drwscc

This crap is exactly like politics these days.  MY team is absolutely correct, and my opponents are all scumbags who are threatening to ruin the game/country/world.   It's like everyone has lost the ability to be objective.  NEITHER side has been negotiating in good faith, no matter how you spin it.   BOTH sides are greedy and are working to get as much as they can.  That doesn't change no matter who the commissioner is.  They are fighting a PR war that, in the end, doesn't matter.

If the players caved today, and signed the last offer from the league, would you all be upset and not watch the games because the owners lost the PR war, but got what they wanted?  If the league caved, would you be upset?   It doesn't matter as long as they come back.

I don't need to love the commissioner of the NHL, I just need him not to cost the league 1,780 games.

I know Bettman's job isn't easy, but it's not unlike the commissioners of other sports, who while hated have managed to avoid the regular work stoppages Bettman utilizes.

You mean the NBA lockout that wrapped up a year ago when the players caved?  Or how about the NBA lockout of 98-99, where they lost 30+ games?  

Or are you referring to the MLB strike of 1994-1995?  The 232-day strike, which lasted from August 12, 1994, to April 2, 1995, led to the cancellation of between 931 and 948 games overall, and the entire 1994 postseason and World Series (also involved Fehr, interesting.)

NFL Refs lockout that ended a couple of weeks ago?  2011 NFL lockout?

Nah, you're right.  These guys are saints.  :S

I don't think they are all despised as much by their customers as Bettman is by his

You must not pay attention to any other sports.  All of those men are despised by the fans of their leagues.  Read any articles about Stern or Goodell, and it talks about how they try to out evil each other (Bountygate in the NFL, both leagues have recent work stoppages)

The fact is, it's the Commissioner's job to be the hated "face" of the league.  That's why they are paid well.  Instead of you hating Jeremy Jacobs, Mike Illitch, and Ted Leonsis, instead you hate Bettman.  He doesn't do any of this stuff on his own, but it's all his fault.  

Also, thinking someone like Gretzky could be the Commissioner is laughable at best.  He has none of the requisite experience, and he's not the type of person that can stand being hated.  He was a great player, but was a horrible coach, because that's not where his skills lie.  I seriously doubt his ability to score goals will help him in an owners' meeting.  IF Bettman gets fired, expect another Commissioner in the mold of Bettman, Goodell, Stern.

I will have a hearty laugh when Bettman finally retires, and Gretzky or someone else that everyone is sure is the savior of the game, comes in and picks up right where Bettman left off.  The butthurt will be enough to fill oceans.

That's the point.  Zetterberg is trying to force Bettman's hand by talking to the public.  It's basic negotiating and he's not doing anything wrong or badly.  But I highly doubt Ovechkin stays in the KHL.  He was just working on having a bounce back year and probably wants to prove himself.

So, it was good then that Jimmy D made his comments, right?  He's just trying to force Fehr's hand by talking to the public.   It's basic negotiating and he's not doing anything wrong or badly.

It's being petulant, and wanting some attention.  Nothing more, nothing less.

and Fehr would?  Please.

Nobody cares about the fans.  They all want money.  They want as much as they can get, both sides.  If it was Bettman or Selig or Shanny up there, it'd be the same story.  But keep believing that if Bettman magically disappeared that Jeremy Jacobs and Mike Illitch would stop caring about money.

Sure they can. The owners can lock out the players any time they want.  That's what it means to be an owner.

Is it a good tactic, no, but they can absolutely call a lockout whenever they see fit, and nothing is going to take that power away from them.

As soon as enough Dan Cleary and Cal Clutterbuck types that don't have the option of signing a lucrative deal in Europe start missing paychecks, you're going to start seeing cracks on the NHLPA side.

Boy, people sure don't like to be reminded of the facts.  Yes, the owners are the ranchers, and the players are the cattle.  The club execs are like the ranch hands.  Not sure why this riled everyone up.  It's kind of obvious.

Unless you own your own business, you are cattle too.  It's the way the world works.  Get a helmet.

Fact of the matter is, this is a partnership and a partnership should benefit both sides. I am more than sure some players made all these concessions last time because they were thinking "we are done with that crap finally" but no here we go again.

If owners really have given out contracts they never expected to life up to well then things could get ugly for them. I mean, I am not going to buy a car for 50.000 and then all of a sudden decide I am only willing or able to pay 25, 30 or whatever less for it, business doesn't work that way.

Sure it does.  It's called the car gets repossessed, and the dealer gets to sell it again.  There are ways to get out of destructive contracts, and people take them all the time.  Buy more house than you can afford, and lose your job?  Under your scenario, too bad, you're an indentured servant until you pay what you owe.  I mean, why should the bank give you a break.  You're the one who signed the contract.  Noone put a gun to your head and made you get a house.

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.

I was expecting this:

Players settling for less money would not result in lower prices for consumers but in more profits for owners. There is a difference here.

The players getting what they want won't lower prices for consumers either.  If anything, prices are going to go up.  That's an invalid argument.  Everyone is being greedy.  It's millionaires vs billionaires squabbling over crumbs.

Uncle Gary doesn't care about the fans. He force-fed the "shootout". That was his idea, you know. Get over it.

The players don't care about the fans either.  Noone in this situation cares about the fans.  It's kind of obvious, but everyone is running around "Ohh...Buttman doesn't care.  He's terrible"  "The owners are greedy, they don't care."  "If only those poor players could just get what they want, we can have hockey."  

It's disingenuous to think that anyone at all cares about the fans, and that only Bettman is in the way,  If the players really cared, why not accept the offer?  Once it goes to a lockout, they're going to get a crappier deal anyway so they can start making money again.

