D-Money Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 I can agree with that. Sometimes, you just have to do what you have to do. Likewise, I can understand the frustration guys like Hamrlik have as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 You can understand the frustration of someone who has made over 25 million in the last 5 years - barely earning half of that - and just wanting to squeeze out the last 3.5 million of his hideously inflated contract? But yeah, you gotta do what you gotta do... Those garages don't fill with Bentley's by themselves! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-Money Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 So playing hockey elsewhere is non related to playing hockey in the NHL? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 It's non-related, because it is on a completely different continent. That is reflected legally as well. Even though the owners locked them out, they cannot sign in the AHL or ECHL. However, there are specific guidelines set out for playing overseas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-Money Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 As Crosby said, he's got the right to say whatever he wants. This is the misconception people have about unions. They think unions are there to protect the individual. They're not. They're not there to protect everyone neither. They are only there for the majority. So if 51% vote strike or no to an offer, than the other 49% are out of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-Money Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Right....sorry...I disagree...that's a cop out....like you said, these guys are making millions - why do they need to make millions more elsewhere? And don't give me this crap they need to stay focused on their skills - that's another cop out... Edit: You work for Computer Company ABC. They go on strike. You go work for Computer Company XYZ because they're in a different neighbourhood. Sorry - it's still related. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 This is the misconception people have about themselves. They think their opinion on communal issues matters. It does not - beyond the percentage of the majority their vote represents. You can't please everybody all of the time. So you go with the majority, plain and simple. Anything else would be unfair. The majority of the players negotiating right now plan on playing for many years. Many of them already have multi-year contracts. Many others plan on getting multi-year contracts in the near future. None of them want to bend over for this CBA (not to mention set a precedent for what will happen next CBA). But some multimillionaire in the twilight of his career, who has one year left on a contract paying a salary he will never be offered again, thinks they should bend over and settle immediately, so that he can get his. He doesn't care about UFA age, because he's past it. He doesn't care about contract limits, because he'll never get offered another long contract. He doesn't care about who 'makes whole', because he'll be packing it in before it's an issue. He really doesn't care about anything but the last year of his contract. Hamrlik's position is the epitome of selfish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Your example is nothing alike. It has nothing to do with the work/service - it's all about the customer base. The leagues are completely unrelated, because they serve COMPLETELY different customers. None of those leagues play anywhere where a person in North America can buy a ticket and go watch. Their games are not broadcast in this continent. The NHL does not directly compete with these leagues for paid viewers and ticket-buyers. There is no business-based conflict. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 What about these NHL players taking the jobs of those in other leagues? From another thread, "Looks like Schneider (signing with Ambri Piotta) will replace Nolan Schaefer as starter. " But as soon as the NHL restarts, these players will leave those teams...so look at what it has done. Players get displaced as they are not good enough to be the starter, then they are asked to be the starter...teams that benefited have inflated stats...they may make the playoffs when another team should have....it's a huge snowball effect... IMHO, if a player goes and plays elsewhere, their contract should be null and void in the NHL.. Yes...I know...the NHL bends over backwards for these players so they have made allowances for players to do this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boudrias Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 How is speaking out in a way that could weaken your union's bargaining position for all of the players the same as playing in another league to mitigate your personal financial and physical losses during the lockout? My question for Hamrlik and Neuvirth would be the same as I'm sure some of the other players had, namely did you try talking to your union or the players on the bargaining committee about what's going on and your concerns, or did you just complain to the press? They are certainly entitled to their opinions, but publicly offering a dissenting opinion while never trying to actually do anything with it accomplishes nothing other than providing ammunition to be used against the union. Everyone's got an opinion, it's action that's needed to get the deal done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-Money Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Wrong. Ovie might not come back. Joe Consumer might not renew his Centre Ice package and instead follow the KHL from now on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmployeeoftheMonth Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 What about these NHL players taking the jobs of those in other leagues? From another thread, "Looks like Schneider (signing with Ambri Piotta) will replace Nolan Schaefer as starter. " But as soon as the NHL restarts, these players will leave those teams...so look at what it has done. Players get displaced as they are not good enough to be the starter, then they are asked to be the starter...teams that benefited have inflated stats...they may make the playoffs when another