The Ditch

PA asking for mediators to be brought back in.

This thing isn't that close to being wrapped up and Jacobs and Miller are both next to big kegs of dynamite testing their lighters. 

Jacobs and Miller should be asked to leave and they should be replaced by people that do not have a "this empty space for rent" sign on their foreheads.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.  Now the NHLPA wants mediators back in?   That can't be good.... and if Bettman wants a deal by Friday that probably means the owners are willing to cancel the rest of Decembers games by early next week which also is not good.

Owner haters on these boards wanted the owners to "bend".  So from everything I've read the owners are bending in a big way, yet we still don't have a deal in place.  

The owners have agreed to bump their "make whole" money up to 300 million dollars of which 50 would go into the pension fund and the players wouldn't be on the hook for any of the 50.

The owners have agreed to leave free agency and arbritration rules as is. 

The owners have asked for contract lengths to not exceed 5 years BUT did bend a little there as well.  They have agreed to let teams re-signing their own free agents sign deals for up to 7 years. 

I think the owners have been doing some giving lately..... let's see what the players do.

I didn't know much about Adam Proteau, but now I know he's an idiot when it comes to professionalism and his opinions should not be taken seriously. 

The is a rumor floating around (maybe from a Calgary news report) the the NHL receives 100% of its endorsement money from advertisements if they play a 60 game season and that is the reason why there is a big push all of the sudden.

I've heard several similar rumors about sponsorship contract structures.   Many are hedged somewhat against a stoppage but I never read a verified report from a credible source.    I believe sponsorships are a huge factor at this point, no other reason for owners not to protract year until after football slows down.    I would believe any number of games over 45+ postseason.    Rumors are far less reliable about individual franchise sponsorships but I would imagine many franchises are about ready to lose their individual sponsors. 

Killer, was the rumor you were referring to referencing the league sponsorships or the franchise sponsors?

doomed-freaking doomed!

If a team can't afford to pay a player with a cap, no less, then that team should not exist. Move them somewhere to a city that wants a team. Seattle, Portland, Kansas City, etc. There are many cities that would luv to have an NHL team. And I'm not even talking about the Canadian cities that want a team. Even the small market Winnipeg owner wants this thing settled. Is Winnipeg bigger than Nashville? I'm too lazy to look it up.
Hi Fish :-) = not another ND fan, haha

CUP4PENS

igloo--been a long suffering ND fan since 1987. I've paid my dues as a suffering ND fan believe you me!

so much for the season and crosby saving it! so the owners are all mad the players didn't respond right away to their offer? what are these guys - 12 yrs old? Jeez talk about a bunch of little girls! Millions of dollars and tickets wasted. Fans hurt. arenas empty. vendors, stadium works and vallets not working etc. just sad.

This explains everything! Hope this helps.


[www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP24tFB2ufs]

so the owners are all mad the players didn't respond right away to their offer? what are these guys - 12 yrs old? Jeez talk about a bunch of little girls!

careful, cat - we don't need another lecture about mindreading here.

oh wait, never mind. that was critical of the owners, not the players.

lulz--we miss your wit on ngs! hope all is well with you and your family.

Cole really getting emotional with his responses.   He does conduct himself professionally even though I disagree with his perspective and many of his opinions.    I appreciate how he handles himself, I still wish Chicago landed him a while back.

On one question he was answering about how the owners are going to rely on the players to market the game but what he doesn't acknowledge is that those players marketing the game are replaceable because almost none of the fans recognize them.   He used the Coyotes as an example standing in malls passing out tickets.  While I understand what he's saying I don't see how he doesn't see that those players are just bodies in uniforms to the people passing out tickets.     I think living in Montreal has caused him to lose perspective.    He could go all day in downtown Chicago, NYR, Boston, etc. and probably never be recognized even though he's a quality player and a likable one.  

Players haven't done much of anything to sell suites or sponsorships for the league, I don't blame them for most of that but they need to start acknowledging that before the owners remind them.     When the owners do remind them, it's only going to get worse. 

Wow, that post read smooth.   Next time I'll type when I'm not having another conversation and the radio on.     I'm actaully sorry about that one.  

