chances14

It is obvious who is responsible for all the lockouts. Only a handful of around 700 current players were even around the first time (which would have ended up in a lost season without a Champion engraved on the Cup if it was up to Bettman which it was the last time and this time), Fehr wasn't here the previous times and neither were some of the owners.
How can anybody blame anybody else???

because both sides have not negotiated in good faith during this process.

off the top of my head

players refused to negotiate in january when the owners wanted to and then they dragged their feet on putting forth proposals after their original offer in august. plus, you have don fehr showing up hours late to cba meetings and witholding/misleading information from the players regarding nhl proposals

on the owners side they put forth an insulting lowball offer to start these negotiations with no concessions from the owners. They have at several times throughout this process refused to meet without preconditions. The nhl complained that the pa wasn't coming up with a proposal but when the pa finally did come up with a proposal, the nhl only took 10 minutes to reject all of them.

Bob McKenzie ‏@TSNBobMcKenzie
I lied. I'm back. Good catch by @KatieStrangESPN on this: In yrs 2 thru 5, players’ share in dollars may not be less than previous yr.

NHL will find this problematic. Goes back towards "guaranteeing" dollars. In a linked-to-revenue system, those guarantees have not existed.

Nick Cotsonika ‏@cotsonika
PA proposal doesn't just hurt owners for a bad year. It hurts them for a GOOD year. If revenues spike one year, it costs them the next.

Do players want a team in Quebec City? Say NHL goes there and revs spike temporarily. Now owners have to keep it up.

If this proposal became CBA, owners might work to smooth out revenues year to year, hurting growth and both sides.

devil is always in the details

Nick Cotsonika ‏@cotsonika
If revenues go down, the players' percentage will go up in the future, under this proposal.

don't think owners will be fond of this


Here's an interesting tidbit from the offer

Chris Nichols ‏@Nichols_NHLPool
Part of #NHLPA proposal is inclusion of a free agency interview period. That, IMO, would be significant benefit to both teams and players.

I agree we should be pro hockey, I just do not agree with Bettman's bargaining tactics, and his my way or the highway attitude. I like the fact that Fehr is standing strong for the players. Now do I think this lockout is stupid and pointless?  Of course I do, both sides are being greedy, this should have been the easiest CBA ever, but I fall more on favouring the players here. They were guaranteed these contracts, now the owners are crying that they signed them, go fly a kite!

i don't like bettman either and i hope he is gone soon after the next cba is signed. but i don't let the hate cloud my judgement and i certainly don't let it support players who call out the head nhl guys idiots and cancer as somehow being the right thing to do. it's unprofessional and does nothing positive whatsoever for getting hockey back.

They are lucky the players are wiling to help them out and go to 50/50, they just want what is contractually owed to them

and they are with the make whole provision which the nhl revised in the lastest round of talks so that the owners pay 100% of the make whole provision. but the players didn't like that the make whole was based on projected growth, which is the ultimate hypocrisy considering that every pa proposal to get to 50/50 has been based on projected revenue growth. can't have it both ways.

the issue now seems to be with the contracting issues, which i agree the nhl is making outrageous demands for.

White and zette are just being honest..

they can be honest all they want, just keep it within the conference calls and meetings and out of the media.

http://www.sportsnet...wn_nhl_spector/

When the plan has gone so awry -- when history now tells us that so many of Bettman’s signature moves have strayed -- we’re not surprised that the NHL has no "ideas" left. It was, of course, a series of NHL "ideas" that got us here in the first place.

How about tagging extra years on those old CBA’s with Bob Goodenow, so that the NHL could get the players’ permission to take part in the Olympic Games? It still baffles that 85 per cent of the NHLPA membership would receive a 12-day mid-season vacation window, and the other 15 per cent would be furnished with a spot in the Olympics -- a life-changing experience -- yet it was the league that had to give concessions to make that happen, not the players

Bad call, Gary.

Decisions like that are what led to the players raking in 75 per cent of league revenues. They resulted in salary escalation that would pay hockey players like Major League Baseball players, without the underlying economy to justify it
.

The players are equally at fault. They and their agents -- in orchestration with the NHLPA -- never missed a chance to sign a ridiculous deal, to prey on some GM whose job was on the line if he didn’t improve his roster to win some games, to drive salaries through the roof.

Today, players are paying the costs for 25 years of doing what was good for themselves, yet not good for the game as a whole. They drove the NHL’s economy into the ground. Like driving your car too hard, eventually it stops, and there’s a big bill involved in getting it started again.

