Still when the dust settles neither side truly cares about the fans. Regardless of the BS they will sell publicly.. Hate em all. No repsect for any of them but the bottom line is they could care less if they have my respect.. All they want is money..

Eklund: Time For Bettman/Fehr to Allow Others to Build Trust #NHLPlayer2NHLPlayer
- Eklund

I'm pretty sure the owners are perfectly happy to wait out the day for when the player cave.

I'm pretty sure the owners are perfectly happy to wait out the day for when the player cave.
- JDJ

The real question is, how much more whining from the players will we have to endure until they understand that.

CBC News Alerts‏@CBCAlerts

NHL games cancelled through Nov. 30 as deadline passes . No talks scheduled as lockout of players heads for Week 7.

And that is going to work better than it did in 2004 when the owners held out for a year, got everything they were looking for (cap and a significant roll back) and broke the union.

And here we are again with more teams losing money than before the last lock out - how is that planning working out?

We will keep doing this over and over again until the League fixes its real problems -- 6 or 7 teams that cannot keep up financially with the top revenue generating teams that are driving up the salary floor.

No matter how far they roll back salaries, we will be back in the same situation at the end of every CBA.

Three choices:

create a league made up of Peewee players who will work for free juice boxes (even then the Coyotes might be in trouble)

get rid of the salary floor or widen the gap between cap and floor rhough a luxury tax or something

get rid of a few bottom feeder teams through some combination of relocation and contraction
- Canada Cup

Exactly.. essentially the owners (through their GMs) created the inflated contract mess. The NHLPA broke apart the last lockout... and the owners got it exactly the way they wanted with a roll-back. The players paid for the roll-back - not the owners... so you can't blame the players to try and make up for lost money signing - in some cases - crazy large contracts.

Once again, owners want to solve (temporarily) their problem on the players backs.

NHLPA should insist on having no franchise in place that loses money for more than a period of three full seasons... if it does... it relocates. In the meantime you tee up either new ownership or new locations.... taking the decision OUT OF BETTMAN's hands.

NHLPA shoudl accept a roll-back that is staggered, greatly percentage for the large contracts... smaller percentage for the smaller ones.

Teams should get a one time, one contract amnesty clause... buyout one contract with no cap hit... player becomes FA but can't resign with same team. Teams can acquire other teams cap problem contracts... by taking on the contract and payment, and HALF of the CAP hit, which sticks with original team. Player retires ... each takes half the hit.
Each team should be allowed 60 pro contracts... sign more players. Free agency at 25 with a minimum of 5 full seasons.... must meet both criteria.

The real question is, how much more whining from the players will we have to endure until they understand that.
- Symba007

Do you genuinely believe that ownership in the very profitable franchises TOronto, Montreal, New York... want to forgo the season? Or do they want to make the many millions?

The real question is, how much more whining from the players will we have to endure until they understand that.
- Symba007

They really only have themselves to blame for ending taking a bigger cut going forward - in actual salary by the new CBA, lost game salaries, and likely a bigger impacts to escrow clawbacks due to short-term revenue decline.

I'm not sure why they don't get the NHL is playing dirty and will break the union eventually. And the longer this goes, the better deal the NHL is likely to get.

Let's just hope the NHL catch/close most of the loopholes this time, while they are at it, so that dumb owners, GMs, and agents don't find a way to break the CBA again, resulting in another round of this stupidity in 5-6-7 years.

CBC News Alerts‏@CBCAlerts

NHL games cancelled through Nov. 30 as deadline passes . No talks scheduled as lockout of players heads for Week 7.
- VANTEL

Past US Thanksgiving.

Wow, that's a bit unexpected.

It's not just enough to come up with a solution. It's necessary to come up with a solution that actually is going to work both short-term and long-term and avoids opening new problem areas. For example:

-- It should be reasonably clear to everyone that the cap and floor have been shoved north by high-revenue teams, which are growing faster than low-revenue teams. Even if the Players Share is reduced to 50/50, how does that prevent those low-revenue teams from being in the same boat 6 years from now where they once again struggle to hit the cap floor because high-revenue teams are still growing faster?

