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*Official* CBA Negotiations and Lockout Thread


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2 Tweets from Twitter:

"NHL Gary Bettman to speak to the media tomorrow at 1pm" (one would think if they came to an agreement it'd be announced ASAP not held tomorrow unless due to BoG meeting....)

Meanwhile Reporter Burton still stands by his story mentioning "further progress made"...FWIW

My sense is the drop dead date is January 15th. Will make this week and next integral otherwise they'll cancel more games.

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They are sending in many players with Ivy league degrees.

Just having less education doesn't preclude a person from being intelligent, articulate and savvy. Many successful people, and this is also true of many of the owners, do not and have not needed degrees to be successful. Life experience and a keen mind are a much greater asset than a piece of paper that doesn't affect how hard you have worked or been as creative as can be. I went to school with many people who excelled in an institution but can't think for themselves and it has not translated to their later life. By contrast, I have wealthy friends with no education who are as business savvy as any you'll meet and have built a life from scratch because they identified what they were good at.

Think what you want about his lack of education but if you think that Crosby's voice, when backed up by his fellow players and council, are meaningless or weak then you are naive. Accumulated by his 10+ years under intense media spotlight, grooming by the highest levels of hockey experienced people, and being aware that he is one of the top professionals in his chosen field, if you believe that is worthless in this negotiation then you lack a fundamental understanding of what 'qualified' really means.

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2 Tweets from Twitter:

"NHL Gary Bettman to speak to the media tomorrow at 1pm" (one would think if they came to an agreement it'd be announced ASAP not held tomorrow unless due to BoG meeting....)

Meanwhile Reporter Burton still stands by his story mentioning "further progress made"...FWIW

My sense is the drop dead date is January 15th. Will make this week and next integral otherwise they'll cancel more games.

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Time for Bettman to reel in his catch

This fishing trip has gone on long enough, and now he’s in danger of capsizing

Read more: http://www.theprovin...l#ixzz2E8TPTcgL

Pressure has to be mounting on NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to finally bring his catch into the boat, even if it wasn’t the enormous marlin of concessions he was hoping for when he began this overextended fishing trip.

He’s already talked a whack of concessions out of the NHL players, even if the NHLPA’s last proposal is taken in its entirety and swallowed by the league. And we know that’s not going to happen.

So at any time he can call this thing off, quickly make a deal with the players, and the owners are still going to come back to the pier with a big catch with which to pose. Besides, there’s another fishing expedition planned at the end of any new CBA that might be signed, so even the hawks among the owners shouldn’t be too terribly discouraged.

They could always try the novel concept of managing their own business better and five, six or seven years down the road they can always take another stick to the pinata that the players have become since agreeing to salary caps back in 2005.

Whether anything immediately identifiable comes out of today’s board of governors meeting or not, you know there is a significant portion of the owners who want to play and Bettman is more than getting that feeling. How could he not? Everyone is sensing that their momentum is growing the longer this self-inflicted wound continues to ooze.

He’s already won by wringing considerable wealth from the players and it’s becoming increasingly clear to virtually everyone but the few people around him that carrying it on from here really doesn’t make a whole lot of long-term business sense.

The threat of losing the whole season is really quite hollow because it’s an absurd concept, so suicidal in nature as to fool nobody.

Some people are suggesting that the sponsors are beginning to exert pressure on the commissioner to get this thing done. You would think they should be but the fact they’ve said nothing publicly at this point is astonishing in its own right.

Others who claim to be insiders are suggesting Bettman and NHLPA head Donald Fehr are in constant contact, making progress and may be using the players’ meeting with the owners at a New York hotel Tuesday prior to today’s board meeting as a smokescreen so that they can communicate one on one without having to give a press conference afterwards.

That would give Bettman some encouraging news so that he might mollify those owners who would just as soon see him ousted as conduct their meeting.

The idea of quiet negotiations is a nice thought whether it’s true or not, but there’s no question most of the media seem to see this for what it’s always been, a measured period of time by which the owners would try to lever as much as possible out of the compliant, increasingly desperate athletes.

And even those types are sensing it’s time to wrap it up and put the product back on the shelves before people forget it. Even NBC sports is taking shots at Bettman, saying, “He comes from the NBA with its win-at-all-costs approach to labour negotiations” and making references to the egos of Fehr and Bettman.

So if they’re figuring something is not right, it really is time to knock it off. There’s not a soul in all the world that can see any wisdom in cancelling the entire season.

Four of the six owners at that Tuesday meeting likely want to play, even though hardliners like Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and Murray Edwards of Calgary were there to police them to make sure they didn’t say anything the commissioner wouldn’t approve of.

Still, the two sides found enough to talk about to hang around much longer than anyone had the right to expect.

The next 20 days or fewer should produce a deal to get this exercise over with and get the game back in front of the paying customers some time in the new year.

Anything else will change history’s account of Bettman from the man who got hockey’s finances in order to the man who crushed the game.

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A couple of pages back in this thread we had a conversation on who should go to this meeting and why.

What I found funny was "Crosby leading 18 players into CBA meeting", not Crosby attending the meeting. I found it funny how Canadian media always find a way to make Crosby the headline.

As far as the meeting goes I'm 100% certain Crosby is NOT leading the players in this meeting. I'm 100% certain the leader would be one of the players who's been there thru out these negotiations and/or one of the ivy league educated players.

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A few tweets from tonight:

@Russostrib: Players/owners meeting in NY going on dinner break. They will meet again tonight. No word if Fehr/Bettman can dine w/groups

@DNFlyers: NHLPA spokesman says there is no guarantee that talks will continue tonight. "It's a possibility."

@JSportsnet: Hearing that progress was made in the meeting. Owners expect to continue talks tonight.

@JSportsnet: Hearing that Ron Burkle has been voice of reason today. Obviously, with Crosby in room it creates a interesting dynamic.

@aaronward_nhl: All indications are that they are going to meet again. If not tonight,then tomorrow.Positive feedback so far. #TSN

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Funny doesn't make it a legitimate source, especially when another poster couldn't even find it in Twitter. It hardly sounds like an official sports reporter or source where we'd have at least some reason to trust what they were saying, which is the original point.

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thing is: for these negotiations you just need empathy to relate. to facilitate. while a lot of hockey players are blockheads, a lot of them have drive and would be good in business too... i wouldn't put too much stock in having an education, as these players have had viable other paths - so the normal prejudices don't necessarily apply (sorry, you'll have to find some other prejudices to base your thoughts on - bah, you'll never change, neither will anyone else...) just gotta relate, facilitate, contemplate, be irate, a common fate, your thoughts girate, make yourself wait, its all the same state

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question - When's the last time in these negotiations Bettman scheduled a press conference? Did they do it for any of the blocks of cancellations, or the Winter Classic/All-Star games? All I remember is press releases and statements from Daly. The only media interviews with GB I can recall were him coming and going from the NHL's headquarters.

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