Raoul Duke Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Get a new hobby people. All this talk is pointless. Season is done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizmo2337 Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Meh, the owners can suck it up. The fact is, the league is profitable, there is a cap, and the top and bottom teams aren't that far apart in spending. At least not enough to cause lack of parity. If they don't like losing money, sell the team. After all, they are billionaires. Should be easy call to sell a bad investment. They aren't treating hockey like a traditional business. Owning a hockey team is a fun sideshow in a list of other portfolio assets. The cap and parity is turning the owners into a bunch of squabbling crybabies against each other. Decertify the union and lets get back to business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogbyte Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Get a new hobby people. All this talk is pointless. Season is done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetica Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 That is why the 'make whole' provision has to be in the new CBA. The idea that Contracts can be 'adjusted' has to be removed from ownership mindset. Competition between franchises does mean money to the bottom line and bragging rights. That can all be healthy as long as it honours committments to players and competitiveness. Writing off contracts like the Redden and Gomez deals simply allows clubs to make bad judgements and get away with it. NYR are famous for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetica Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetica Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Is the NHL wrecking its brand during the lockout? The NHL is totally mismanaging its connection with hockey fans, according to a McMaster University communications expert. “Fans don't appear to be a part of the equation lately,” said Alex Sevigny, an associate professor of communications at McMaster. “They've been taken for granted, it seems.” Sevigny says both the NHL and its players are trying to lock fans out of the conversation surrounding the work stoppage, just like they did in 2004. And post-social media boom, that just doesn't fly, he says. “Almost everyone I know watches hockey with a smartphone or tablet in hand,” Sevigny said. So people get connected to the sport in ways they never did before. Through Twitter hashtags, player posts and Facebook groups, the NHL experience has become more community-oriented. Take the Stanley Cup champion LA Kings, who have almost 178,000 Twitter followers. Then there's the Montreal Canadiens, with over 335,000 followers — not to mention individual players with their own accounts. A quick glance at Facebook yields similar results. The Toronto Maple Leafs have 633,000 “likes” on their page. Fans are definitely more connected to the sport. But that's only the case when things are rosy, Sevigny says. “When there's a problem, fans get excluded. And that's telling people that they're clients, not members of a community,” he said. “In an age of social media, people want to participate. They want to be part of the conversation — so you can't just turn community on and off.” A glimmer of hope, crushed A deal to save the season seemed tantalizingly close last week — but collective bargaining talks imploded in spectacular fashion on Thursday night. Donald Fehr, executive director of the NHL Players' Association, raised hopes after tabling a new proposal during an hour-long meeting on Thursday night and claiming the sides were "clearly very close, if not on top of one another in connection with most of the major issues." The optimism didn't last long. A voicemail left on union special counsel Steve Fehr's cellphone during the press conference carried an important message: Not only was the NHL flatly rejecting the union's offer, it was also pulling all the concessions it made earlier in the week off the table. By the time commissioner Gary Bettman met reporters, he was in a rage over the enthusiasm Donald Fehr expressed while characterizing the status of negotiations. "I find it almost incomprehensible he did that," said Bettman, who shook as he spoke. Heading to other avenues Sevigny says with all this jockeying for position and public posturing, the NHL is doing “real damage” to its brand. “A lot of people perceive professional sports as a public good,” he said. “And with all these new lines of communication open, people just won't be ignored anymore.” If anything, the league is pushing fans to other places to get their hockey fix, he says. “People that love hockey don't necessarily love the NHL,” he said. “And other enterprises may present themselves.” Whether that's the AHL, OHL or minor leagues—- the NHL is going to have a hard time drawing people back into the community they'd built, he says. “That risk is just growing and growing,” Sevigny said. “You have to remember — there is a powerful emotional and mythological connection for people when it comes to hockey.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vancouverdepression Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bookie Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 I'm not even going to quote today's news, as it all seems to be 'we're talking on the phone but we can't come to an agreement how to meet'. This is just f/cking pathetic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boudrias Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 I agree. I find it outrageous that these titans of business want permission to violate basic business practices beyond what they are already allowed to do. All that does is encourage them to make bad choices, force players to take the consequences (despite people saying owners take all of the risks), and further jeopardizes the health of the league by telling them they don't have to use the same business savvy and care with their NHL business