Lockout

[Sarcastic]

He's still talking. To a reporter now.

[offsides]

He was talking about job security and a short time a player enjoys in the league. I find that offensive. Many people go back to school later in life, gain degrees, and do fine. What do these players want. To play for 3 years and be set for the rest of their life!? If you're only 3 years in the league, it means you suck, so you don't really deserve millions ($). The more talented guys who stay in the game play long enough where they make enough, even if not as talented as the stars.

Now. I talked to a buddy of mine not so long ago who's going back to school at 45 years old and jumping to a completely new career. I'll quote: "one last career change before I croak" followed by some genuine laughter.

So spare me the tears, Fehr. I buy none of it.

Agree completely! I went back to school at 50 and changed from a steel worker to a PC tech. Couldn't have worked out better.

[Sarcastic]

Chris Campoli looks like Shia LaBeouf.

[penny lane]

Nick Cotsonika ‏@cotsonika
Kypreos says decertification is farther away now because players smell a deal. I agree. This thing is close -- or should be.

right? or skating past the graveyard.

[Sarcastic]

Campoli brought up the issue of 5 year contracts killing the middle class, saying stars will decline discounts. I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

[MRandall25]

It is close. The owners are trying to break the Union.

They've done this 3 times since negotiations began. It's a bluff and the players aren't calling it (nor should they).

[SolidSnake]

Fehr looked beaten

[pens_CT]

It is close. The owners are trying to break the Union.

They've done this 3 times since negotiations began. It's a bluff and the players aren't calling it (nor should they).

Break the union not really, stick it to Don Fehr most definitely. The more militant union members who remember the last lockout wanted revenge and brought in the hired gun Fehr to handle things. Too bad the owners locked the players out because they took away Fehr's first option which would have been to start the season under the old CBA, and then called a strike just before the playoffs when no progress on a new agreement was made (see baseball 1994 for reference). Fehr mised his option 2, by not asking for union decertification before the season started. This is not an option now, because the owners will cancel the season now if he tries that move, and its unlikely he can get a majority of his membership to vote for it anyhow. Fehr also miscalculated that public pressure would cause the owners to cave. This isn't the MLB, and the majority of Americans don't know or care that the NHL isn't playing games.

The tragic part of all of this is had Paul Kelly stayed as head of the NHLPA we would have never gone down this path. They would have settled for around 50/50, which is what Fehr will deliver when the dust clears, and no players would have lost a paycheck. The union brethren can thank those individuals who pushed Kelly out as the reason that all of this happened.

[no name]

If i am Fehr I would say we will sign the deal as is, if you give us 7 year contracts, just to shove that " we will die on that hill" comment made by Daly.

I hate the way the NHL makes the 5 year deals without it being tested out in a economic system. It seems like its a good theory, but i just think a whole new set of problem will arise. The next CBA will have owners calling for more economic revise.

[Sarcastic]

Well, one and the same. I think. Create doubt and divide players. That is sticking it to Fehr because I'm sure he told them that, no matter what, they have to stick together.

[Sarcastic]

I would stretch it to 7 years.

[Sarcastic]

You get a stud like Sid, you probably don't want him on the FA market in 5. Just my thinking. Maybe I don't get it.

[MRandall25]

You get a stud like Sid, you probably don't want him on the FA market in 5. Just my thinking. Maybe I don't get it.

Would the "You can extend a player a year before their contract expires" rule still be in play?

[Sarcastic]

You get a stud like Sid, you probably don't want him on the FA market in 5. Just my thinking. Maybe I don't get it.

Would the "You can extend a player a year before their contract expires" rule still be in play?

Yeah, I think that's a good rule. I just think that if you have a player you want, you don't want him to consider the FA market often.

In fact, let's reverse this. If salaries keep rising from year to year, why don't players want a shorter contract so they could sign a bigger one next time? Career-ending injuries don't happen often, as far as I remember.

Now I'm all confused.

