Lockout

[OnAFly]

Russo's STrib article is all doom and gloom. He thinks both sides are in this for the long haul and will dig in until the other caves.

The thing that bugs me is that the NHL has made some concessions. They started at an unrealistic point and moved closer to the middle. The response from the NHLPA was basically "We won't bother discussing anything less than what we get now, in fact we want more."

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the players here. They chose to hire Fehr, now we're going to have a lockout as everyone predicted the day he was hired. The guy doesn't want what is best for the league and players in the long run, he only wants as much as he can force the NHL to give the players right now, even if it's detrimental to the league as a whole.

The guy would rather see the players get a penny more and the league go belly up than the players take a penny cut and the league stay healthy.

[mr_jman]

Looks as if the Lockout is all but a guarantee now... Hope they can get something figured out and at least have A season this year of some length.

[archerystud]

I think both sides are going to dig in for a little while. I suspect some movement in Nov and Dec but then they will cancel the season.

At least we have college hockey here to watch!!! Better game anyway IMO.

[OnAFly]

Last time they waited til Feb 16th to officially cancel the season. We'll see if it makes it that far this time. Hopefully this one is backed by posturing and we'll be watching NHL hockey here in a couple months.

Who knows.

[mulefarm]

Have to side with the players on this one. The players were willing to continue under old agreement and to continue negotiating. The owners found ways to get around the last contract and signed players to ridiculous long term contracts, in fact they did right up to the lockout. The players conceded a lot on the last CBA and are willing to give some this time. I think the entry level and years to become a free agent are major sticking points, more than the percent of money each gets. Time for Bettman to hit the road, he is really a clown.

[OnAFly]

Well, Bettman certainly isn't a very warm and fuzzy guy, he definitely has the snake-oil salesman feel to him, but you can't argue with 7% growth on average over 8 years. Fact of the matter is, he's grown the league well and the sport is gaining recognition. On the other hand, he's had his screw ups to with clubs like Poenix, Columbus, and Atlanta.

8 years ago, we got the cap in place and the NHL is in a much better position than what it was heading towards without it. The cap now is to the point that the owners can really hurt themselves with super long, expensive contracts (I'm talking about you Craig Leopold). If the leagues lets that cap grow faster than the owners can afford, we wind up in the same position.

Yeah, it sucks, but the players need to understand that if the owners aren't making money now, the players won't make money in the future. If they can come up with something that makes the players take a smaller percentage of a larger number (overall revenue), they will ake more money in the future than they are now.

To sum it up, I would rather take 50% of $4Billion than 57% of $3.5Billion. I think that's the message the league is trying to send the players. Though, there are other points like the contract lengths and RFA numbers like you stated.

[archerystud]

Yeah, it sucks, but the players need to understand that if the owners aren't making money now, the players won't make money in the future.

OnAFly hit the nail on the head. Revenues may be up but so are expenses.

The article I just read said that in 2009-2010 16 teams lost money. Sure they could have played this season on the old contract but we would just be where we are next year. Just comes a year sooner.

[mulefarm]

Please explain to me if all these teams are losing money, why are they siging long term contracts with much of the money on the front end? They maybe losing money on paper, but my guess is the owners didn't become rich by spending their own money. With the depreciation of players and related expenses I doubt that any of them have put personal money into their team. They have a salary cap now and are finding loopholes in how to get around it!

[archerystud]

In sports if your team is losing money there are probably only 2 ways to fix it, either spend less or put a better product out there.

Spending less does okay in the short term but how does it affect your fan base in the long term? I also believe there is a salary cap minimum but I'm not positive.

Most sports owner try and improve their product (and bring in better players) to increase fan support. In hockey it's very tough to improve your product quickly when you are drafting 16 and 17 year old players through the draft. However as the Wild's former GM proved you can pretty much decimate your young talent by drafting poorly.

So now your going after players in which other teams are offering long term contracts. How are you supposed to land those players?

The only way to insure it is to have rules in place that all the owners will abide by.

[OnAFly]

The loopholes are one of the things needing to be fixed. Contacts like Kovalchuck's initial contract which took him out to playing when he would be 45 and getting paid $100K are obviously there to undermine the cap. We did it with Suter and Parise, Vancouver did it with Luongo. Lot of teams have done it and it needs to stop.

As for the owners spending tons of money that they might not necessarily be fully responsible for, does it matter? If the team has no money the team has no money, regardless of who it's backed by.

At the end of the day if the players want to make money, the teams have to make money.

[Bear55]

Owners need rules to control themselves, they can be their own worst enemies. Its hard to blame the players for accepting large bloated contracts, and it is also hard to blame the owners for spending insain money to improve their team in an attempt to win the cup. The Wild did what I believe they had to do and spent crazy money to land some big time players, the players took home huge cash, everyone kind of wins until things get too crazy (now) and we end up in a lockout. They need to find some long term middle ground.

[OnAFly]

No real meetings for almost a week...this is sounding like the last lockout already.

[Stick in Mud]

Interesting thread, as one of those mostly casual fans who only watches hockey consistently (except for the Wild) near the end of the season, I'm quite disappointed that--with the new talent we signed--we'll potentially not be skating this year. I don't know enough about this issue to take a side--and I don't want to read a bunch of articles to figure out which side I'm on -- but it's definitely a bummer. I'm just hoping for the best.

[OnAFly]

It will be nearly 2 weeks between talks when the two sides get together on Friday. It's a good thing there is a sense of urgency here

[Bear55]

College hockey can't get here soon enough!

[cbrooks]

I haven't read all the comments... But does anyone else kind of get frustrated with these strikes happening in all sports in general? Its just stp.

[OnAFly]

As has been said by many angry hockey fans, it's millionaires fighting with billionaires over dollars and the fans are the ones getting punished.

[cbrooks]

I'm at a point of boycotting any professional sport that has a lock out now. There's always college to get my fix. Maybe a little crazy in my thinking.

[OnAFly]

I honestly looked into getting a package to stream AHL games...they want ~$300. You've got to be kidding me.

Maybe I'll look into streaming OHL or QJMHL games instead.

[Bear55]

Yep, I hear you guys. I was only half into the Wild anyway but pro sports in general is turning me off.

[OnAFly]

That's the thing. The people that are into the NHL will be into the NHL regardless. The people that are casual fans will stop watching. Once it resumes, they won't just jump back to watching. They will have found something else to fill that void. I hope the NHL and PA realize this. Having a lockout every 8th year is going to inhibit the growth of the sport, which is a huge deal to the NHL, players and owners.

[yakfisher]

Parise and Suter are geniuses. They have signed big deals just before each lockout. And the rookie deals pre lockout were significantly better than what they would have received the following year.

[solbes]

Regarding the casual fans, a lot of these are in warm weather geopgraphy locations (Florida, Carolina, etc). These are the same teams that are losing money today. You lose more of these fans and the slope gets steeper yet. When I was last in Miami, I saw ticket deals for the Panthers of buy 1, get 3 free. The strategy of pulling teams away from Canada and move to beach locations has always baffled me.

I do agree that the Toronto's, Vancouver's, Detroit's, and Philly's of the league will have fans return when the lockout ends. Minnesota too for the most part.

[archerystud]

At least the pro's have more time on their hands.....

Sidney Crosby was in Blaine the weekend watching his sister in a tournament. My son got a picture and some autographs.

[echotrail]

I was listening to KFAN yesterday afternoon, the Common Man show. (He iritates me most of the time). He said he has an inside source with knowledge the lockout will end on Wed 10/3. Hope he has a CRI on this.