as they do with the others that don't come up with so many safety nets. But that should cut both ways though, right? The players get guaranteed contracts because the owners get guaranteed rights to players, especially at the entry level. If players are forced to give up guaranteed contracts, owners should have to give up all guaranteed rights to players. Players should be able to sign with any team they want, not be restricted to the team that drafts them. Players should be UFAs from day one and able to sign any contract they can get. All contracts should be no-transferable, meaning no trades because it's entirely up to players to decide who they will play for. If owners want to be able to dump under-producing players at any time, players should be able to leave a team if they get a better offer at any time. Give and take. Nothing comes for free, or at least it's not supposed to. Why should owners get so much but give nothing? Even the argument that owners put so much into training players is why they get guaranteed rights is bogus. Almost nowhere else in the world do employers get to restrict the freedoms and choices of employees simply because they invested in their ability to do their job better. For example, tech people often get sent on incredibly expensive courses to further their training that they would have never been able to afford on their own. In doing so, the employees become significantly more marketable, meaning they could take their newly acquired knowledge and get a bigger payday. Yet, their bosses can't force them to stay at their job once they get the training beyond any employment contract that's been signed. It's just an accepted cost and risk of doing business to invest in their employees. Why should pro sports owners get more rights and fewer risks that owners of any other business? One of the few exceptions I can think of is the military and certain programs aimed at attracting doctors and teachers to small rural areas, but even those are not the same thing. With those, the people involved sign an agreement detailing what they will give and what they will get and what the penalty will be if they fail to live up to their end. In the NHL, other people decide what draft rules and ELCs will be and new players are just obligated to those terms though they had absolutely no say in the details. And owners get rights to players for years just for drafting them, even before they ever spend a penny on training the player. How is that fair? It's not. Guaranteed contracts later might not be fair, but they are the tradeoff for the unfair advantages owners got in the beginning. And owners always have the ability to determine the length of contracts they sign, so they can full right to limit any guarantee they make to a player. I agree with you that shorter contracts generally make good business sense. However, what I don't understand is why these billionaire businessmen need nanny rules to force them to behave with good common business sense, limiting GMs' options and diminishing players' bargaining power just to save them from having to put on their big boy business suits and saying "no" to any contracts that don't make good business sense. And, as a PuckDaddy article pointed out contract term limits actually limit a team's ability to protect their investment in a player long-term. And that's especially true given the small number of contracts that are actually longer than that now even without the rule. The owners are trying to restrict players' rights without having any proof that it's actually a problem. I mean, people keep saying the union is stupid to fight for a rule that only effects like 10% or something like that of players, but aren't owners even more stupid for fighting for a rule to fix a problem that barely exists and that they could simply fix by saying "no" to to begin with? I still find a separate rule for "your own player" arbitrary and pointless, especially if there isn't also a rule saying the player has to have played x-number of games for you before qualifying. Otherwise, players traded the day before their old contracts expired will be eligible for 7-year deals but players signed the day after won't. All that will do is empower teams to get better deals for players other teams are interested in because if team A wants to lockup a player for 7-years they have to give team B whatever they want to acquire him before "re-signing" him. It just seems like another way for owners to screw over each other with players caught in the middle. As I understand it, the NHL's main argument for the 5-year limit is that they can only get insurance on 5-year deals (despite the fact that the only reference I can find online says teams can insure contracts for up to 7-years), so why does that not matter when it's their own player? If you don't know what a player will be like in 5-years, why do you suddenly have a better idea if it's your own player what they'll be like in 7-years? And if that's such a big deal, why was it not a big deal mere months ago? The real reason contract length has become a "hill to die on" issue is likely due to the rising cost due to the increasing concussion problem. Some insurance companies are even including a concussion exclusion clause in new policies and many were already excluding concussions as a "preexisting condition" for any player who had previously had one. (Still didn't stop them from signing Crosby to a 12 year deal just 6 months ago, though!) I'd feel more sorry for the NHL if they hadn't waited to begin properly addressing the concussion issue until it started to effect their bottom line. I'm totally with you there! But then, that would be common sense and wouldn't be nearly as complicated as "make whole" or be as easy to sell to the uninformed public as an act of generosity, so you know that's out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boxiebrown Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 It's really sad that at this point, it's only the owners' egos