*Official* CBA Negotiations and Lockout Thread

[Squeak]

Lol have you checked the foundations of charities that the Canucks have going. Goes to show how far your fandom goes and thats as far as the players names...So you met a player on the street or at some practice...so what...big whoop so have I. I have autographed jersey's...3 in fact along with items from the game used sales....I have met Sami, Nazzy, Burrows, Luo, Mo...but damn if I saw em on the street today I would hollar out at em to CAVE~!...even though they were kind enough to sign my "CANUCKS" Jersey...lol Where's Nazzy now...traded and retired number and all. What about Bertuzzi...pshhh, MO....Luo on his way out....nice guy ....what evs...All these players may be nice to you on the street but they dump you all for a better contract....where's the money at... Kesler anyone...not even worth the 5 million he is gettin paid...injury prone trying to boost up the CBA in their favour to ride out contracts if they get injured...lolFehr is a joke...NHLPA is a bunch of "Sucka's" Cave or not to Cave..and the NHL are riding the coaster and getting bored of the rides....

[JAH]

As I stated before the meetings this week. I knew the player would be manhandled in that room alone with the Owners...why because they dont know anything beyond ice, hockey and dollar signs...and certain people here dont get that...I heard Bettman say the word FANS many times in his PR did Fehr?...NOPE~! He did mention Canada...lol but only because press brought it up...

GO OWNERS~!

[elvis15]

...

Depressing though it is, if you're waiting for life to be fair, take a knee. It's going to be a long wait.

[BCNeil]

So the 2 main issues are CBA length and individual contract lengths.

I find it ironic the players prefer an 8 year agreement with opt out at 6, compared the NHLs 10 year, with 8 year opt out.

One of the reasons was its so hard to predict how the economy of the game will be 10 years out.

Yet the same logic for some reason doesn't count for individual player contracts.

But really the length of the CBA is just nonsense. Can anyone see any scenario, where 6 years from now it would benefit the players to end the CBA? Whether this CBA is 6, 8 or 10 years. Whenever it ends the players will once again be the ones giving....it makes sense to put this off as long as possible.

For individual contracts. Take the NHLs 5 year or 7 year with your own team offer.

With 6-8 year contracts also allowed with addition rules.......no 5% a year variance, no front loading, no final couple years with less money...No, just a straightforward even contract.. You want a 7 year 49million contract, well then its exactly $7 million a year paid to the player, $7 million a year cap hit. Prevents all funny business

[Dogbyte]

So the 2 main issues are CBA length and individual contract lengths.

I find it ironic the players prefer an 8 year agreement with opt out at 6, compared the NHLs 10 year, with 8 year opt out.

One of the reasons was its so hard to predict how the economy of the game will be 10 years out.

Yet the same logic for some reason doesn't count for individual player contracts.

But really the length of the CBA is just nonsense. Can anyone see any scenario, where 6 years from now it would benefit the players to end the CBA? Whether this CBA is 6, 8 or 10 years. Whenever it ends the players will once again be the ones giving....it makes sense to put this off as long as possible.

For individual contracts. Take the NHLs 5 year or 7 year with your own team offer.

With 6-8 year contracts also allowed with addition rules.......no 5% a year variance, no front loading, no final couple years with less money...No, just a straightforward even contract.. You want a 7 year 49million contract, well then its exactly $7 million a year paid to the player, $7 million a year cap hit. Prevents all funny business

[poetica]

NHL won't reach out to union

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Friday that he is out of ideas on how to get negotiations back on track to save the hockey season.

Talks fell apart on Thursday night amid back-and-forth accusations, and the fallout was still being felt Friday. The two sides had no contact with each other on the 83rd day of the owners' lockout of players.

"I have no reason, nor any intention, of reaching out to the union right now," Daly said in an email to The Associated Press. "I have no new ideas. Maybe they do. We are happy to listen."