Back to the ditch.

I think living in Montreal has caused him to lose perspective.    He could go all day in downtown Chicago, NYR, Boston, etc. and probably never be recognized even though he's a quality player and a likable one.  

I agree 100 percent with what you just said.  But obviously not just him because most NHL athletes can pretty well go wherever they please in the U.S, walk down the street and they don't get a second look. 

Players haven't done much of anything to sell suites or sponsorships for the league, I don't blame them for most of that but they need to start acknowledging that before the owners remind them.     When the owners do remind them, it's only going to get worse. 

Player supporters on here constantly call the players "the product" and I can't disagree with that because they are the product.  But as today's players disappear from the NHL over time the next players become "the product" and the game continues to grow or may even become a little stagnant, but it won't die as some of today's players disappear.  In other sports individual players make a massive difference and contribute to the games health and growth in a massive way.   In my opinion NHL players are just very highly paid employees of a large corporation.  They'll all eventally be replaced and their replacements will be paid even better then they are for doing nothing more then lacing up their skates and entertaining the fans for a while every season.

"the product"

The product is an actual NHL game, the players are only part of that.     Anyway, that's always my argument about "the product".

The impact of the players on the product is much much smaller for an NHL game than most of the other major sports.     I don't like it but that's how it is.   Shea Weber isn't going to bounce Eli Manning off of billboards in Chicago and Martin Brodeur isn't going to bump Shaq from cable commercials in Milwaukee.    Crosby is a long way from selling tickets in Nashville compared to what Woods could sell at Firestone. 

Lulzie, hope all is well.


 

He could go all day in downtown Chicago, NYR, Boston, etc. and probably never be recognized even though he's a quality player and a likable one.   

agreed. i have a buddy that grew up here in the Boston suburbs, local h.s., capt at BU, played for Bruins and was never recognized ever. I went out one night w/ him Jiri Slegr, Doug Doull, and another guy or 2 and I was really surprised that no one in the city even looked twice at them. Not exactly a who's who list of NHL Stars but still, they kinda stuck out i thought. Granted he only had a small cup of coffee w/ the Bruins but he was recognized on the streets of Toronto 1 day after playing in his 1st NHL game up in Buffalo. 

Here is an interview with BJ Crombeen from earlier today. He was in the process over the pat few days. Scroll down and click "listen here" it's about 7 1/2 minutes long and touches on why the PA went in the direction it did. http://www.sportsnet.ca/590/2012/12
/07/crombeen_blair/

Here is an interview with BJ Crombeen from earlier today. He was in the process over the pat few days. Scroll down and click "listen here" it's about 7 1/2 minutes long and touches on why the PA went in the direction it did. http://www.sportsnet.ca/590/2012/12

/07/crombeen_blair/

There was two places in the 7 1/2 minutes where B.J lost me.  When he was told that public perception says if the owners offer was put to a vote the players would be back on the ice B.J said an "overwhelming majority" of the players would vote against the owners latest offer.  Based on his tone and his wording he seemed positive the owners offer would be declined.  So here's my question, if that's true then why is the NHLPA not putting the offer up for an official vote?  The season is about to be completely lost so if they are so sure the union is so united why not prove how united you really are?  Hold the vote, show us this "overwhelming majority" declines the owners offer and we're all set.   But to say what he did but refuse to allow the players to vote shows me the union is deathly afraid the players may actually accept the offer.

The other place he REALLY LOST ME is when he started talking numbers.  B.J and the rest of the players should never be allowed to talk numbers publicly ever again.  He said if the players accept a 5 year cap on contracts when UFA's sign with somebody else and with the cap dropping to 60 million dollars it could mean half of the hard cap or in some cases 2/3's of the cap is taken by as little as 3 players. That's so ridiculous it's not even funny.  First of all how many teams are going to have not 1 or 2 but 3 players making 10 million dollars per season to take up half the cap?  How many players are going to rake in 13 per season to take up 2/3's of the cap?  That's a crazy statement to say the least.   What B.J wants is for players to be able to sign 10 year deals that are heavily front loaded with ZERO intention of playing out the last 3 years of the deal.  The players basically want to be paid in advance for years of service they aren't even going to honor without the team being penalized.  This means there really is no hard cap in hockey.  This means big market teams or anybody who can afford it can do just about anything they please.  Like I said, that's just ridiculous.