Blog Here

There are no good guys in the NHL’s labor dispute

There is an incessant need to assign blame in the way we analyze situations. We love our dichotomies. There are good guys and bad guys. People who are at fault and people who are victims. Winners. Losers. So on. So forth.


More often than not though, this isn’t how things work. Rarely, in the grand scheme of things, do things break up so conveniently. It would be magnificent for those of us who have to write about things, but it’s simply not the case. When it is broken up that way, it’s largely fabricated.
I’m here to tell you NHL Labor Dispute 2012 ™ is not Gary Bettman’s fault. It’s not Donald Fehr’s fault. It’s not the owners’ fault. It’s not the players’ fault. It’s their collective fault.
They are all utterly terrible.

Gary Bettman
Gary Bettman is a slime ball, I know this, you know this, your mother who hasn’t watched hockey since Bobby Orr’s rookie season knows this. There’s something incredibly offputting about his demeanor and general approach to dealing with human beings that ignites the rage furnace lying within each of us.

He is the Kurtz of this novel and the NHL, the league we watch 10 months of the year, is his vile abyss. He plucks teams from their homes, he locks the doors on seasons, he conducts boos from center ice like a maniacal conductor playing to the audience.
He postures on how the NHL is working diligently to solve the problems that they have played a starring role in creating. They’ve been ready to negotiate for months apparently, they want to talk it out, it’s that damn NHLPA holding up the process.
We just want to work to get the game back for our fans.

No, he doesn’t. He has a job to do and he doesn’t give a damn about you, or me, or your mother who hasn’t watched since Bobby Orr’s rookie season. He is a mouthpiece, nothing more. A smug, infuriating mouthpiece. Yet, for all of his cons, this is not his fault. He’s playing his part, doing his job and his job is to get what his bosses need and get out.

Donald Fehr
Donald Fehr is a weasel. For those of you who don’t follow the baseball circuit, you didn’t know this when he was hired, but you will soon find out. He causes problems. He did in baseball and he will maintain his performance across sports. Bo Jackson, meet your union head equivalent.
To clear up his track record, he presided over an MLB lockout and lost World Series in 1994 which put a hefty portion of people off the sport. This came before a nice segue into the Steroid Era which brought fans back to the game with DINGERS and alienated them at the same time when the fallout came.
If you’re a player you love this guy and it’s pretty clear why. He doesn’t take crap from the league, Bettman or the media. You know he’s going to get you closer to what you demand. And you know he literally doesn’t care what you think about him.
If you’re going to guess how many damns Donald Fehr gives, set the line at one and take the under.
Again though, like Bettman, he is a mouthpiece, nothing more. He is there to butt heads with Gary Bettman because the players pay him to, and regardless of how much of a jerk he appears to be, it’s barely more than a charade. Everybody has a mortgage to pay, and his need to pay the bill requires an unsavouryness that we have and will come to know.

The Owners
The owners are totally insufferable, aren’t they? I mean seriously. You get coaxed into signing these players for a decade plus and hundreds of millions of dollars and then cry poor come negotiation time. You weren’t poor two weeks ago, how are you poor now?
If you want a league with a sustainable economic structure, perhaps you shouldn’t be handing out contracts to the Rick DiPietro’s of the world which put them on various Forbes lists for the world’s wealthiest people despite the fact he doesn’t work very much. Wouldn’t it be nice to have 82 paid sick days a year?
Obviously this is hyperbole, but still. Completely ridiculous.
Again though, this is ultimately what the fans want from their teams. To assemble a winner at all costs, financial or otherwise. What do we care anyways? They’re loaded, they can afford it. Who cares if we’re stuck with Rick DiPietro for another 332 years? Or Alexei Yashin for the rest of his life? I want titles dammit!
Yet, we don’t want this. Nobody wants this. We have created a monster.
Charles Wang, you have set a dangerous precedent that became much much worse once you made Ed Snider think you were on to something.

The Players
I understand that it’s tough for people to see how the players are at fault in this scenario, but it’s really not that tough to understand. You can’t blame these guys for signing outrageous contracts because that’s not how things work. I have a hard time believing any of us wouldn’t take all of the money for several years if we had the offers, but the rhetoric gets tiring.
Just so we’re clear on a couple of things here… players complaining about the way rules are enforced for safety reasons is a joke. You want to stop getting hit in the head or plowed from behind? Don’t hit anyone in the head or plow them from behind. A riveting concept, I know.
Also, this hockey brotherhood business is a little confusing. I know they’re all brothers and such when the camera is rolling, but the on-ice atmosphere is considerably different. It’s very cute seeing guys with a history of run-ins bro-hugging their way through union meetings.
Also, do overseas players count as part of the hockey brotherhood? Because I don’t think it’ll feel that way when NHLers hop overseas to take their jobs during a lockout. I wouldn’t do that to my brother. Well, unless he was a real jerk.
The players here are completely self-interested and self-absorbed, like every other party here, only they have less riding on this than anyone because they will be hired no matter what. The players are just as guilty of jobbing the fans as our previous three nutbar parties and you better not let them off the hook in the court of public opinion.

Conclusions
Everybody in this situation sucks. They are all flat out terrible. Bettman is a fink, Fehr is a rat, the owners are hypocrites who need to be saved from themselves, and the players don’t give a damn because they’re going to get paid no matter what, it’s just a matter of where and whose job they’re taking.
The lockout, forthcoming at that, is not as simple as being Bettman’s fault, Fehr’s fault, the owners’ fault or the players’ fault. Anyone who tells you to zero in on one is lying to you and probably has an agenda. It’s not black and white but it is that simple.
Collective bargaining means collective blame.