking for rollbacks doesn't surprise me either. I was just surprised at how outrageous their proposal is.

Had they made a more reasonable proposal for a rollback, they probably could've gotten it by now. Instead they went nuclear.

52% seems like a good number. Get the players to give up 5%, but then make the concession that CBA term has to be longer like the league wants. Then when that ends, re-evaluate how many franchises are still struggling and why. The NHL's proposal was as if the league was in a massive financial crisis. It's not.

Like I said from the beginning, a group of knowledgeable hockey fans and hockey reporters could get together and knock out a a pretty equitable CBA in a day. This should have been the smoothest negotiations of all of them. I have to wonder if the owners saw the other league's negotiations and the players share under 50% and started licking their chops.

[frankgrimes]

Honestly them asking for rollbacks doesn't surprise me either. I was just surprised at how outrageous their proposal is.

Had they made a more reasonable proposal for a rollback, they probably could've gotten it by now. Instead they went nuclear.

52% seems like a good number. Get the players to give up 5%, but then make the concession that CBA term has to be longer like the league wants. Then when that ends, re-evaluate how many franchises are still struggling and why. The NHL's proposal was as if the league was in a massive financial crisis. It's not.

Like I said from the beginning, a group of knowledgeable hockey fans and hockey reporters could get together and knock out a a pretty equitable CBA in a day. This should have been the smoothest negotiations of all of them. I have to wonder if the owners saw the other league's negotiations and the players share under 50% and started licking their chops.

Thats what I was thinking too after reading their so called proposal. I understand you should aim high at the beginning but the league simply has gone overboard with the initial offer. The only one close to a somewhat okayish starting point has been there resent one.

Players showed they are willing to give up some piece of the cake so lets say if they give up 5 %, the NHL gets plus 1 year on the CBA and other stuff like ELC, UFA and arbitration rights are staying we should have a deal by now? Both sides would make some concessions but keeping their face and if on top of that the struggling franchises still can't turn into decent ones relocate them.

Read a midget quote like "we need a CBA that is fair to all 30 franchises" I can call BS this will never happen. A fair CBA for owners like Wang would mean his players are having no rights at all and all are s slightly paid above league minimu.

Edited by frankgrimes, 17 September 2012 - 03:20 PM.

[evilmrt]

I didn't need to see this:

Elliotte Friedman ‏@FriedgeHNIC
Serious or tactic? RT @plysenko "I am ready to play the whole season in Russia", - said Alex Ovechkin in exlusive interview to Sovsport.

[drwscc]

Thats what I was thinking too after reading their so called proposal. I understand you should aim high at the beginning but the league simply has gone overboard with the initial offer. The only one close to a somewhat okayish starting point has been there resent one.

Players showed they are willing to give up some piece of the cake so lets say if they give up 5 %, the NHL gets plus 1 year on the CBA and other stuff like ELC, UFA and arbitration rights are staying we should have a deal by now? Both sides would make some concessions but keeping their face and if on top of that the struggling franchises still can't turn into decent ones relocate them.

Read a midget quote like "we need a CBA that is fair to all 30 franchises" I can call BS this will never happen. A fair CBA for owners like Wang would mean his players are having no rights at all and all are s slightly paid above league minimu.

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.

[sleepwalker]

And the league has reasons to believe, it is impossible to have viable business with current level of expenses.

No they don't, they just want more money. Profits are up by over 50% since the last lockout.

[haroldsnepsts]

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.

The salary cap is exactly that. It's not collusion because they're all franchises of the league. But by linking players salaries to revenue and putting a hard cap on it, the owners have already done exactly what you're saying.

I'm not understanding how removing revenue sharing would help given the big problem is the disparity between the rich and poor franchises.

I do agree though that there's other ways to helps costs by doing things like lowering the cap floor. The owners seem fixated on just reducing players salaries, but they could help contract inflation through other avenues besides the players percentage. Lower the cap floor. Limit the length of contracts. have the yearly payout be the same as the cap hit instead of the average. Eliminate signing bonuses (I honestly thought those were already gone).

I'm guessing the problem is that the owners of the wealthy franchises like all those things because they give their team a competitive advantage. 30 owners may have voted for the lockout, but don't forget that the Flyers made an offer sheet to Weber structured so it would basically financially cripple Nashville. But the one thing they can all agree on is it would be great to pay players less.

[frankgrimes]

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.

Would be nice to be JB but sadly I am not.

Well there is always the option of relocation, its not the players fault that some franchises just aren't performing and are located in some very questionable hockeymarkets, while you have cities like Hamilton, Quebec City and others dieing for a team. Let teams spend whatever they want and be done with it, this forced balance has led to more trouble than the non CBA stuff we've had before.

Like I said both sides have to be willing to give a bit but so far only the players have shown that, if the NHL does the same thing I'll be the first to acknowledge it in a positive manner but so far they haven't.

[cusimano_brothers]

Today on TSN's OTR, the entire show dealt with the lockout; mighty good interviews and a couple of surprises.

Edited by cusimano_brothers, 17 September 2012 - 06:55 PM.

[cusimano_brothers]

From Toronto Star:

The Minnesota Wild are offering season ticket holders 10 per cent interest in return if they keep their accounts paid in full during the NHL lockout and don’t request a refund.
...

The first of many I'm sure.