It would be VERY interesting if the league announced they will proceed with replacement players, or any players willing to leave the union. Tickets at 50% discount for the fans.
- mventres

Beat me to it.

Fehr is JUST WANT THE PLAYERS NEED.


Sorry Mr. Skywalker. Darth is not the bad guy. Unless you think that a 24% rollback last time was not enough or that it is NOT the GM's offering 126 year contracts or ... lets face it.... the last cancelled season was due to a money crisis.... this one is greed on the PART OF THE OWNERS

This is a lock out, not a strike.
- Beatle_john

You are dillusional!

It would be VERY interesting if the league announced they will proceed with replacement players, or any players willing to leave the union. Tickets at 50% discount for the fans.
- mventres

Sponcors would have a Sh&t. No way.

You are dillusional!
- flyerdude17

Sorry for the truth bomb....

Bettman keeps saying the owners keep giving.

You can't give what you never had Gary.....

They players had 57% they are giving 7% to get to 50/50.

The players have those long term contracts, Bettman will "give" $300 million of the $393 million those contracts are valued at? What a nice guy.

The players are the ones giving here.

2 of the 6 owners (Jacobs and Chipman) in the room the past few days signed young players to 6 year deals days before the CBA expired. Now they want them to be at max 5 years?


Sounds like you a on da cracka

The owners are like women with a $30,000 job but a credit card limit of $45,000 on a shopping spree. Gary is like the husband trying to make sure he keeps her in check.

The players are not being greedy here and neither is Fehr.
- cracka

Hey Richard its YOU who really is the problem. How can you side with the NHL?? Lets see. You get drafted and must play their until your 28 years old and have no say where you cn play. You can not make more than 5 percent year after year and lose perhaps some of the best years of your career because the owners must be protected from themselves. Oh wait I forgot those HUGE contracts you just signed over the summer including the ones Jermey (A$$Hole) Jacobs' Bruins signed at the last minute we were just joking we only want to pay you 75 percent of the value of them.
- Brukie

Yawn...sounds like being employed to me. I'll trade my job with that situation any day.

Of course you did. Thats where your head is!
- Iggysbff

how do you think I heard it??

Hey Richards (D!CK) Please tell me why the players should bend to the owners will? They agreed to 50/50. Thats them giving up 7 percent. Thats alot of money. Its the owners who should bend. Its the owners who put these franchises in Cities that can not support them and now the owners want the players to pay for their mistakes??
- Brukie

7 percent they shouldn't have had to begin with. More than any other league. The players have done very well for themselves.

We have a winner..........Cloutier, you nailed it and I am 100% in agreement with you. The PA overplayed their hand and now the nuclear option is pointed right at them. If they think decertification is going to fix this for them. they're totally wrong. They'll lose and lose big. Other leagues never had a direct competitor, so the players in those leagues could prove that the league bargained in bad faith. The NHL has players from all over the world and the KHL pays big dollar contracts for players. The NHL could just say, the players have an option, they can play in the KHL. The players will lose their guaranteed contract status and will end up with an imposed CBA from the league. They've done nothing but lost money, since this has started and it's not going to change. They better open wide and swallow, the bad medicine is coming there way!
- PrinceLH

Beautiful, well said. Send this letter to the nhlpa so all can read, it is the truth! I would love to see a vote by the players and I am sure we are playing next month.

please do not insult me when I have to google the insult to undersatnd it,

I thought you meant the 1980s Detective show Remington Steele.

After Googling it.... i wonder how and why THAT was your choice of insult! )
- Beatle_john

Because your posts are out to lunch, I mean really ridiculous. Not saying your a bad guys, just not the sharpest knife in the drawer so to speak.

how do you think I heard it??
- Beatle_john

There is no hope for you beattle john, I think you need professional help

Beautiful, well said. Send this letter to the nhlpa so all can read, it is the truth! I would love to see a vote by the players and I am sure we are playing next month.
- flyerdude17