-- The proposed new rules governing front-loaded contracts apply the full cap hit if/when the player isn't in the NHL against the team originally signing the contract, but only to those contracts longer than 5 years. Has anyone thought about how that rule can (will) be abused by teams?

-- The NHL's proposal suggests letting teams trade cap hits in part. Has anyone thought about how that rule can (will) be abused by teams?

-- The NHL talks about the problem of salary inflation, yet proposes rules limiting the length of contracts. Seeing as how longer contracts have been used to achieve smaller salaries in average, and that players are trading salary today for the guarantee of being paid tomorrow, has anyone considered how limiting contract lengths to only 5 years will impact (a) salaries in general, and (b) the distribution of salaries among players? And how does that ultimately help all teams?

These seem like non-important things, but 7 years ago we also didn't think teams would be handing out 12-15 year contracts with huge signing bonuses - and when we finally could read the CBA and see what it said, no one anticipated what might happen and the problems that might result because of the problems in it. If no one is looking at the ideas being lobbed out and playing "what if?" in order to find as strong a solution as possible, what really keeps either side from coming back 6 years from now and saying "hey, there's a problem, we're getting screwed, time to open things back up?"

CBC News Alerts‏@CBCAlerts

NHL games cancelled through Nov. 30 as deadline passes . No talks scheduled as lockout of players heads for Week 7.
- VANTEL

I still think Bettman should come out and say of there is no agreement by December 1st, season will be cancelled.

Move up the point of no return and put pressure on both sides to get something done.

Do you genuinely believe that ownership in the very profitable franchises TOronto, Montreal, New York... want to forgo the season? Or do they want to make the many millions?
- BorjeFan4Ever

If the can trade $25 million per year now for $45 million per year starting a year from now, they'll gladly sacrifice the short-term for the long-term.

Exactly.. essentially the owners (through their GMs) created the inflated contract mess. The NHLPA broke apart the last lockout... and the owners got it exactly the way they wanted with a roll-back. The players paid for the roll-back - not the owners... so you can't blame the players to try and make up for lost money signing - in some cases - crazy large contracts.

Once again, owners want to solve (temporarily) their problem on the players backs.

NHLPA should insist on having no franchise in place that loses money for more than a period of three full seasons... if it does... it relocates. In the meantime you tee up either new ownership or new locations.... taking the decision OUT OF BETTMAN's hands.

NHLPA shoudl accept a roll-back that is staggered, greatly percentage for the large contracts... smaller percentage for the smaller ones.

Teams should get a one time, one contract amnesty clause... buyout one contract with no cap hit... player becomes FA but can't resign with same team. Teams can acquire other teams cap problem contracts... by taking on the contract and payment, and HALF of the CAP hit, which sticks with original team. Player retires ... each takes half the hit.
Each team should be allowed 60 pro contracts... sign more players. Free agency at 25 with a minimum of 5 full seasons.... must meet both criteria.
- BorjeFan4Ever

Why would the NHLPA want to do this? Franchises may lose money, but they still employ 23 NHLPA union brothers.

If you enacted your rule, I doubt there would be more than 8 franchises in the league.

Off the top of my head, here are the teams that would be gone:

Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, LA, Anaheim, Dallas, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, Islanders, Buffalo, maybe Boston, Florida, Washington, Tampa Bay, Carolina, St. Louis, Nashville, Chicago, Columbus, and I'm guessing San Jose.

8 to 10 team league - think the NHLPA wants that?

... NHLPA should insist on having no franchise in place that loses money for more than a period of three full seasons... if it does... it relocates. In the meantime you tee up either new ownership or new locations.... taking the decision OUT OF BETTMAN's hands....
- BorjeFan4Ever

I have read a lot of dumb stuff here, and even posted some dumb stuff myself, but this quite frankly takes the cake.

How many markets can sustain NHL franchises that already don't have a team? The NHL can't find enough markets to move existing teams as it is, which becomes even more challenging if they want to keep national coverage or not end up with 3-4 teams geographically stranded from the rest of the league.