[MRandall25]

You get a stud like Sid, you probably don't want him on the FA market in 5. Just my thinking. Maybe I don't get it.

Would the "You can extend a player a year before their contract expires" rule still be in play?

Yeah, I think that's a good rule. I just think that if you have a player you want, you don't want him to consider the FA market often.

In fact, let's reverse this. If salaries keep rising from year to year, why don't players want a shorter contract so they could sign a bigger one next time? Career-ending injuries don't happen often, as far as I remember.

Now I'm all confused.

But that's why the so called "middle class" of players doesn't want the short contracts. The Sidney Crosbys and the Brad Richards (since he's a good example of the reason the owners want the limits) will see their value rise and rise with the contract limits. There won't be money/cap space to pay the 2nd and 3rd liners (assuming players like Westgarth, Adams, etc. maintain their 500k salaries).

Instead of giving guys 13 year deals, teams are going to be throwing deals worth $13 mil (unless the owners have a plan for that, which we haven't seen) if salaries keep rising.

I think.

[tfrizz]

Shorter contract lengths a curse in disguise?

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/49008-Shorter-contract-lengths-would-be-curse-in-disguise.html#.UMKUVl_hqgk.twitter

I kinda agree with this, after a player plays out his contract he is not going to want to accept less. So even then he will want his next contract as high, even if a owners knows his best years are behind him.

Also i think this might pave the way for KHL teams who can make crazy long term offers to a player that he might concider.

I don't mind the players offer of the 25% rule, but i would rather that upped to 50%

This is especially true if the players do believe that the owners will be coming for an ever larger percentage of HRR when the next CBA expires. Everyone will be looking to cash in as much as possible.

[tfrizz]

Campoli brought up the issue of 5 year contracts killing the middle class, saying stars will decline discounts. I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

Other than him most likely being correct, there's no other way to feel about it.

[Malkamaniac]

Walsh on twitter is becoming absolutely unbearable. He's been attacking media guys nonstop.

[tfrizz]

I made a huge mistake... went to the comments section on TSN.ca

jonswift
4 hours ago
We always hear - what have the owner's given? When the last CBA was signed there was no intention for 20 year contracts to the age of 46 all front-loaded in the first 8 years. The agents/players found this loophole and have abused it. The owners could have made a huge issue but stayed within the confines of the agreed CBA waiting until this CBA to address. In this the owners have given a lot in the past 5 years.

Clearly taking roughly the same amount of money and spreading it out over more years was the doing of the players and their agents.


Or there's this one...

why so serious?
4 hours ago
Cheap PR stunt on Fehr's part running to cry to another union cause he thinks that's one of the few places on earth where he'll get sympathy. Really hope it backfires and some autoworker who busts his butt all year for what Gomez makes to float for a game calls the PA out for being so dumb and greedy, that would be awesome!

Despite the article clearly stating that Fehr received a standing ovation from the Canadian Auto Workers Union.



I really feel like I get dumber every time I go there.....

[tfrizz]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl-lock ... _response/

Could be. Could be that Bettman desperately misses all of those nights at the rink. Could be, also, that he doesn’t like the idea of having “Only Sports Commissioner Ever To Lose Two Full Seasons To Owner Lockouts” engraved on his tombstone.

But here’s an alternate explanation.

What set Bettman off was staring across the bargaining table at his mirror image.

Ask anyone who has had to haggle out a deal with Bettman behind closed doors and they’ll paint a picture of a brilliant, calculating and ruthless negotiator, who seizes every advantage, who when presented with an opportunity goes straight for the kill. He understands his opposition’s weak points, he knows his side’s strengths, and with a cool head and cold eyes he calculates the path to victory. That’s one reason why his employers, the owners, love him, and pay him the big bucks.

Consider the last NHL labour negotiations in 2004 and 2005. Employing classic divide and conquer tactics, understanding that hockey players in their hearts still feel darned lucky to be playing a game for a living, seeing the cracks in the infrastructure around Bob Goodenow, Bettman soon enough had the union membership enthusiastically sticking knives in the back of their own leader.

