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*Official* CBA Negotiations and Lockout Thread


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I think Fehr's got it in the players heads that they got screwed in the last deal, and that this is their time to stand and fight. And that if they out-wait the owners, they'll get what they want.

This is the wrong attitude. They're not gonna get their way. And waiting longer, doesn't ever equal a more positive result.

They needed to push back on the deal that the NHL offered, not offer 3 completely different proposals. I have a feeling Fehr's ego is in play a bit here though. And the players are believing in him too much.

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Exactly, there is not much more the NHL can do after having gone up to 50-50 which just about every fan thinks is fair. The players have no support amongst fans anymore and should stop wasting the NHL time. The deal is done, it's 50-50. The players have to let us know when they wil accept that. Don't bother us or Bettman in the meantime.

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Exactly, there is not much more the NHL can do after having gone up to 50-50 which just about every fan thinks is fair. The players have no support amongst fans anymore and should stop wasting the NHL time. The deal is done, it's 50-50. The players have to let us know when they wil accept that. Don't bother us or Bettman in the meantime.

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The way I see it the NHLPA made a major miscalculation by not choosing the single concession that they could make that would have the owners playing in their court rather than the other way around. The PA knew what they wanted but didn't come up with a realistic way of getting there.

Simply, the PA wanted all of the contracts honoured, the NHL wants immediate significant reduction in player costs, and neither came up with a real solution to the quandry.

As I proposed earlier in the thread, the easiest way to accomplish this is to allow the NHL member teams to relegate underperforming contracts immediately. The NHLPA's insistence to protect 100% of their membership, including those that are being paid to not play at an NHL level commensurate with their salary (Gomez, Redden, etc), is the major stumbling block. Had the NHLPA made a reasoned plea to their membership to allow a mechanism for teams to jettison those contracts, preferably on a two-way basis, then I believe the NHL would have accepted the PA's 'make whole' suggestion.

Put another way, the League, the PA and the fans are being held hostage by the percentage of contracts which are not meeting performance. These few (I would estimate 20-30 contracts) are what is truly bridging the gap between the parties and could easily account for the $90-100 mil they are apart.

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Exactly, there is not much more the NHL can do after having gone up to 50-50 which just about every fan thinks is fair. The players have no support amongst fans anymore and should stop wasting the NHL time. The deal is done, it's 50-50. The players have to let us know when they wil accept that. Don't bother us or Bettman in the meantime.

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The way I see it the NHLPA made a major miscalculation by not choosing the single concession that they could make that would have the owners playing in their court rather than the other way around. The PA knew what they wanted but didn't come up with a realistic way of getting there.

Simply, the PA wanted all of the contracts honoured, the NHL wants immediate significant reduction in player costs, and neither came up with a real solution to the quandry.

As I proposed earlier in the thread, the easiest way to accomplish this is to allow the NHL member teams to relegate underperforming contracts immediately. The NHLPA's insistence to protect 100% of their membership, including those that are being paid to not play at an NHL level commensurate with their salary (Gomez, Redden, etc), is the major stumbling block. Had the NHLPA made a reasoned plea to their membership to allow a mechanism for teams to jettison those contracts, preferably on a two-way basis, then I believe the NHL would have accepted the PA's 'make whole' suggestion.

Put another way, the League, the PA and the fans are being held hostage by the percentage of contracts which are not meeting performance. These few (I would estimate 20-30 contracts) are what is truly bridging the gap between the parties and could easily account for the $90-100 mil they are apart.

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As I proposed earlier in the thread, the easiest way to accomplish this is to allow the NHL member teams to relegate underperforming contracts immediately. The NHLPA's insistence to protect 100% of their membership, including those that are being paid to not play at an NHL level commensurate with their salary (Gomez, Redden, etc), is the major stumbling block. Had the NHLPA made a reasoned plea to their membership to allow a mechanism for teams to jettison those contracts, preferably on a two-way basis, then I believe the NHL would have accepted the PA's 'make whole' suggestion.

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A legal contract needs to be paid no questions asked , You cant re-negotiate the sale price on a house if the market crashes so why is this any different .