Oh, and I am sure the stability of the league in constantly moving teams is a good thing.

Are there markets that need to be moved?

Yes.

But the reality of owning a franchise in the NHL is that there is no guarantee you will make money... unless the players want to take such a monumental salary cut that it virtually makes every team profitable.

I'm sure the owners are already on board with that concept.

The Player is wrong, Bettman isn't a smart man, Hes a Idiot, So is Fehr, They waiting until 45 days to Sept 15th to actually start talking. At least in the NFL they talked all through the off season.

Hell they were even talking on super bowl weekend.

The difference between the NHL and the NFL and NBA is that the players hired Donald Fehr I think most of us on this website and most experts knew that this was going to happen because Fehr was involved.

The only thing that saves this season from being totally cancelled is if there is a Owner in Hockey like Robert Kraft that can bridge the gap between the players and owners.

Do you genuinely believe that ownership in the very profitable franchises TOronto, Montreal, New York... want to forgo the season? Or do they want to make the many millions?
- BorjeFan4Ever

Toronto may be the only exception, due to new ownership.

However, most of these team will just have huge tax write offs, and then make that money back over the next few years once player salaries are cut back.

Plus, in these large markets where they make a lot more money, if the cap is lowered, then player salary costs go down significantly, hence profits go up.

The owners will make their money back.

CBC News Alerts‏@CBCAlerts

NHL games cancelled through Nov. 30 as deadline passes . No talks scheduled as lockout of players heads for Week 7.
- VANTEL

good! cancel the season and get it over with. fvck the players

Yeah, your right, Ek should have gone to the local library and used the Dewey decimal system to locate some quotes...


- TheRat14

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=408188

God damnit!

I think it’s time for the players to stop being babies. Stop thumb sucking and leave the diapers behind. You’re playing with the big boys darlings. If you’re going to waste all your time stomping your feet being "offended" all I can say is WOW. Your flushing away at least a billion dollars! Why, because your offended? Dumb.

Goes to show you don't need common sense or basic math skills to play hockey. Embarrassing.

Babies.

I think it’s time for the players to stop being babies. Stop thumb sucking and leave the diapers behind. You’re playing with the big boys darlings. If you’re going to waste all your time stomping your feet being "offended" all I can say is WOW. Your flushing away at least a billion dollars! Why, because your offended? Dumb.

Goes to show you don't need common sense or basic math skills to play hockey. Embarrassing.

Babies.


- Oilerman

I find it absolutely hysterical and ironic that we have two sides crying over how many millions of dollars they can get and fans are crying that we can't fork over those millions of dollars to them to watch them play...

http://www.youtube.com/wa...ture=youtube_gdata_player

Past US Thanksgiving.

Wow, that's a bit unexpected.
- Atomic Wedgie

Really? I expect games to Jan 1 to be cancelled and fans tell the NHL don't bother .

I sure hope they play to empty buildings when/if they come back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VOkxHZ7RQw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
- Ottos_Jacket

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71vqGyWTs3c

good! cancel the season and get it over with. fvck the players and the league
- Brandon

Fixed

The season was doomed the day the NHLPA hired Fehr. He loves the squabbles and the lockout/strike stuff.

He is the biggest problem here.
- H.E.Pennypacker

With the NHL locking out at midnight on September 15, 2012, Fehr has become the only Executive Director to be directly involved in work stoppages in two sports. Six of the eight contract negotiations he has been involved in have resulted in work stoppages, including five consecutive negotiations between the MLBPA and Major League Baseball. [10]

The Owners waited out the players last time and have the power to do it again if they so choose. Fehr has led the players down a path to a no win situation...The players are correct...Bettman has never negotiated in good faith...he dictates...he does not negotiate....why ? because he has the power to do so.
"It's not personal...its just business"...from a strict player point of view they are probably right ...they are gaining nothing and in fact losing ground in an industry that is growing!!!...But in the end is it better to be "dead right" ?