The League is in a "take-take-take" mode, and has not been willing to concede anything to the PA as an incentive.

that's not true. while the nhl hasn't given anything up as far as economics or contracting issues go

here are some of the things the players have reportedly gotten

-artificially inflate the salary cap in Year 1 so teams don’t have to trade or release players;

- trade player salary and cap charges in trades (this is something both teams and players have wanted);

-eliminate re-entry waivers

- Increase revenue sharing with further increases as revenues grow, and the top grossing teams making the biggest contributions (revenue sharing is something Don Fehr is passionate about; wants it so the teams that really need assistance are assisted)

- Introduction of appeal rights to a neutral third-party arbitrator in cases involving on- and- off-ice discipline (player-proposed wish)

-Joint NHL/NHLPA Health and Safety Committee with equal representation by the league and union;

-Establishment of a “standard of care” and “primary allegiance” obligations between the team medical staff and players (this is directly due to the tragic Derek Boogaard situation that remains ongoing);

-Offseason rehab activities would no longer be required in the team’s home city;

-Players have access to second medical opinions at the club expense;

- Ice time restrictions and days off during training camp;

-Improved facility standards in visiting locker rooms;

-Ice condition improvements and standards;

-More player friendly rules for parent-son trips, teams would have to pay for parents travel and lodging to first-ever games, other milestones;

-Different standards for rent and mortgage reimbursements from teams;

-increased access to tickets for visiting players and also a game ticket policy that minimizes the tax impact on players;

-And also, the league has agreed to consider a player proposal for single rooms for all players on the road, which would be thousands of extra dollars spent on travel. Typically, players share rooms on the road unless you’re a longstanding player (600 games), or in a lot of cases, goaltenders

http://www.startribu.../177160641.html

now obviously these aren't as big as the revenue split or contracting issues but the notion that the owners haven't conceded a single thing yet is misinformed. i do agree that the owners contracting demands are outrageous and they should be willing to give on those

Whatever side of the fence they're on, I know many, many fans that aren't all that interested in watching this year.  This is going to cost them much more than they're aware of.  We may be the greatest fans on earth, but we're not suckers.

neither side couldn't care less about the game of hockey as long as they get their money

Renowned mediator wants crack at talks

Bring this guy on board asap

Ultimately Bettman is the captain of the ship and if the ship runs aground 3 times he needs to take responsibility.

That's why he's paid $8,000,000 a year.  He doesn't need to be coddled or given excuses that the other side is tough to negotiate with. He's in charge and ultimately failure or success rests at his feet.  This lockout is unquestionably a failure from many perspectives.  Only the hardline group of 6-8 owners and Bettman himself seem to be happy with the situation.

he's paid 8 mil a year to be the whipping boy so that the owners don't take all the flack. if the owners didn't like him, he wouldn't be commissioner.

@tpanotchCSN: Union source says both sides still talking. Get ready to turn clocks back for 1 extra hr to talk!

by my estimation of watching twitter timeline, this meeting started around 4pm. so they're going on 7hrs now.

these are the kinds of meetings that should have been going on months ago

saw this on hfboards in regards to this meeting

So they started with the Lord of the Rings trilogy and might move on to the Star Wars movies afterwards. With an agreed upon hour long break for pizza (it took 2 hours of vigorous negotiation to agree upon an hour long break).

And then maybe some retro gaming. Busting out Mario Kart and GoldenEye for the N64.

This could be a long night.

Apparently talks between both sides broke down at the Pizza Hut when they couldn't agree on pepperoni or Hawaiian.

Pizza Hut staff are upset because they want to go home for the night, proposed a 50-50 split, half pepperoni, half Hawaiian. Fehr/Daly not seeing eye to eye on this. Fehr wants Daly to honor his previous promise of tangy dipping sauce.

So, now talks are totally off. Fehr has set up shop by the old Street Fighter II machine next to the Pizza Hut entrance, Daly has joined in with a party of 4th graders already at the restaurant celebrating a birthday.

On the plus they are sending intermittent text messages and posting on each other's Facebook wall. They could meet but not before Daly polishes down his root beer mug apparently.

Fehr still hopeful they can come an agreement and order something before the Pizza Hut closes in 45 minutes, but it's not looking good right now guys. They could both be locked in the restaurant for the night with no pizza period.

They will decide the split by rock, paper, scissors.

The main hurdle is that NHLPA doesn't accept NHLs definition of scissors.

Rock, paper, scissors.

Fehr: Dynamite!

Bettman: We're not speaking the same language right now.

Unified, players roll with punches

i wish both sides would put away their pride and egos and get a deal done for the sake of hockey. i don't think either side realizes the long term damage this lockout is going to cause.

True, but I think what makes this worse to the players is when a team like Minnesota gets into a bidding war and shells out two 13-year $100 million contracts, then three months later the owner is sitting across from them saying franchises aren't making a profit because player's salaries are too high.

i agree. what leipold did puts a really big stain on the owners image. can't believe that he is on the negotating committee.

but my impressions from reading some of these quotes by players is that they act like they have always gotten every penny of their contracts in the past cba, which isn't true. i think it just shows how misinformed some of these players are.

Fehr - 1
Bettman - 3

AND the players offered to start the season WITHOUT a CBA; owners said no.  The preponderance of fault lies with the owners on this one.

fehr has a history of striking in times of the league's biggest revenue making season, the playoffs and also at the time in which the owners have already paid most of their expenses. coincdentally the players do not get paid in the playoffs and have already recieved their checks before then. this gives the players pretty much all the leverage in negotations

let's not forget also, the former pa head bob goodenow led the players on strike back in 1992 on the eve of the stanley cup finals.

i'm pretty sure the owners don't want to go down that road again

nobody knows for sure if illitch is against/for the lockout. but his passion for his sports teams to win first and foremost is undeniable. it's what seperates himself from most other professional sports teams owners.