Interesting interview Killer, thanks for putting the address up (to bad I can't say, thanks for the link CBS).

This sounds like a comment from 2004, scares me a bit.   The major problem with the cap was exactly what he was talking about, this sounds like posturing to take the cap off of the table or like Fehr's looking for a train that left the station a long time ago.   Tough to say if the players came up with that themselves, if the agents did, or if Fehr did.     "The elimination of the middle class" of players has been well underway as soon as the players agreed to a cap.    The only way I can see to preserve a "middle class" with a cap is to have money slots on a roster ( examples would be along the lines of 1 at 15%, 3 at 10%, 4 at 7% no more than 6 players eating up 50% of the cap, something like that).

It's a very short sighted perspective.   The players need to push to eliminate the cap or get off that line of thought in my opinion.   There was never going to be a strong middle class of players once a cap was agreed upon but overall league payroll would go up.    The variance he mentioned was barely an afterthought last CBA and it should have been a bigger issue before, not now.     Pronger, Savard, Chara, Kronwall, LeCavalier, etc. and many others will be eating summer overage allowances and create a bigger mess as they eat up space (even if it's only temporary space because of injury, it's still space) and contract slots for those mid-level and lower players.

If the players really cared about the "middle class" they should have yanked a cap off of the table by now or demanded roster compensation limits by % of the cap and numbers of players within those %s.

Got my head spinning, I don't see how anything they've proposed does anything to support a middle class of player the 2nd or 3rd year and beyond in the next CBA.   Maybe I'll see something to it later, but I'm really struggling to understand how that line of thought does anything to advance things since the players agreed to a cap. 

It would be nice if either side did something that wasn't just an immediate money grab with little emphasis on the long-term.    It's disgusting.

It would be nice if either side did something that wasn't just an immediate money grab with little emphasis on the long-term.    It's disgusting.

The kids do not care about the long-term.  Why haven't the NHLPA named a sole voice for the players (aka Linden) since 2006.  Not having a Union president is killing this CBA.  Too many voices in the head of Fehr have him rattled.  I understand Don's dilemma in trying to deal with multi-nationals across several continents.  Although my multiple voices are regional...it is still fun to reconstitute them into finnish and italian via the bing translator. 

i've said it a bunch of times - the solution to the front-loaded contract loophole is really simple. a player's salary for a season equals his cap hit for the season.

next problem?

The next problem is that there is no more than a 10% increase from yr to yr.

The next problem is that there is a long ass CBA.

The next problem is you should kick Fehr to the curb.

The next problem is you should kick Bettman to the curb.

The next problem is that teams should own players for four years after development.

The next problem is that those players get better options to stay with their current team.

The next problem is the Diepietro rule (no dumbass long contracts).

The next problem is kiss and make up.               

All nice posts except that noone has told me why the players are being asked to save the owners from their own stupidity.

i've said it a bunch of times - the solution to the front-loaded contract loophole is really simple. a player's salary for a season equals his cap hit for the season.

Lulz your suggestion is logical so it makes a lot of sense except for one thing, the NHLPA would never go for it.   The union is refusing the NHL's demand of contracts being no longer then 5 years because they want their star players to receive big money up front without hurting a team's ability to pay others.  They want the money spread out over a longer period of  time, a lower cap hit and to be pre-paid for the last 3 years of a 10 year contract that a player will never honor.   If they won't accept 5 year max deals they'll certainly never accept what you're suggesting because your suggestion is way too reasonable.

i've said it a bunch of times - the solution to the front-loaded contract loophole is really simple. a player's salary for a season equals his cap hit for the season.

next problem?

While I prefer the long contracts as a Hawks fan I wouldn't throw a fit if they went to that standard.     I don't think either side wants such an inflexible number though.   A number of Gms want the wiggle room and players and agents like the up front money. 

I hope they go to the 5 and 7 as the owners requested and the 25% variance (total of the term) the players requested.