team should have....it's a huge snowball effect... IMHO, if a player goes and plays elsewhere, their contract should be null and void in the NHL.. Yes...I know...the NHL bends over backwards for these players so they have made allowances for players to do this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetica Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 You didn't like Hamrlik speaking out because by doing so it threatened union solidarity. On the otherhand you had no trouble calling out individual owners for not speaking up during this dispute. Both players and owners have negociating committees who are supposed to do the talking. The dif appears to be that the PA does invite individual players to sit in on discussions which is a smart move. The NHL is a closed shop and if Hamrlik had a problem belonging to a union (which he doesn't appear to have) he could not play in the NHL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogbyte Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 I doubt that the NHLPA would decertify....because of all the effort that has gone on so far and the players have lost games and money trying to stick it the Mighty owners. It would be a huge fail and slap in the face of those who believed in the NHLPA and stuck with them. But in the end to have it all go to decertification....most will see it as a waste when it comes down to everyman for himself...lol Chants begin to moan out of the NHLPA crowds: cave cavE caVE cAVE CAVE CAVE~! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogbyte Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Re: the removal of mediator Serota. Source: http://www.fmcs.gov/...39&itemID=23889 Also, according to tweets by PIerre LeBrun @ TSN, Serota says (via email) that his Twitter account was hacked. It seems he had the account closed, but an imposter opened a new one under the same name right after. I have no idea if that one has been closed or not. I still have no idea what the tweets in question said, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elvis15 Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 ... Yeah if we had the Grizzlies that would be different, I would actually like to go attend games and see it all live for myself. You make a great on Basketball bringing the most plays and action and things, but to me the reason it isn't as entertaining as hockey (Or even Football which I don't mind watching) is that while there are alot of dunks and baskets and things, there not all as important as a touchdown or interception in football, or a goal or big save in Hockey, you know what I mean? Just because it happens so often, it makes it less important to me as a casual fan (unless I have an association with that team), so it just takes away from the entertainment of those plays. Man... dissecting the entertainment value of other sports really makes me miss canucks hockey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAMBUTANS Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Just read an article about Boston's bully owner Jacobs as one of the reason why there is a lockout. Winnipeg doesn't want a prolonged one but was told by Jacobs to sit their ass down. Faqqing Boston. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bookie Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 The NHL's Best (And Worst) Fans (the actual rankings are displayed in a slideshow on the Forbes site) Think the NHL cannot afford the current lockout without causing irreparable damage to its fans? Think again. Over the past 8 years, fans proved they have a very short memory of the pain they endured when the last lockout robbed them of an entire season. They paid 39% more for tickets despite Commissioner Gary Bettman’s declaration that the recently expired CBA would result in lower prices. They paid 19% more to park, buy beer, soda and hot dogs, and grab a souvenir. Think it will be different this time though? Think again, again. Two-thirds of NHL teams reported zero season ticket holder cancellations. Granted, many teams never put that option on the table. But even among the few that did give fans an out, they only reported a handful walked away. To boot, the teams replaced them with fans on their waiting list. The Columbus Blue Jackets even reported that season ticket holders have gone up slightly since the start of the lockout.Last season the hockey faithful filled arenas to 95.6% of capacity while delivering television rating increases to both national and local partners. They spent 25% more on jerseys and 41% more on hats, contributing to a 15% increase in overall merchandise sales. Over 4 million more fans followed their teams on Facebook in the last year for a total of over 14 million fans currently engaged on the social network. On Twitter, 3 million more fans followed their teams in the past year to bring the NHL fan universe there above 4.1 million. Additionally, teams reported that the overwhelming majority of season ticket holders chose to receive credit towards future payments, rather than receive refunds on games already canceled. On the upper end, some teams reported 99% chose that option. On the low end, the Florida Panthers reported 90 percent of their season ticket holders chose to keep their money with the team. “Our fans are diehard and the most loyal in all sports,” said an NHL spokesperson. “And they have stuck by us in all our labor disputes.” With all this in mind we set out to find out the most diehard among them – the ones who will still spend money after a second lockout in 8 years, based on how much money and time they spent since the last one. First, using data from Team Marketing Report, we calculated which fans have willingly shelled out the most in terms of price increases for tickets since the last lockout. We then did the same for concessions, memorabilia and parking over the same time period. Next with team and league data, we looked at home attendance rates since the last lockout, and counted which teams have had the most popular merchandise for the past two years. With the help of Nielsen we then ranked teams by their local market television ratings. Finally, we measured fans social media engagement on Facebook and Twitter. Our final ranking was based on a compilation of those metrics. Since