I'm sure there's enough of them, stealthly reading this website. You'd think they'd see that Public opinion is running 5 - 1 against them. They have nothing more to throw out to the fans, since they've tried everything to win the PR war. Watching Fehr and Bettman, at their respective news conferences, were really telling. Fehr tried to play on the fans sympathies and make it sound like they were almost there, when it was in fact, a lie. Bettman went up there, with true vitriolic disdain for the PA and it struck a cord with the fans. The NHL position is pure logic and not just a play on numbers, like the PA tries to pull. The PA makes it sound like they were ripped off, in the last CBA, when in actuality, they gained 80% more in wages. Meanwhile, a full third of the league is losing money, another third is breaking even and another third is making money. I don't know too many team rosters, that have lost any money, from the year before. The cap and floor went up every year, of the last CBA. Translated, "you - the players - made more money then the year before. The top eight teams can't continue to support the rest of the league, so you can make even more, the next year and the year after that. It can't go on infinite. The current world economy is about to go into correction, so you best take your money now, because if you wait, it won't be there a year from now.

I'm sure there's enough of them, stealthly reading this website. You'd think they'd see that Public opinion is running 5 - 1 against them. They have nothing more to throw out to the fans, since they've tried everything to win the PR war. Watching Fehr and Bettman, at their respective news conferences, were really telling. Fehr tried to play on the fans sympathies and make it sound like they were almost there, when it was in fact, a lie. Bettman went up there, with true vitriolic disdain for the PA and it struck a cord with the fans. The NHL position is pure logic and not just a play on numbers, like the PA tries to pull. The PA makes it sound like they were ripped off, in the last CBA, when in actuality, they gained 80% more in wages. Meanwhile, a full third of the league is losing money, another third is breaking even and another third is making money. I don't know too many team rosters, that have lost any money, from the year before. The cap and floor went up every year, of the last CBA. Translated, "you - the players - made more money then the year before. The top eight teams can't continue to support the rest of the league, so you can make even more, the next year and the year after that. It can't go on infinite. The current world economy is about to go into correction, so you best take your money now, because if you wait, it won't be there, a year from now.
- PrinceLH

I think it is more like 50 to 1 against the players, not 5 to 1

7 percent they shouldn't have had to begin with. More than any other league. The players have done very well for themselves.
- doon

I watched the Bettman and Daly press conference and you gotta like Bettman. He looks like a weasel but my dad always taught me never to take how a person looks as simplicity. In other words just because you look like a weasel does not mean you are dumb. Bettman is in a league all of his own, he is brilliant.

Who said the NHL is bluffing???? Who said wiping out the season was bad thing??

I think the NHL needs to humble iyself and lose another season. They do not OWN hockey.
- Beatle_john[/quote]
They do not own hockey. They do own the NHL where there best plays the best. Do the players want to go play in the KHL? I say go play hockey there if they can or the SEL or FEL or the AHL or oh hell ECHL all for pennies on the dollar.
I see this negotiation as one thing only, screwing the 2nd thru 4th line players for the elite. That is not how a union works. You fight for everyone not the 90 members out of 700+.

Hey Richards (D!CK) Please tell me why the players should bend to the owners will? They agreed to 50/50. Thats them giving up 7 percent. Thats alot of money. Its the owners who should bend. Its the owners who put these franchises in Cities that can not support them and now the owners want the players to pay for their mistakes??
- Brukie

Well then I guess the only answer is contraction. I'm sure the NHLPA would be all over that...

And before you say "move the failing fanchises to such and such a city' you have to have an owner willing to do so.
It's not as easy as you make it sound.
Do you think the NHL deliberately places franchises in less then ideal hockey markets?
Let me put it this way... if there was a sure fire, can't fail alternative out there... a team would be there already.

Well then I guess the only answer is contraction. I'm sure the NHLPA would be all over that...
- OilDerek

Dropping six teams would wipe out at least 200 players and essentially make the nhl a stronger league. Eventually the 200 lost will be the ones on the bubble. I do not want to see this happen but if the players continue to want to break the owners there may be no other way.

#firefehr #firefehr #firefehr

Don't believe it.
- bluecoconuts

dater's a good and respected writer for a huge company. ive never read any article from him that would indicate fabrication. and i read alot off cnnsi. they have some of the best writers in the business imo. bs would not be tolerated.

i dont see why he would lie.

is this hard to believe after the events of the last few days? did u see the quotes from vinik, burkle etc?

