There will be a strike

[Blob Mckenzie]

Bettman is a little prick but if anyone thinks HE is anything more than a hand puppet and a mouth for the owners . Give Bettman the boot and they'll get another puppet in there.

a different puppet show would be nice to see...

I don't disagree. It would probably be nice to see a comissioner with a bit of a hockey background as opposed to a guy who hasn't ever been around the game until he was hired in his current gig. I think we are stuck with the little prick for a few years yet.

[Boston Canucker]

Bettman is a little prick but if anyone thinks HE is anything more than a hand puppet and a mouth for the owners . Give Bettman the boot and they'll get another puppet in there.

a different puppet show would be nice to see...

I don't disagree. It would probably be nice to see a comissioner with a bit of a hockey background as opposed to a guy who hasn't ever been around the game until he was hired in his current gig. I think we are stuck with the little prick for a few years yet.

I think he's much more than a puppet. Yes, there are the more assertive owners (Snider, Jacobs), but many of the present owners are relatively new to the scene. Bettman's job is to increase the value of the owner's franchise's, and I think he does shape and direct the agenda for doing that. A new commissioner would make a difference. A commissioner who cared about the state of the game and the entertainment value/fans would have never let the dead puck era going on as long as it did. New commissioners do set new agendas/approaches. I'd love to see him replaced, not that I'm holding my breath.

[Per]

I'll still have hockey to watch this fall, it just might not be the NHL.

Exactly. The SEL might get pretty interesting this year...

[Zedlee]

Like most pro sports labor conflicts, this is really about owners v. owners, not owners v players.

...the small market teams don't need a lower cap they need resources to compete

Bingo...you nailed it BosNuck. Revenue sharing is the drum that Fehr will beat. If league revenues are $3 Billion...that is an average of $100 million per team...enough for everyone to make money with a salary cap of $70 million.

The owners blew off a whole season to get a salary cap in place and boasted about how the players bent over and capitulated and the owners got the system right. And now they are crying poor? Absolutely unbelievable is the gall of the owners.

[porp]

Exactly. The SEL might get pretty interesting this year...

=D

Per - do you have a feel for the business side of the SEL - ie., what are they and the KHL doing differently (or are they facing a completely different economic scenario)?

(Some) of the owners (or GMs with a long leash) are entirely at fault for accelerating the post-lockout just-expired CBA's obsolescence. It's definitely about small market teams and teams who have only a temporary cash reserve versus cap ceiling teams with deep pockets, its too bad that a lot of the temporary cash reserve teams blow it on over-priced contracts and they not only screw themselves but all of the other non-cap ceiling teams. But the lower-end of the high-end players (or middling players with one good year) have benefited.

I wonder if having a "superstar" clause where only one player per team can have a contract that is, say, more than 2.5 times the average league salary (which would be about 6M for this past year, 2x max would be about 4.8M - or make it some percentage of the revenue share for players). You'd end up with a lot of 5.99M salaries and there'd be problems with bonuses and whatnot unless you implement a "tax" for multiple players over this limit that has team cap as well as revenue sharing. Maybe learn something from how the NBA implements this (?).

I think this might be a more league-wide-entertaining way of "leveling the playing field" than the stupid 3 point games that let mediocre teams appear to compete and get into the playoffs.

This way, the granularity of player salary gets refined a little and instead of paying a middling player 5/6M+ per and then having all the other comparable players want that number or more; but this might be too much "protecting team owners/GMs for their own good" for lots of people to stomach and the players would object because more would "have" to take "market" salaries because teams aren't allowed to pay them more unless they (the players) want to be one of two or three good players on a team full of scrubs.

Also, the top "mercenary" players would be willing to go to small market teams in order to get their "superstar" salary instead of all joining the NYR, and you wouldn't end up with (old) superstar loaded teams. Also, while this doesn't reward perennial bottom feeders, it doesn't punish them; they can keep more of their homegrown high draft pick talent instead of not being able to afford them and losing them for very little to deep-pocketed teams.