last year was the first after their relocation from Atlanta, The Winnipeg Jets fans were excluded from the final ranking due to a lack of comparable data. Pittsburgh Penguins fans topped the list, an honor they have previously been awarded by Forbes using a different set of criteria. Blessed with the first round pick in the 2005 draft, the first following the 2004-05 lockout season, the Pens landed Sidney Crosby, now the league’s poster boy and highest paid player, and immediately started a turn-around from their previous financial misfortune. The next season, the addition of the equally talented Evgeni Malkin, the former rookie of the year, two-time league top scorer, Stanley Cup final MVP, and last year’s league MVP, helped. The team began a five-year sellout streak in February 2007 that coincided with a five-year playoff run including a Stanley Cup win in 2009. So energized were fans that when the team moved from the Igloo into the bigger Consol Energy Center in 2010, an 8.1 percent ticket price increase seemed to go unnoticed. Fans have equally devoted time to watching their Pens on TV too. Last year the team had the highest cable ratings in the NHL, pulling a 7.9 on Root Sports. The Toronto Maple Leafs landed third among the best fans despite having a streak of a different kind – eight years missing the playoffs. Sure, fans booed the team off the ice in late March of this latest season after a loss to the Carolina Hurricanes that mathematically eliminated them from contention. They paid heftily for the right to do so. The average ticket price last year was $123, the highest in the league by 50%, and 151% more than what it was at the start of the 2005-06 season. Even still, and despite being the league’s worst in terms of payroll dollars spent, the team has played to a full capacity crowd at Air Canada Centre all these seasons. Not to confuse best fans with most foolish fans, but it is fans like the Leafs, whose loyalty helped their team triple in value to $1 billion today to become the most valuable in the NHL, who certainly make it more comfortable for Bettman to sleep at night during the lockout. They also give a new meaning to fans that fall at the bottom of our ranking, our “worst fans”. Compared to the Leafs, “casual fans” is probably a better description. The Phoenix Coyotes take top spot in that category. Despite a playoff contending team, Jobing.com Arena was only 72.5% filled last season. The good news is that was slightly higher than the 2010-11 season and fails to reflect how it was packed to capacity during the playoffs; bad news it was less than the past 7 season average of 78%. Seats are a bargain at $36.15 for the fans who want to go – second cheapest in the league behind the Dallas Stars, No. 5 among the worst fans. But all other engagement metrics –merchandise sales, TV ratings, social media involvement – indicate there may not be many ice loving sports fans in the desert. Either that or the team’s bankruptcy and current CBA-occupied league owners have kept management from properly marketing to them. Two more Sun Belt teams’ fans rank among our worst but seem to have a lifeline not yet available in Glendale, Ariz. After three years of declining attendance, the Tampa Bay Lightning, under new owner Jeffrey Vinik, started to reverse that trend in 2010-11, helping themselves by making the playoffs that season after three previous ones in the toilet. After their first playoff appearance last season since 2000, the Florida Panthers received a boost in the form of a new deal with Fox Sports Florida that included an upfront bonus and is set to nearly double its local television revenue, money that can help keep talent on the ice. As indicated by the top 5 best fans and top 5 worst fans, it is worth noting that there is a positive correlation between fan engagement and their team value. The better the fans, the better a team’s value. That makes sense since fans are directly responsible for generating over 50% of the NHL’s revenue, which has grown from $2.2 billion the season before the last lockout to a record $3.3 billion last season. A similar fan study among the other three big leagues — the NFL, NBA, and MLB –show different results. Most drastically, in the NFL we found there is no correlation between the top fans and their value.Maybe the best NHL fans should be reserved for the ones that finally demand a seat at the bargaining table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetica Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 The NHL's Best (And Worst) Fans (the actual rankings are displayed in a slideshow on the Forbes site) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetica Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Haggerty: Jacobs should be held responsible Want to know why the NHL lockout is creeping into its fourth month of existence, why we’re approaching 80 days of hockey pestilence, hostility and greed? Here’s a story illustrating the self-interested, tyrannical leadership at play on the NHL’s side: Winnipeg Jets representation at a recent NHL Board of Governors meeting piped up to say it was opposed to engaging in a long, bloody lockout sure to stymie their franchise’s momentum and hurt the game of hockey. It wasn’t Winnipeg owner Mark Chipman, but rather one of the alternate governors representing the Jets. Bruins Principal Owner and Chairman of the Board of Governors Jeremy Jacobs answered by reprimanding the Winnipeg representative as one of the “new kids on the block” and informed him that he would know when he was allowed to speak in the NHL board room. That’s the kind of hawkish, dismissive, bully mentality that's driving the bus for the NHL lockout that's now cancelled games through the middle of December. It’s also the reason why Bruins fans should hold Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs personally responsible. Jacobs was always a lightning rod for local criticism and cynicism during his close to 40 years owning the Bruins, but the Delaware North baron has deservedly won some goodwill in recent years. He has consistently spent up to the NHL salary cap over the last seven years, and the high point of his ownership came two seasons ago when he oversaw a talented Bruins team that won the Stanley Cup. But even in the