And the tipping point of that process?

When the players offered up a 24 per cent salary roll back to avoid a salary cap, and Bettman and the owners gratefully accepted their generosity as a starting point, and then ground them into the dust.

The players hired Donald Fehr as their union head because he is Bettman’s equal. He is there to guard them against falling prey to their own sentimentality about the game, to protect their interests in a negotiation in which everyone understood that they would be giving back, would be surrendering rights and surrendering money guaranteed in the previous collective agreement.

And interesting take, and it certainly seems apt. As some people have alluded to, the lockout seems to be more about two egos going at it (Bettman vs Fehr) and hockey is simply a casualty of the war.

[Sarcastic]

But it is the stars that get long contracts. You're not going to see Dupuis with one over 5 years. So I would think it's the stars who get the 10 year/$100 million deals that are fighting to extent contract length. Not the mid and low level players. My guess is that the higher paid players convinced a number of the lower paid guys that their (stars') contracts may affect theirs.

I don't think it's the low level guys who are holding things in place. It's the big players.

[Idoit40fans]

It is close. The owners are trying to break the Union.

They've done this 3 times since negotiations began. It's a bluff and the players aren't calling it (nor should they).

Break the union not really, stick it to Don Fehr most definitely. The more militant union members who remember the last lockout wanted revenge and brought in the hired gun Fehr to handle things. Too bad the owners locked the players out because they took away Fehr's first option which would have been to start the season under the old CBA, and then called a strike just before the playoffs when no progress on a new agreement was made (see baseball 1994 for reference). Fehr mised his option 2, by not asking for union decertification before the season started. This is not an option now, because the owners will cancel the season now if he tries that move, and its unlikely he can get a majority of his membership to vote for it anyhow. Fehr also miscalculated that public pressure would cause the owners to cave. This isn't the MLB, and the majority of Americans don't know or care that the NHL isn't playing games.

The tragic part of all of this is had Paul Kelly stayed as head of the NHLPA we would have never gone down this path. They would have settled for around 50/50, which is what Fehr will deliver when the dust clears, and no players would have lost a paycheck. The union brethren can thank those individuals who pushed Kelly out as the reason that all of this happened.

No. Without question, they are trying to break the Union.

If they played this season under the old CBA, there would have been no strike before the playoffs, because that would have been in violation of the CBA.

[tfrizz]

But it is the stars that get long contracts. You're not going to see Dupuis with one over 5 years. So I would think it's the stars who get the 10 year/$100 million deals that are fighting to extent contract length. Not the mid and low level players. My guess is that the higher paid players convinced a number of the lower paid guys that their (stars') contracts may affect theirs.

I don't think it's the low level guys who are holding things in place. It's the big players.

The idea is that the money remains pretty well the same in those cap circumvention deals, so by extending the length they are able to lower the cap hit. A lot of those contracts go to the extremes, but they do open up a little more room for the little guys.

I'll use Kovalchuk's contract as an example, even it it's structured a bit differently. Kovalchuk has 3 years at a $1-million salary in his current 15-year contract. The assumption being made is that without those 3 years, the $3-million would simply be spread into other years. So instead of the contract being $100-million over 15 years ($6.67-million AAV) he'd be earning $100-million over 12 years ($8.33-million AAV). That extra $1.66-million per year in cap space can play a pretty big role in signing/upgrading players.

[Gaucho]

Fehr would like to get back to the bargaining table, but says it's "up to them".

Daly would like to get back to the bargaining table, but says it's "up to them".

What is this, kindergarden?

[Idoit40fans]

Fehr would like to get back to the bargaining table, but says it's "up to them".

Daly would like to get back to the bargaining table, but says it's "up to them".

What is this, kindergarden?

Daly has said its up to them? The owners are the only ones who have ever ceased communication. I've never heard them say that they were waiting on the players either.