getting in the way of the deal. First, they're now apparently unwilling to negotiate with the players' duly chosen legal representative. That is frankly pretty outrageous, and obviously they're egos can't handle having a smart guy like Fehr around questioning them. Secondly, they are too proud to admit that the salary cup system they fought so hard for is actually a huge problem for them. Specifically, the salary floor is killing them. What they should do is eliminate the cap and floor completely. Go to a luxury tax, with strong revenue sharing and maybe slightly longer ELC and UFA periods. This would allow the big market teams to spend a lot and be consistently competitive while allowing small market teams to develop talent and remain profitable. Unfortunately, the small market owners are just too proud to admit that teams like Columbus, Nashville and Tampa are not nearly as important as NYR, Toronto and Chicago. The system I described above would make the league much more popular (just look at how good TV ratings are when two premier teams are in the cup) and thus make everyone, players and owners, more money. The funny thing is that Donald Fehr is responsible for this system in MLB, and everyone in baseball LOVES IT. They all make money hand over fist, big market and small market teams alike. But the owners ego just won't let them accept an idea from a dirty union commie. It's sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetica Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Jeez man. What are you going to do write a book when this is all done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Vintage Canuck- Posted December 10, 2012 Author Share Posted December 10, 2012 NHL, union could resume labor talks this week: NEW YORK -- NHL labor talks could be back on as early as this week after negotiations fell apart just a few days ago. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly tells The Associated Press he has been in contact with the players' association, and the sides are working on returning to the bargaining table. Daly says in an email on Sunday: "Trying to set up something for this week, but nothing finalized yet." Talks broke down Thursday night after three straight days of talks at a New York hotel. Moments after players' association executive director Donald Fehr said he believed the sides were closing in on a deal to end the lockout, he was back at the podium to announce the NHL rejected the union's latest offer. Commissioner Gary Bettman followed him and angrily stated that the sides weren't close and added he didn't know why Fehr thought they were. http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/8730292/nhl-union-resume-labor-talks-week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeNiro Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Well at least they're not waiting two weeks this time to meet again. I guess that could be taken as a good sign. They obviously have something to build off since by all accounts they were getting closer to a deal. I guess this is all just part of the negotiation dance that's going on between the Union and the NHL. I still think that Jan 1st is the date they wanna get things going. Otherwise the season will be cancelled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Karlsson Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 I hope karma fracks Bettman and the owners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cromeslab Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Not getting my hopes up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmen81 Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 I kind of miss the NHL. Can't wait til they get started in January. Don't care that it will probably be only 48 games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanj Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 my hopes of a season are now at an all time low.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamJamIam Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 my hopes of a season are now at an all time low.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6YPE Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Just cancel it already. Cancel this season, cancel next season cancel the entire league already, get on with it. They have lost me. I dont care anymore... Clearly they dont care about it any more either. The owners are idiots, the players are a bunch of stooges.... They clearly do not are about you or I or what we as fans have invested...I will be spending my money on other things. My cable has been cancelled and I'm sure the cable company likes that as well... I hope they lose the US TV rights and no one else picks them up, they dont deserve it after they way they have treated everyone involved.... The league is a joke.... /endrant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ossi Vaananen Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 I'm pretty sure all of this is indicative of Bettman having a start date in mind and just delaying the proceedings until that time comes. He's made his target of 50% HRR and now he's trying to push for contract rights until the absolute drop dead date comes. I mean you don't discredit everything Don Fehr says about progress if your intent to start as soon as possible. Bettman also asked for a two week moratorium not that long ago, how exactly is that going to move things forward. Right now his objective is to save small market teams from paying player salaries for half a season, and in doing that he can delay the agreement until he gets his desired concessions from the players. Hainsey was right in saying the league's objective is a moving target. It doesn't matter if the players make such concessions on the 'make-whole', contract limit and variance, as well as the length of the deal - Bettman and his minions will ultimately ask for more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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