sleepwalker

In the end, the fans lose.

Which is why I say the NHL and NHLPA can go jump off a cliff.

Agreed.  Like has been pointed out in this thread a few time before though, its like the two sides in power in politics.  Neither cares about the people whatsoever.  Thats not the point.  Its a power/money game.

Thats the thing. Sorry to say but there is not just 1 devil in this fight.

True.

But the devil was already in this fight.  And he is a hateful, mean, vindictive devil who hates the players with a passion and would never negotiate in good faith no matter what the circumstances.

So the players had no choice but to bring in a "devil" of their own to help even up the fight, lest their souls be devoured and they lose everything to the original devil, dark lord Bettman.

I sincerely hope that Uncle Gary's latest "cunning stunt" results in even more solidarity in the PA. The fact that he tried this is bad. The fact that it has been made public by the media is great.

Agreed.  But at the same time, it also pretty much guarantees that this will drag out for a lot longer now, which sucks.

The fact that over the last week the NHL has tried shady underhanded stunts to try to bypass the NHLPA and influence players and/or possibly attempt to get insider union info from them, and rejected the NHLPAs proposals in mere minutes, without even giving them any consideration is not only a further huge wedge between the players and NHL, but even a lot of the players who were holding out some hope, now have likely lost what little trust they had left in the NHL after this past week and the events that have transpired.

This and the proposals that each side has tabled that are touted as "50/50" are not 50/50 right out of the gate.  Which is why there is fault on both sides.

How would you suggest they go about getting to 50/50 right out of the gate AND honoring of all current contracts at the same time?  (which you say you are in favor of)

Yay!

I know myself and several of my friends have emailed FSD letting them know how disappointed we were that they weren't airing any Griffins games.  So you guys can thank us for this.  

So to sum up...

This never had anything to do with the polar bears.  The OP was just using that as a jumping off point to rant about his dislike of Tootoo and the contract the Wings signed him to.  Sound about right?

Surprised to see Philly on that list.  I would have thought Mr. Snider is right up there as one of the hard nosers.

fyi

"hockeyyinsiderr" is a teenage kid and all of his posts are completely fabricated by him.  He has no inside info.

I agree, bring in the mediator now. Both sides are beyond negotiating in good faith.

I disagree.  The players have come to the table in nothing but good faith.  That is the whole problem here,  They should have met the hostile owners who came in bad faith with an insulting low opening offer, with an insulting high offer of their own.

Instead they chose to put forth a proposal that they thought was fair and was close to their bottom line.  Since they are the only side who came to the table in good faith to begin with, they don't feel they should have to move too much off of their proposal.

I could say the same thing for people who are in 100% support of either side.  There is plenty of blame to go around here.

I doubt there is many people that think one side is 100% to blame.

As an aside, I think one of the main things you can blame on the players in this lockout was having some sort of idealistic delusions of how negotiating goes, especially with the NHL.  When the owners came to the table with the ridiculous and insulting lowball opening offer, what the players should have done, and what pretty much anyone else would have done, is come back with an equally insulting high ball openeing offer, like an 80/20 split, no cap, no contract lengths.  Only then can you come to a meaningful compromise and meet in the middle.

Let's keep the discussion here about the negotiations without making it personal.  Otherwise there will be edits/deletions/suspensions.

Thanks.

It certainly says something that the people here that are supporting the owners in this for the most part can't seem to put together a valid argument, so they just toss around insults and personal attacks instead to try to obfuscate the fact that the side they are arguing for really doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Minnesota.

Those crazy contracts we saw over the summer were essentially just sham contracts though, as the owners had absolutely zero intent of actually honoring them, as we can clearly see now.

Thats why I can see this lockout going on indefinitely.  The owners signed crazy contracts thinking they'd just get the players to roll over with the CBA and they wouldn't have to pay them out.  While the players, are refusing the bend over and just take it up the rear like they did last time.  And the only reason they even did last time, was that it was assumed since the league got everything they wanted, they wouldn't have to deal with that s*** again this time around.

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.

Willingness to compromise changes when most of the parties involved are missing out on paychecks. It's not just a matter of talking about it until you reach an agreement.

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.

Then speak your mind on both sides instead of just chirping the typical "ownership's fault" that you are so adept at mentioning.  You seem to be speaking option #2 quite adeptly.

EDIT:  For the record, I believe its 60-40 at fault with the NHL being moreso than the league.

Perhaps you should also do the same as you suggest.  From all your comments here I would never in a million years have guessed you think the league is 60% to blame.  From all of your comments, I would have guess you thought it was about 80-90% the players fault.

The difference in professionalism and tone of the press conferences held by Bettman and Fehr is amazing.

Lol, it really is.  Its like watching how a normal person interacts with people versus how the slimiest of all venomous vile-filled scumbag snakes tries to deal with people.  The difference is staggering.  I wonder if Gary Bettman is even human... lol