If the players do have a suggestion, they haven't offered it yet. Their most recent proposal was turned down quickly on Thursday by the NHL, which wanted a yes or no answer on three specific conditions the league said were non-negotiable. When the union tried to bargain the points, the meeting ended abruptly.

That has left the NHL's labor situation in limbo.

All games have been canceled through Dec. 14, which is only a week away, so more games will surely be wiped off the schedule soon. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Thursday that he won't allow a season to be played that contains fewer than 48 games per team -- the length of the season that was played after a lockout ended in January 1995.

[The Bookie]

They really oughta change it to Selective Bargaining Agreement at this point.

[theminister]

[The Bookie]

NHL and NHLPA take a deep breath after negotiations go off the rails

A calm settled over the NHL’s brewing labour storm one day after negotiations were untracked in spectacular fashion.

The league and NHL Players’ Association took a step back Friday to evaluate where they stand and start charting a path forward in negotiations. They have yet to set a date to resume talks, but know they’ll have to return to the table soon with the window to save a partial season narrowing.

Despite the fact that three days of negotiations ended with some personal public jabs between the sides, commissioner Gary Bettman balked at the notion a lack of trust with NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr was keeping them from closing a deal.

“There’s no reason for anybody to suggest that trust is an issue,” Bettman said Thursday night. “Listen, collective bargaining is hard stuff and sometimes it’s made even harder depending on the goals and objectives that people have and organizations have.

“But the fact is you have professionals in the room.”

The 12th week of the lockout was filled with spectacular highs and lows.

Optimism soared on Tuesday when four new owners joined the process and met well into the night with players, leading some close to the situation to believe that an agreement was at hand. Tempers flared during another marathon session Wednesday that saw the sides exchange offers and move closer together.

Then, on Thursday, Fehr handed over a comprehensive proposal to the NHL and told reporters that the sides had moved so close on key issues that a deal appeared to be imminent. Soon after, he returned to the conference room to say there had been a development — “it’s not a positive one” — and that deputy commissioner Bill Daly had left a voicemail with his brother, Steve Fehr, notifying the union that the league was rejecting the proposal and taking its own offer off the table.

It was a turn of events unlike anything the Fehr brothers had ever seen during the decades they spent working for the baseball players union.

“Not only is it unusual, I would be hard pressed to think of anything comparable in my experience earlier and anybody else’s that I’m aware of,” said Steve Fehr, the NHLPA’s special counsel.

To top things off, Bettman and Daly then held a 30-plus minute press conference where the commissioner was uncharacteristically angry. Among the shots he took at Fehr was questioning the union leader’s motives for raising hopes after making the proposal.

“I’m not sure that spinning us all into an emotional frenzy over ’maybe we’re close and we’re going to be playing hockey tomorrow’ (is productive),” said Bettman. “It’s terribly unfair to our fans and it’s unfair to this process. We’re going to take a deep breath and look back at where we are and what needs to be accomplished.”

There was no contact between the sides on Friday as both took some time to cool off.

The breakdown in talks was bitterly disappointing for both players and owners, particularly after the week started with such promise. Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was among the players who attended the meetings and he expressed frustration after returning home on Friday.

“This stuff is getting ridiculous, (losing) all these games,” Crosby told reporters. “I’m here to play hockey, I’m not here to negotiate. I support the players. I witnessed how hard guys worked and how bad they want this to work.

“But to see this happen, it’s terrible. It makes everyone look bad.”

Progress has undeniably been made despite the fact a deal wasn’t signed.

The NHL offered US$300 million in deferred payments to help ease the transition from a system where players received 57 per cent of revenues to one where they get 50 per cent. It also backed off on proposed changes to unrestricted free agency, entry-level deals and salary arbitration.

However, Daly said the sides remain divided on three issues: the length of the CBA, a rule would that would limit player contracts at five years and the NHLPA’s desire to see compliance buyouts included as another way to help teams reduce payroll and get under the salary cap.

