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*Official* CBA Negotiations and Lockout Thread

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poetica Canucks First-Line

poetica

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NHL OWNERS AND PLAYERS TO MEET ON TUESDAY IN NEW YORK

The next step in NHL and NHLPA negotiations is set to take place on Tuesday afternoon as six owners and a small group of players will meet in New York City in an attempt to continue talks towards reaching a new collective bargaining agreement.

The owners that will take part in the meeting are Jeremy Jacobs of the Boston Bruins, Ronald Burkle of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mark Chipman of the Winnipeg Jets, Jeffery Vinik of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Murray Edwards of the Calgary Flames and Larry Tanenbaum of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The NHLPA requested that a staff member from each side be present for the meeting. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly will attend the meeting while the NHLPA has yet to identify which staff member they will have in the room.

Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr will not be involved.

"There will be owners attending this meeting who have not previously done so, which is encouraging and which we welcome," Fehr said in a statement. "We hope that this meeting will be constructive and lead to a dialogue that will help us find a way to reach an agreement."

The names of the players that will represent the NHLPA are not yet known.

Following the breakdown of talks between the two sides that involved federal mediators, Bettman proposed on Thursday that the leadership from both sides step aside for the next bargaining session, leaving a group of owners and players to try and break the stalemate.

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DeNiro Canucks Hall-of-Famer

DeNiro

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So both sides said that they want to have a player and owners only meeting, then why the hell is Daly gonna be there? I thought he was one of the people they wanted to cut out of the meetings...He's just as bad as Bettman.

And with Jacobs there, this meeting will go nowhere. The guy will try to bully the players into accepting their deal, and the players will likely just walk out. More wasted time on both sides.

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The Bookie Canucks Second-Line

The Bookie

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I would've liked to see Dolan in as well, but by all reports he and Bettman haven't even spoken since their legal battle in 2007, so it didn't seem likely. There are rumours that he doesn't even attend Board of Governors meetings. Seems like he has decided to hang back as a silent partner in the NHL until a new commissioner comes in.

Happy that Burkle and Chipman will be there, they've both come across as respectable owners from everything I've read about them. I don't know much about Vinik or Tanenbaum, anyone else?

DeNiro - I think it was Union's request to have legal representation on either side, hence Daly. I assume they'll be sending Steve Fehr.

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The Bookie Canucks Second-Line

The Bookie

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That's cool. In light of that I think I might prefer Tanenbaum to Dolan. The last thing this lockout needs is another personal grudge mucking things up. But this way there's still a representative of the source of revenue coming into the league.

Still no word on who's attending from the Players' side?

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UFCanuck Canucks Star

UFCanuck

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That's cool. In light of that I think I might prefer Tanenbaum to Dolan. The last thing this lockout needs is another personal grudge mucking things up. But this way there's still a representative of the source of revenue coming into the league.

Still no word on who's attending from the Players' side?

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poetica Canucks First-Line

poetica

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Wonder if it's true there will only be 6 players. That seems disproportionate to have an equal number of owners and players, being that there are so many more players than owners. I can see having too many might just slow things too much, but if the owners truly want to get their message to the players, the more the merrier you would think.

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The Bookie Canucks Second-Line

The Bookie

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Here's an interesting little piece from Time magazine's sports blog. It's clear the author isn't a huge hockey follower - for instance he apparently hasn't got the memo about the Islanders moving to Brooklyn - but still worth reading. The usual refrain about hockey reigning supreme in Canada is valid, but south of the border is a different story.

I've also felt that a more effective fan strategy than the boycotts people have suggested would be to have hockey fans showing up at other sporting events decked out in NHL gear being very visible/vocal about their interest in finding a new sport or league to support.

Why Soccer Threatens the NHL

Major League Soccer and the National Hockey League crossed paths this week going in opposite directions.

Heading into Saturday’s championship game between the Houston Dynamo and Los Angeles Galaxy, MLS Commissioner Dan Garber sounded victorious. The MLS set new attendance records and averaged nearly 19,000 fans a game this season, including 114 sellouts. The improving level of play, made possible by the addition of a new class of international talents such as Robbie Keane and Thierry Henry, has made the game more attractive for fans, who are embracing their teams. “There’s a true supporters culture that is developing in MLS that is providing us a true point of difference,” Garber said. And you can see in places like Seattle, where the games have a distinctly European feel. (Without the drunken louts and fan violence.) The league is strong enough that the pending loss of David Beckham, who since 2007 has single handedly provided MLS with an identity, can be considered a healthy transition.