Billionaire owners need to take responsibility for giving there GMs approval to make poor business decisions on the contracts there handing out and to be honest its obvious that there business skills has not been the reason to why they made hundreds of millions and billions because half the teams in the NHL are absolute terrible investments in the first place

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You won't get any argument from me.... I've been saying the same thing all the way through this thread. Look back through the previous pages and you'll see that I believe that the NHL could solve their financial problems simply by changing the cap floor and a small increase in revenue sharing.

However.... being practical doesn't necessarily equate to being fair. I agree it is hard to justify the owners' position, when they give out $4.0 mil to Jiri Hudler and re-up Ales Hemsky and Andrei Markov with raises, but it is impractical to continue to expect to pay major league dollars for minor league play. As fans we shouldn't want it, shouldn't accept it, and shouldn't be hold hostage by poor management decisions as we are right now.

Here is a small list of contracts that are a major problem for the league shown in real actual payroll for 2012-2013. I didn't even include any signings made within the last two years which are also a big problem.

1) Redden - $ 5.0 mil

2) Gomez - $5.5 mil

3) DiPietro - $ 4.5 mil

4) Lecavalier - $10.0 mil

5) Ballard - $4.2 mil

6) Thomas - $3.0 mil

7) Olesz - $4.0 mil

8) Horcoff - $6.0 mil

9) Komisarek - $3.5 mil

10) Yashin - $2.2 mil

11) Drury - $1.7 mil

12) Walker - $1.7 mil

This alone equals $51.3 mil just for this year and it is not rationally justifiable that these dollars get paid out.

You can't tell me that doesn't need to be fixed and is the single biggest obstacle in the CBA, hence the call for short contract limits.

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I'm listening to Bob McCown right now and he had an interesting theory that reportedly came from an owner. I may have some of the details wrong, but the basic theory was that if they cancel the season, in the spring the NHL could say "Here is the new deal, take it or leave it", and drop the lockout. Then the players would be forced to either accept the deal, or go on strike. However, his speculation was, at that point, at least a third of the players, maybe even half, would opt to cross the picket line and report to work. This would essentially break the back of the union.

My question is... legally, can the NHL even do that if they wanted to? Or are they required to come to an agreement with the NHLPA before opening the doors?

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They need to start relocating these floundering teams to more traditional markets or start marketing the crap out of them in there current location like any other business has to do to be successful or if they cant move all of them and the marketing is not working then its time to start folding some of them .

Bettman has run the NHL into the current situation and the only solution he can come up with is keep taking from the employees instead going after the real issues and making the hard decisions and admit that the majority of expansion that he has approved over the years is the real issue hear and that these failing teams need to moved or shutdown for the better of the league

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I'm listening to Bob McCown right now and he had an interesting theory that reportedly came from an owner. I may have some of the details wrong, but the basic theory was that if they cancel the season, in the spring the NHL could say "Here is the new deal, take it or leave it", and drop the lockout. Then the players would be forced to either accept the deal, or go on strike. However, his speculation was, at that point, at least a third of the players, maybe even half, would opt to cross the picket line and report to work. This would essentially break the back of the union.

My question is... legally, can the NHL even do that if they wanted to? Or are they required to come to an agreement with the NHLPA before opening the doors?

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Even if they could (though I don't believe they could...see TheMinster's post), without enough of the players coming back the roosters would be pretty pathetic. And that might very well make an agreement with the players impossible as the offered CBA is between the NHL and a union representing players' interest collectively, not the league and individual players. As such, without the definitions and restrictions relating to a union I don't see how individuals signing a contract individually could legally obligate them to the collective portions, such as revenue portion sharing.

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And who wants to see a pathetic rooster? :lol: Sorry, the typo struck me as funny.

For the record, I agree with you. I just didn't think that the league could even do that from a legal standpoint. I thought the only person that could impose a contract would be an independent arbitrator or someone like that.

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I'm listening to Bob McCown right now and he had an interesting theory that reportedly came from an owner.  I may have some of the details wrong, but the basic theory was that if they cancel the season, in the spring the NHL could say "Here is the new deal, take it or leave it", and drop the lockout.  Then the players would be forced to either accept the deal, or go on strike.  However, his speculation was, at that point, at least a third of the players, maybe even half, would opt to cross the picket line and report to work.  This would essentially break the back of the union.

My question is... legally, can the NHL even do that if they wanted to?  Or are they required to come to an agreement with the NHLPA before opening the doors?

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