When negotiations eventually resume, those will undoubtedly be the key issues.

“The foundation is there,” said Crosby. “I don’t think those talks were for nothing.”

[theminister]

Maybe everyone has been approaching this from the totally wrong angle. As different as the current offers have been from the previous CBA maybe the new suggestions haven't been different enough.

Blow it all up.

Teams get 100% of:

- Regular season gate receipts

- Special events

- Concessions

- Parking and associated revenue

Players get 100% of:

- Merchandising

- TV rights

- Stanley Cup Playoffs rights

You negotiate your % of the player's share with the NHLPA and come to an agreement with an ownership group to play for. There is no financial bargaining between player and NHL team. No revenue sharing. Keep a salary cap.

In this fashion the players and the owners become a true partnership with the necessity and desire to work together to grow each other's market.

Radical, huh?!?

/ I know, I know.

[Shift-4]

Blow it all up.

[Dogbyte]

For those who haven't seen it.

[Ossi Vaananen]

Maybe everyone has been approaching this from the totally wrong angle. As different as the current offers have been from the previous CBA maybe the new suggestions haven't been different enough.

Blow it all up.

Teams get 100% of:

- Regular season gate receipts

- Special events

- Concessions

- Parking and associated revenue

Players get 100% of:

- Merchandising

- TV rights

- Stanley Cup Playoffs rights

You negotiate your % of the player's share with the NHLPA and come to an agreement with an ownership group to play for. There is no financial bargaining between player and NHL team. No revenue sharing. Keep a salary cap.

In this fashion the players and the owners become a true partnership with the necessity and desire to work together to grow each other's market.

Radical, huh?!?

/ I know, I know.

[Dogbyte]

Lol, I'd kind of like to know if either is close to 50% revenue. If I were to bet, I'd probably take the owners' cut.

[theminister]

Lol, I'd kind of like to know if either is close to 50% revenue. If I were to bet, I'd probably take the owners' cut.

[Dogbyte]

Maybe but there is some small method to my madness.

The owner's share would directly reflect their take at their arena whereas the player's share is more global. The owners get league initiatives like the All-star game and WC but the player's keep the Cup which actually belongs to player's technically anyway. Also it enable the players to drive revenue back towards the league by putting on the best show and PR they can at all times of year. It also encourages the owners to make sure that gate is HUGELY important for the viability of the team.

Additionally, the NHL and PA would be working together to sign TV deals and franchise locations as both would benefit and there would be no need for the League or PA to ever take an adversarial role, ever.

I'm secretly a genius. Very secretly.

[The Bookie]

Beyond the smoke and noise, real disputes slowly getting solved

Negotiating, done well, is a messy, noisy exercise, its grubbier component parts include subtle and not-so-subtle pressure, bellicose name-calling and overwrought acting.

By that standard, the NHL’s bargaining is a master class.

But is the process actually working? Will there be a 2012-13 hockey season under the Christmas tree?

Recall, if you will, when the mad-as-hell NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, stepped up to the podium, raged against the cupidity of the NHL Players’ Association leadership and darkly announced the league’s latest, best, and most generous offer was officially off the table.

That was Thursday. But the same thing happened Oct. 18.

And the offer back then – centred on a 50-50 revenue split and the drearily named make-whole provision – was withdrawn for all of about a week.

Back-channel discussions swiftly resumed, six weeks later no one’s arguing about 50-50 anymore, and they’re barely squabbling over make-whole.

Now the battleground has shifted to contracting rights, and oh what a skirmish it was in Manhattan this week.

There were purple faces, fingers jabbed into chests, zany plot twists aplenty – the podium even got its own Twitter account.

But let’s face it, there’s more heat than light being generated here, and past practice suggests it’s worthwhile to look beyond the tactics and verbal thunder.

The same way the mid-October eruption was progress disguised as a setback, the fact the parties are now arguing modalities rather than philosophy – ie., they’re talking not about whether to limit contracts, but how long a limit to stick on them – can plausibly be analyzed as a step forward.

