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The Old CBA not Working Anymore is 100% Fan's Fault. So Now What? |
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It's past midnight...The NHL has locked out its players until a deal is done...Taking the fans and the fact that we will pay money for them to play completely for granted..
Logan Couture Tweeted out the following... "Sorry to the fans and everyone who is hurt by this. It is not our choice. We want to play the way it is."
7 Years Ago...
7 years ago the NHL was in obvious trouble, and the fans backed the owners.
7 years ago the NHL was in dire need of a salary cap and missed a season to get one.
7 years ago the NHLPA was led by a leader who was willing and preparing his players to wait the owners out for two full seasons...
7 years ago the NHL "won" the lockout. You wouldn't have found a single person who would have said otherwise...
7 years ago the NHLPA proposed a huge reduction in salaries as an alternative to a salary cap.
7 years ago the NHL accepted the reduction AND still forced the salary cap.
7 years ago if the NHLPA would have agreed to it, the NHL would have probably signed the CBA which was eventually agreed to for 50 years not 7. It was a dream CBA. The CBA which just expired a few minutes ago, was EXACTLY what the NHL had always wanted.
Described in the most real and true terms, the NHL is locking out the players tonight because they NHL isn't willing to play under a CBA that 7 years ago they were willing to cancel a season to get.
That's it. And you know what I was told again tonight?
It's not the owner's fault the CBA needs to be changed. It's not the player's fault. It is YOUR fault... The Fans Fault.
Cause you see...The CBA of 2005 worked swimmingly well for the owners when the NHL was a $2Billion a year business, but it apparently fails horribly when it is a $3Billion a year biz.
And that's because the rich have gotten richer in the current state and the poor teams are now forced to spend to a floor which is higher than the salary cap ceiling was when ths CBA was enacted...Why? Well because the entire league's revenues set the Cap and Floor at the beginning of each season despite the fact teams in new markets aren't coming close to even pacing the established markets...
So it's your fault. It's all of our fault for putting another billion dollars into the NHL per year...
If the NHL and NHLPA DON'T see how ridiculous that is and how they should lock themselves into a room right now they don't deserve this...
The NHL has always been a fringe sport in America, and in America in 2005 the NHL could have been looked at like a startup company...and we the investors...over the last 7 years the startup has asked the investors for more money each year (higher tickets) and the investors have put the money in without as much as a murmur of complaint because we believed in the product.
So now the startup has our money and they are just pissing it away. I am in a startup myself..I have never taken on investors, but I am pretty sure if I did take on investors, raised capital, and had success those investors would expect RESULTS.
If my reaction to those expectations was to, oh I don't know, STOP writing blogs and not allow any of my writers to write blogs until I figured out how to spend the capital I had raised I would be in HUGE trouble.
Many of you have already paid for your tickets this year. You have already made your investment and you did so under good faith that the people you were giving the money to would be able to figure out how to spend it WITHOUT canceling the games altogether!
Truthfully, it's beyond absurd.
I believe there should be a law that forces the NHL teams to write checks to reimburse the fans the day after EVERY missed game. If they were writing all those individual checks this would be a VERY short lockout. So may I suggest this...when the team comes to you and tells you they could apply the money "saved" from the cancelled games towards the playoffs or next year tell them "No. I want a check the morning after every cancelled game mailed to me promptly."
Keeping the faith (Aka: why I now feel this lockout will be extremely short)..
Big picture is this....despite the ridiculousness of it all we are NOT looking at a cancelled NHL season in 12-13. My gut feeling is that this will be a very short lockout. Very short. In fact, where I once believed we wouldn't be playing until end of November I now believe we will be playing in October and may not even miss a single regular season game.
My outlook changed yesterday when I was told the NHL will make an announcement on Wed/Thursday that they are canceling the preseason games in September ONLY. Earlier I had been told the NHL was going to cancel all the preseason....
This week coming up is a bonus week. The players may be locked out, but camps are scheduled to open a week from now, around the 21st. No money is being lost yet. The Camps could still open if the sides finally get serious this week. Will they? I don't know, but I think there are too many smart people on both sides to let this go on for long.
The Hockeybuzz Promise
We want to prove to you that we can be your "go to" place for the latest info regarding the NHL lockout...I, as many of you know, got my start during the last lockout, and I feel my sources are finely tuned for this. I have often joked "I am the only person who actually made out better after the last NHL lockout."
Lockouts are an unfortunate specialty of mine and my sources have grown much stronger and much broader since '04-05. And I will leave no stone unturned seeing both sides are held accountable and both sides realize how much more the fans deserve...
As of midnight tonight I will be treating the lockout as my only purpose. There are no player rumors when there is no CBA, and that makes my job much more focused. It is much easier to get info on two parties (NHL and NHLPA) than it is chasing 30 teams and 700+ players and dozens of agents...
I want you to let me know what you want to hear about in regards to the lockout and if you have a question for a specific party involved in the lockout I want you to send it me or leave it in the comments... I have access to all involved in this and will ask whatever I can whenever I can get a moment of their attention, because unlike the NHL and the NHLPA right now, I am 100% aware who I work for. I am completely aware of who pays my bills...
You do. So let's get on this.
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