Pskov Wings Fan

Owners 100% at fault, players 0%. You have made your position understood.

For giving out contracts they can afford? You bet they are. Or when a player is offered a contract he should say "No, this is a bit too much. This would be a burden on your team's finances dear GM"? What exactly is the player's fault when he is accepting a contract, which a team really should not have offered?

I am not talking about CBA, lockout or anything else. This is about teams paying money they do not have.

it's also not realistic for owners and gm's to pass up the chance of trying to make their teams better.

So you are basically saying that it is not teams fault paying more than they can afford. Normally if you can't pay for the stuff you want you do not buy it. And if you did it is too late to cry that the stuff is too expensive.

Well as long as the NHL is just whining and not interested in negotiating, what exactly is the point of meetings?

Free coffee and doughnuts?

I was referencing the lockout in 1994-1995 season that wiped out 931-948 games when it was under Fehr's watch.

Given that MLB has not lost any games to labor disputes since one can argue that it was the price worth paying.

Could the NHL be less greedy and not ask for so much?  Yes.  Could the NHLPA give up a little bit to make a deal happen?  Yes.

You appear to be starting from the premise that players have to give to the owners. Why? Should not players be getting something in return for reduced share? Yet NHL wanted to restrict their contracting rights as well at the same time.

If anything, I am arguing that both leaders should be fired.  Both sides have been a miserable failure to their sides and horrible to hockey fans.  The respective leadership teams of both sides should also be fired.  Its time to get a new group of leaders in these positions that are more willing to work together to achieve a goal.

I think Fehr at this point has support of the players. And only they can fire him.

I actually have no idea what the procedure is for removing NHL commissioner. Might be interesting to find out.

Point is that if Bettman was fired, then the next guy would be doing the same thing.

This is why they should go with a good looking gal rather than "the next guy".

NHL has been asking Ferh brothers this question for almost a year now. It looks like these unions pigs don't care.

Pigs or not but the owners who signed huge contracts this summer anticipating never to honor their full value (Craig Leipold comes to mind) need a lesson in fair dealing. I do not know if NHLPA has enough leverage and determination to win but I do not fault them for trying.

Maybe, but I doubt it's that simple. A contract is usually a complicated thingy which has to be respected by both parties. Makes me wonder.

It is difficult to enforce US contract in Russia. If Ovechkin liquidates all his US assets prior to bailing then I really do not see how Capitals can get anything out of him. But I do not think he will shut the door on NHL at this point in his career. Maybe later.

If the league really wants to help out the smaller franchises, the one they should push for is no cap circumvention with the ridiculously long contracts, and restrict signing bonuses.  Both of those will be harder to match for the less wealthy franchises.  Then pretty much keep the rest of the contract stipulations the way they are.

Did any proposal from either side include changes to how contract cap number is calculated? Using actual salary for a particular year as a cap number would prevent (most of) the current cap circumvention schemes.

When I found out how hard it is to overrule Bettman, it was both depressing and explained a lot about the last lockout.  

We've seen how idiotic some of these owners can be.  And now Gary only needs 8 not to vote against him.  I've seen several references to what a hardliner Jeremy Jacobs (owner of the Bruins) is and how much influence he has.  A friend of mine is from Boston and said fans hate him.  They even booed him when he was announced during their Cup win.

Among ownership there's got to be more reasonable, intelligent voices in the group, but are there 24 of them?  Probably not.

EDIT: And I just remembered that the league owns the coyotes, so Bettman probably gets one of those 30 votes himself.  So he might only need 7 owners to support him.

The fact that owners at some point agreed that they need 2/3 of the votes to overrule the commissioner make me question their judgement.

That's a relief, I thought he was playing for Ak Bars, main reason I watched the game

CSKA won 2-1 and Pavel scored both goals (first one was vintage Datsyuk - stealing puck from an opposing player trying to exist his own zone and then scoring).

It would appears that just like the NHL this thread has reached an impasse. Maybe if we would have started to argue in January we would be done by now.

Jokes about the value of people with MBA's are not just jokes.

Keep pressing that "I win" button until your finger falls off.  It still doesn't change the fact that you are siding with a union that has little to no interest in playing hockey this season.  Sure, they aren't as bad as the owners, but they don't deserve your unwaivering loyalty.

But they do have interest in playing hockey. Just today Datsyuk had two assists and Malkin scored a goal and added two assists.
Players just do want to play in NHL given the conditions owners are demanding.

While I do somewhat agree, I think that the ownership has a right to at least make a profit.

To me "right to make a profit" means that owners are entitled to it. This I do not agree with. Owners have a right to try to make a profit. But there should be no guarantees.