Hmm, how often is "rich" or "affluent" used to describe certain team owners versus an euphemism in the media? Sure, all team owners are "rich" and/or "affluent" but...

[Boston Canucker]

The early word seems to be that the NHLPA has taken a more balanced approach to getting this thing solved, sounds like they didn't counter the NHL's one-sided proposal with one of their own. We'll see what the details are, but if true, it offers reason for optimism. If the season starts on time, it'll be the players' doing.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=403068

[Canuck-One]

It's always the Labour side of the table that eventually brings a settlement, management seems to be a collection of people who define the Peter Principle. It's always so difficult to reach an agreement with people who are afraid to make a commitment.

[Madcombinepilot]

If the season starts on time, it'll be the players' doing

love or hate Bettman, he is a union breaker. he will get the best deal for the owners, no question.

[Fred]

If the season starts on time, it'll be the players' doing

love or hate Bettman, he is a union breaker. he will get the best deal for the owners, no question.

He's the owners choice. Bettman has underlings that understand the game. He's running a business

[Boston Canucker]

If the season starts on time, it'll be the players' doing

love or hate Bettman, he is a union breaker. he will get the best deal for the owners, no question.

He'll get a deal, but not the best deal, or what he imagined the best deal to be. Looking at the nhlpa proposal, it's not scorched earth, at all, if Bettman just says no, he'll help to unify the players in a way that did not occur last time. Plus, public perception is not on his side. Fehr has done a good job thus far.

[Boston Canucker]

It's always the Labour side of the table that eventually brings a settlement, management seems to be a collection of people who define the Peter Principle. It's always so difficult to reach an agreement with people who are afraid to make a commitment.

true, and also of course mgmt always looks at labor as replaceable parts....players have a short career span, on average, owners can cash checks while still on life support.

Still, I'm more optimistic about things getting done, if not by the start of the year, w/o too much of a loss of the season. And Fehr has the players united I think, which is key.

[tantalum]

Of course it's often the labour side that brings an agreement. Makes perfect sense given the other side is taking all the financial risk. By and large the players need the teams for their livelihood but the owners don't need the teams for anything more than a feather in their cap.

I know people are applauding the players proposal but it is just as much of a non starter as the owners. At the end of the day, the players don't want anything with contracts touched (i.e the huge loopholes won't be closed) and they turfed the linkage part of the cap in their proposal (if I've read things correctly) which makes the so called hard cap have much less teeth when it comes to financial security for a gate and merchandise driven league. There isn't a chance the owners accept much of anything in that proposal. edit: Apparently the proposal allows teams to buy draft picks from another team as well as cap space. It's a joke proposal after all IMO.

Personally I don't think the owners was that much of a non starter. It was a severe starting point to be sure but it kept things within the framework of a CBA that has been quite good for the players and illustrated where the owners thought the problems were. I still think the logical solution to this is:

-keep the hard cap and linkage at about 50% of revenues

-Set the ceiling and floor in some way (perhaps depress the floor a bit from what it is today)

-set a point between the the floor and ceiling that above which the teams pay a luxury tax (1 to 1 dollar for instance)....this feeds a revenue sharing system (concession to the players by putting it partially on the backs of the other teams)

-give up some of the hockey related revenues you don't want to include INCLUDING a piece of the expansion pie (concession to the players).

-tighten up the cap hit vs annual salary loopholes....perhaps don't remove the lifetime deals the players like but determine a better way to deal with the cap hit calculation for them.

-ELC to 4 or 5 years (I put this in because the PA loves to throw non-PA members under the bus and they'll do so again without thinking twice).

[Boston Canucker]

Of course it's often the labour side that brings an agreement. Makes perfect sense given the other side is taking all the financial risk. By and large the players need the teams for their livelihood but the owners don't need the teams for anything more than a feather in their cap.

I know people are applauding the players proposal but it is just as much of a non starter as the owners. At the end of the day, the players don't want anything with contracts touched (i.e the huge loopholes won't be closed) and they turfed the linkage part of the cap in their proposal (if I've read things correctly) which makes the so called hard cap have much less teeth when it comes to financial security for a gate and merchandise driven league. There isn't a chance the owners accept much of anything in that proposal. edit: Apparently the proposal allows teams to buy draft picks from another team as well as cap space. It's a joke proposal after all IMO.
).