So where does the puck bounce from here?

The air war will surely ramp up; you may soon hear ownership sources saying the players should be allowed to vote on their proposal, that the union leadership – chiefly, executive director Donald Fehr and his brother Steve – is irresponsibly leading the members astray.

Likewise, sources from the players’ side may emerge in the next few days to say a vote should and will take place on decertifying the union and plunging a $3.3-billion enterprise into legal terra incognita.

Some dissenting voices may pipe up, much speculation will ensue on what that says about solidarity.

No new talks are scheduled, and deputy NHL commissioner Bill Daly famously declared a proposed contract limit of five years is “the hill we will die on.”

Okay, then.

Seeing as the last hill – the revenue split – now has an owners’ flag flapping atop it, the league needs a new strategic objective, and limiting player income by restricting contract lengths has a certain logic to it.

But as a union source said “are we really going to drive over the cliff for this?”

The league isn’t inclined to make any new concessions, but the general sense from the ownership side is they would rather not speed off the cliff.

The gap, after all, is narrowing: the NHL is demanding a maximum five-year term with no more than a five per cent variance between years, the players have countered with eight and their own, less punitive, proposal to attenuate so-called ‘back-diving’ contracts.

Management originally wanted a five- or six-year labour pact. The union countered with a proposal for four, and later signalled it would accept five.

Now the league insists on 10 years, and the union countered with eight (both proposals contain opt-out provisions for the final two years, similar to the last contract).

These should not be insurmountable differences.

It’s farcical for Bettman to claim Don Fehr was being deliberately misleading when he suggested on Thursday a deal is at hand.

Of course it is, it’s just that the NHLPA isn’t willing to swallow the owners’ proposal whole.

Which brings us to why.

Boundaries on contracting – even if they’re more modest than the full-bore demands of two months ago regarding free agency, arbitration rights and entry-level deals – are toxic to the union for a simple reason: cap-defeating long-term deals are the high tide that floats all vessels in a hard-cap system.

As one NHLPA insider put it: “The NHL would turn into the NBA, where a few guys make the maximum and everyone else is making peanuts. We’re not going to have much of a union if there’s no middle class.”

And yet, they’re accepting it – to a point.

The players, who have already yielded on revenues, just don’t see why they should also have to accept stricter contract rules – with comparatively little in return.

There’s a sense on the NHLPA side the plan all along for the owners was to recoup the cash they were seeking via prorated salaries – Bettman’s assertion the NHL needs to play at least 48 games this year, suggesting a January start, will merely feed it.

The other theory is the owners are trying to shove Fehr out of the picture – if you want to handicap their chances, pick a player at random and check him out in the social-media environment of your choice (spoiler alert: they still love Fehr).

The owners, for their part, clearly consider they’ve gone above and beyond all reasonable efforts – even going so far as to temporarily remove Bettman from the equation last week.

It makes sense, from their standpoint, to crank up the pressure on the union, winning on points is less satisfying than a knockout.

So will the union decertify? Maybe. Is this the final impasse? Doubtful.

At some point someone is going to have to take yes for an answer.

[Cromeslab]

"NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Friday that he is out of ideas on how to get negotiations back on track to save the hockey season".

What the hell is this idiot getting paid to do exactly?I,m getting real sick of all this s$&t.All the media bs and such. IMHO Bettman and Fehr should be taken out of the negotiation equation entirely,these two a$&clowns would lie in a court of law if they had a chance.They're giving this negotiation no credibility whatsoever.Its all just how can I spin this and make the other party look like the villain..........f$&king pathetic

[Provost]

Beyond the smoke and noise, real disputes slowly getting solved

[elvis15]

For the owners to actually want a 10 year CBA that leads me to believe they think they are winning this big time and want to lock it in. As well, if they are actually sharing HRR 50/50 I don't see what the big deal is, even if economic conditions change.