midst of his greatest moment as an NHL owner, Jacobs proved tone deaf. He couldn’t help but needle Bruins President Cam Neely during the team's championship parade for never winning his own Cup as a player. It was a cringe-worthy moment on a day that should have featured wall-to-wall grins, and it gave Bruins fans a chance to remember why they held Jacobs in contempt for so long. Those strange few seconds on that June day put on display the out-of-touch attitude that has helped the NHL become mired in another lengthy work stoppage for the second time in less than a decade. The NHLPA members and hockey fans alike are waylaying NHL commissioner Gary Bettman for instituting the work stoppage. But at the end of the day Bettman is simply the messenger for the 30 NHL owners. Jacobs and his fellow owners are the reason the NHL can’t function without a war between every new Collective Bargaining Agreement. They are the reason hockey is a mismanaged mess. When Patriots owner Robert Kraft helped broker an NFL labor deal before regular season games were affected, it appeared as though his love for the game of football and his concern for NFL fans played a role. There is no love of hockey coming from the end chair at NHL Board of Governors meetings. Instead there are quarterly reports, profit margins and calculated formulas telling NHL owners when it makes the most fiscal sense to open the doors to the regular season. Nothing else matters. Not the fans, the players, the arena employees and those local businesses depending on the $800,000 to $1 million that each Bruins game pumps into the Boston economy. If the NHL lockout is going to end as soon as Dec. 5 at the NHL Board of Governors meeting, then it’s going to take other hockey-loving hockey owners to overthrow the stone, cold businessmen in the room. The biggest question of the lockout is, why would a frugal, shrewd businessman like Jacobs seemingly do his own team a disservice by prolonging the lockout? The Bruins have the most money committed in player salaries over the next two seasons, and would be severely affected by a sudden drop in the salary cap. Even if NHL teams are given a one-year transition period to adjust to a plummeting salary cap, the Bruins will be bumping the cap ceiling in 2013-14 without a single proven NHL goaltender signed on for duty. That’s a horrendous position for Jacobs to leave his franchise when the Bruins have relied so prominently on defense and goaltending for success. But it doesn’t seem to matter a whit to the Bruins owner as he bangs the drum for a lowered salary cap, draconian contract restrictions, and a stodgy desire to turn the NHL clock back at least 30 years. Because Jacobs is a multi-billionaire used to winning and hearing exactly what he wants to hear at all times. During the 2004-005 lockout Jacobs and the Bruins were in a position of influence within the Board of Governors, but approached it with a horrendously flawed game plan. The Bruins expected a wide open seller’s market for free agents coming out of that lockout, and famously allowed Mike Knuble, Brian Rolston, Sergei Gonchar and Michael Nylander among others to walk away from Boston. Jacobs never saw the 24 percent salary rollback coming from the NHLPA, and suddenly teams received tremendous discounts for all contracts signed prior to the work stoppage. Instead of NHL free agent superstars lining up to play in Boston, the Bruins botched things further by inking glue factory FA’s like Brian Leetch and Alex Zhamnov. The Bruins franchise bottomed out in the two years coming out of the 2004-05 lockout with a glorified expansion team roster, traded away Joe Thornton for a pittance and then cleaned house within the B’s front office before a slow rise to the top under GM Peter Chiarelli and President Cam Neely. Jacobs turned out to be a giant loser coming out of the last lockout, and now his Buffalo-sized ego is looking for a dramatic, one-sided win against the players coming out of this season’s work stoppage. That one-way, ends-justify-the-means mentality is exactly what’s driving the NHL owners this time around. But the players have already waived the white flag. They've offered the owners the 50/50 revenue split for which they were hoping, and the NHLPA moderates are ready to further discuss terms of a truce if Bettman and the NHL owners are willing to throw an olive branch or two the players’ way. "We want to play," Bruins forward Shawn Thornton said recently. "But there hasn’t been one bone thrown our way [by the owners] to where guys would say if it went to a vote right now we could live with it. There are things that have to be addressed. “If there were a couple of bones thrown in there then there’d be enough moderates to voice their opinions to Don [Fehr]. But it hasn’t been that way at all. We keep giving and [the owners] keep saying ‘Thanks . . . what else have you guys got?’ Until that changes, nothing [about the lockout] is going to change." The players aren’t responding kindly to being bullied by board room brutes like Jacobs, but there’s little they can do about it if they want to get back on the ice. The only people that speak the kind of voice that Jacobs and Co. will understand is the ticket-purchasing public. Bruins fans can show their disapproval of the Jacobs-led NHL lockout by canceling season tickets, switching to the AHL or college hockey instead of the local NHL product, or simply changing the channel when the games come back. For business mavens like Jacobs, that is the only language they understand. But that’s not an easy task so what else could fans do? Jacobs owns the TD Garden so they could skip the circus, swear off concerts at the Garden, and even victimize the Celtics as innocent bystanders in the House that Jacobs Built. It’s probably not realistic, but it’s something to think about as those that love the NHL try to come up with a way to clearly illustrate to Jacobs, Bettman and Co. that two lengthy work stoppages in eight years is simply unacceptable. The NHL has taken its customers for granted far too often in recent years, and there should be a lesson learned for those league “fathers” that allowed this to happen on their watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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