Fehr sucks! But the owners suck even more. What is more disgraceful the fact that they went out and over paid for players again this summer right before screaming that those contracts were bad business???? Or they're collective attempts at circumventing the spirit of the salary cap to begin with? How about the fact that there is only ONE freaking team in Canada and meanwhile the imbeciles keep trying to push hockey in Phoenix???

The NHL is full of businessmen who had some success outside the NHL or inherited a ton of money. But they suck as businessmen in the NHL. I don't want the NHL anymore. I'd prefer a better league that made smart decisions about the game. Stop trying to sell it to a larger and bigger dream of fans that don't exist. Accept where hockey is the U.S. and keep it pure. Other fans will come around when you have budding super stars. I grew up in St. Louis which has a large hardcore fan base but boy did the sport grow in a hurry with Brett Hull. Many of us hit the ice right away. Now regularly players from St. Louis are drafted.

Instead of forcing the spread of the game via the NHL utilize large urban areas with minor league hockey. You will fill the stands for your development teams. Lower the AHL age limit so more junior players can start a real pro career. You must have a second team in the Toronto area. There are two teams in NYC not mention some five in the immediate area. Toronto area fans are getting the shaft and hose. Toronto apparently is carrying the league. And why not with tickets at those prices and sell outs for a mediocre team. It would be nice to know regular fans could enjoy a game and light a fire under the Leafs butt to put a great team on the ice. The NHL would increase revenue with the second team benefiting the league at large.

There are lots of things that need to be done but right now teams are being ruined and regular people with there jobs aren't working while billionaires and millionaires fight it out over a few bucks.

At this point I found myself actually watching an NBA basketball game--I hate the NBA. While fans were less likely to leave the NBA for the NHL the other way around is highly likely. You don;t need a few hundred dollars to buy a basketball or find a play ground with a hoop.

Who said the NHL is bluffing???? Who said wiping out the season was bad thing??

I think the NHL needs to humble iyself and lose another season. They do not OWN hockey.
- Beatle_john

no, but they own the nhl.
the players are welcome to spend their careers in europe making fractions of the money with way less guarantees and not near the amenities the nhl provides

Dropping six teams would wipe out at least 200 players and essentially make the nhl a stronger league. Eventually the 200 lost will be the ones on the bubble. I do not want to see this happen but if the players continue to want to break the owners there may be no other way.
- flyerdude17

I'm not saying that I disagree.

I find it amusing that the staunch PA supporters lay blame on the league for the lack of solvency and overall viability of some markets. Again I ask... do you (PA supporters) actually believe that the NHL wills these franchises to fail?

The real problem is that hockey is NOT as popular as football, basketball, baseball, golf etc. on the average to most North Americans. If the League and the Players Union want 30+ teams, then they must accept and expect that some franchises are going to struggle... thus limitng the leagues ability to generate revenue, thus limiting players salaries.

Comparing the NHL to the NFL, NBA, or MLB is assinine... and quite frankly the fatal flaw in the PA's logic. The pie, as it is, is finite...

Want to grow and develop the game and the league... accept what the market can bear and sustain. Until then, shut up, realize how lucky you are, and playing the franking game!

The players soooo overplayed their hand. They had a good offer before them. Sure maybe a little tweaking could have been done. My guess is that if they asked for 6 year/7 year own club contracts....that could be done. But asking for 25% year to year salary changes??? That changes very little on how salaries can be downplayed in later years. What did they think the owners reaction would be??

There are a number of players who went through this before. They should know what will happen next. The league will kill the season if need be. Why the players would think that the owners wouldn't be willing do so again is incomprehensible to me. And if that happens, the players will loose big time especially in the short term.

My guess is the players need to make a decision and do it quickly. If they really want the add in to their pension fund and the make whole money, then they better come back on the offer the league gave them. And it needs to be by this weekend. If this goes into next week, then the NHL will more games and become more hardline what they'll give to the players.

Oh and pissing off 4 moderate owners who wanted to get a deal done...bad idea!!

I think it's more a case of the owners trying to close loopeholes from the last CBA that they didn't think through. Yes, it's their fault but these stupid contracts hurt the game.
- tincup

How about instructing your employee (GM) not to make these deals? Problem solved. I can offer this guidance at a cheap cost.