It is far from a joke proposal. In fact, reading more and more of the details it is much more serious about making the league stronger, throughout, and addressing issues such as the specificity of team needs than the NHL's proposal (trading cap space etc). It is much more balanced and serious about the future of the NHL than the owner's proposal. Even apparently NHL league sources have told media members it was not what they expected . That is, not some off the wall in your face proposal, but an actual effort to address things. (link below)

http://www.truehockey.com/articles/Thin ... de-the-Box

And the idea that only management and not labor is taking a financial risk is just stupid, sorry for the bluntness, but it is stupid. these guys careers are short and their chance to maximize a livelihood they've been busting their butts for is in a much narrower window than owners who have got long range possibilities and can deploy various mechanisms to offset short term losses. Players have no such window. I'm not saying the owners don't take any risk, of course they do, but the idea that labor has no risk is just silly. There is lots of risk. The player's proposal would make for a much more interesting nhl...

[tantalum]

It is a joke proposal and the reason it is a joke proposal because everything in it is meant to drive a wedge between wealthy franchise and the ones that aren't.

Not touching the loopholes that allow for extreme front loading to discourage the less wealthy team from matching or competing is aimed at that.

Trading cap space and buying draft picks is aimed at putting more cap space and money for the players in the hands of the bigger money teams thus making an end run on what the owners wanted to achieve last time in narrowing that financial gap. This proposal increases that gap again. Which is great for the players. Terrible for the league as a whole as the bigger money players will migrate to the bigger markets at a greater rate. Some will say but if a team isn't going to use that cap space they may as well sell it...sure on the surface it seems that way but it simply means through player movement that cap space in the end migrates to those big spending teams and the lower spending teams in the end don't even have the option of using that cap space because they can't attract the big money player.

Getting rid of linkage is quite simply another mechanism for the player to inflate their salaries. Sure they said they will artificially slow the growth on the salaries except their proposal ASSUMES league growth will continue at the same pace. Without explicit linkage to revenues that growth (or shrinkage) allows player salaries to once again outpace revenue growth in down or reduced growth times. Again an end run on what the league needs to accomplish to stay healthy.

And sorry the players have NO financial risk outside of a lockout/strike situation. They are getting paid to play. They are not taking on the chance to lose money if things turn south (in many cases things turn south because that labour who is not taking on any risk decides to float through a season). Yes they have short careers but that doesn't mean there is financial risk that is simply the risk they took on when they chose the career and short career or not they get handsomely rewarded. players don't lose money they only make money.

The players proposal would almost immediately have the Rangers at a 90 million dollar cap and the Islanders at 30 million. The league has been down that path. It doesn't work.

I don't disagree there needs to be greater revenue sharing, quite a bit more, but it can't be done in a way that ultimately increases the creates a gulf in spending between teams and that is what will happen.

[Potatoe1]

After finally having time to check out the players proposal, I think it's laughable that they are presenting their offer as some sort of solution for the small market teams.

This deal would be terrible for small markets as it would make the competitive balance far worse which would make it increasingly difficult to grow their fan base which is the main problem in those markets.

The players are doing exactly what they tried to do the last time, dangle a short term cash infusion that will vanish in 2 to 3 years, then claim to the media that they are being generous.

And the cost for said cash, is the removal of linkage and the escrow payments that all of the current players loath.

BTW what the players have neglected to mention here is that Escrow is the leagues largest source of shared revenue.

Dont believe the spin here, the players proposal is every bit the declaration of war that the owners was.

The players main goal here isn't small markets or "finding a middle ground" it's removing the thing they hated the most about the last deal, their escrow payments.

The owners however, will never give up linkage as it gives them the cost certainty that every industry dreams about.

BTW as a Canuck fan I would love the owners to cave on this proposal (they wont) as it would allow us far more cap flexibility and an even bigger advantage against the have not teams.