Maybe NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman should hire Becks to juggle a ball wearing ice skates. It’s about the only entertainment his league might provide this season if it doesn’t end the current lockout of players, now in its third month. The players have offered a 50/50 revenue split with the owners, down from the 57% they are currently taking. The owners aren’t satisfied with sharing. Even two days of talks that included the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service failed to move the puck. “We are disappointed that the mediation process was not successful,” said NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly. Disappointed but he couldn’t have been surprised given the league’s intransigence.

The NHL’s policy of exclusion—we’re not going to negotiate anything, and we don’t want to honor the player contracts that we’ve already signed—is a sports version of the Republican party. This is the second lockout that Bettman has orchestrated—the entire 2004-2005 season was lost on his watch. It’s a bitter holdout by what seems to be a few extreme owners bent on bringing the players to heel at the expense of the ticket-buying general public. We’ve seen what voters thought of the GOP‘s strategy. They reelected a left-handed basketball player.

Meanwhile in the north part of North America, the MLS added a team in the very heart of ice hockey this year, the Montreal Impact. It’s the third MLS team in Canada, and the new boys drew crowds of 60,000 plus at the Olympic Stadium before moving into the cozier confines of Stade Saputo. It sets up a potential new rivalry with Toronto FC, another relatively recent arrival to MLS, and one that could offset the historic Canadiens/Maple Leafs faceoff. (Although FC Toronto seems as lame as the Leafs have been over the last, oh, 30 years.) MLS is finding a deep fan base up north of the border, a contrast to the disappointment of the NHL’s southern strategy in planting teams in places such as Phoenix (bankrupt), Atlanta (moved), Tampa and Miami (quick, what’s the team’s name?). The growth of MLS in the U.S. and Canada, and the characteristics of the fan base say a lot about the future of the game. “The demographics don’t lie: our two countries have become soccer nations,” said Garber. Those same demographics—more Hispanic, less white— are a warning sign to the NHL, which apparently believes it can abuse its fans without consequences. MLS is growing because it has nurtured its fan base. It had to, given that MLS was essentially selling a foreign product in its early days. But that is no longer true. Global football is our ball.

So while soccer grows, the NHL is sliding. Many of the NHL’s stars are already playing in Europe, so the strike isn’t hurting them as much as perhaps the owners had hoped. Some of these players might choose to stay in Europe permanently—in other words, they’d prefer a Russian hockey league team owner to an American or Canadian — rather than worry about the NHL’s despots taking money out of their pockets.

So here’s a proposal to bring hockey back. NHL players should form their own league. (What is it that owners do, anyway?)There are plenty of arenas available, some publicly financed or owned. For instance, in the New York City area, there’s the Izod Center in nearby East Rutherford and the Barclay’s in Brooklyn, which don’t house NHL teams at the moment. In Detroit, the Palace at Auburn Hills is available, isn’t it? In Canada, there are a jillion places to place hockey.

Or better yet, consider that the NHL has had enormous success playing ice hockey outside in its Winter Classic. And MLS’s cozy, soccer specific stadiums, which typically seat 25,000 fans, all of them close to the action, would be perfect sites for outdoor hockey come December. The fans can wear team scarves (they might need to) and sing team songs, just like soccer fans do. The NHL would never be missed.

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poetica Canucks First-Line

poetica

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Thanks for another interesting article, Bookie. The author makes an excellent point about the changing makeup of the US creating new and increasing challenges for the NHL while creating more inroads for soccer. Similarly, I've read that the growth of soccer in Canada may all but ensure hockey is ignored by immigrants. While some immigrants choose to follow hockey in order to fit in in Canada, most are already familiar with soccer and will be more likely to simply follow a local soccer team instead as their means of integrating into their new community. With a growing immigration population in Canada and an exploding Hispanic population in the US, the NHL really should think twice about their flippant treatment of fans.

It's clear the author isn't a huge hockey follower - for instance he apparently hasn't got the memo about the Islanders moving to Brooklyn - but still worth reading.

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