Lockout Discussion Thread 3.0
 

Is hockey back yet?

(Re-posting from last topic where it was the last post, neat discovery of mine...)

I have Roman Hamrlik's upper deck rookie card. On the front, it shows him as a freshed face rookie in the locker room. On the back, they ask him questions. One of the questions is "What advice would you like to give to kids growing up?".

His answer?

"Always stand up for yourself."

http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/...4926-631Bk.jpg


This isn't Roman Hamrlik being selfish. This is Roman Hamrlik standing up for himself and others and using his tenure in the league to express a sentiment shared by many who don't have his courage. This is also Roman Hamrlik showing that he had all he needed inside to be a great Hab. Wish we would have drafted him.

Hamrlik <3

I'm actually surprised that so many members here are supporting Hamrlik.

I am also on his side.

I hope Hamrlik plays in the league for a few more years, he's gained the respect of a lot of fans

that, you don't know.

Hamrlik is just being real. To me, it seems that no one is in a hurry to play hockey.

Bettman doesn't want to give the slightest opportunity for the players to come out as winners of this deal and the PA wants to make sure they don't lose out on anything at all, Fehr is just gonna delay this process until Bettman gives in, he doesn't care at all if there's hockey or not, he will not finish until he gets what he wants. Hence why, almost every counter-proposal of the NHLPA have been completely irrelevant.

I'm sorry guys, but Hamrlik is right; Fehr is not negociating. I'm not picking sides here, but I really don't understand people who thoroughly defend the PA when they've been acting like they don't even care. From day one it's been my personal view of things.


It's not all the players, Fehr is an s.o.b

meh, have yet to hear Hammer being OK with the 10/15% salary cut the owner wants...

it's easy to scream "I wanna play", especially for a 35+ player on the last year of his contract/career.

Nothing against the guy, 4th lockout/strike he's "part of", on his last legs, last year on his contract, I'd want to play too if I were him... but he isnt any more/less selfish than the others who are asking for Owners to honour contract they gave to players less than 6 months ago

It's not about selfishness. You could also call 23 year old players selfish against old guys like Hamrlik.

It's easy to miss Hamrlik's point when his opinion is categorized because of his age and what it represents.

He never said: "I want to play, fire Fehr, **** the union"

He said: "Fehr is not getting it done despite of what he said before the negociations"

Ain't that the truth?

It's simple the players only have to come up with a more sensitive deal in which they'll lose a little bit of money and when the time comes that they will sign a new contracts the owners and the GMs will give them more money than they're worth and everyone will be happy.

It pains me how much the players actually think that they are fighting for something important, I think they feel like oppressed blue collars fighting against their bosses when the reality is that for most of them their salary over 1 yr is more money than the average population will make in their entire lifetime.

It also bothers me that the owners who clearly are the ones who have the most to lose in this fight, because the lock-out will kill every bit of momentum and popularity hockey had garnered over the past years don't seem to be eager to see this conflict end rapidly.

They are probably unconscious of the fact that whatever deal is signed this year in two or three years from now they will end up paying more than they have before the lock-out.

So, what professional sport will return to Montreal the first?

Baseball, or hockey?

No, but peace in the Middle East seems closer than an NHL/NHLPA deal.

That is enormously sad.

Bettman has to try and keep 30 NHL owners happy not just 10 big markets and 10 mid sized ones. If the 10 smallest markets struggle under the new CBA then he ends up dealing with a mess like Phoenix which turns into a no win situation.

The players wouldn't lose much if they got a deal done halfway from the owners and the players offers. The biggest loss would be from games lost, mostly because Fehr would not negotiate until the lock out started. What a lot of players don;t realise is that if you lose a year in your prime at 25, you don't get that back by playing at 39.

I know the players needed better than the crappy union leaders they had the last CBA, but getting Fehr is just asking for a long labour stoppage for no good reason.

At the end of the day no other major sport with a cap pays the players anything close to 57% of revenue so it didn't take Einstein to figure out the owners wanted to get around 50%.

lol seriously?

They'll still be fighting in the Middle East 1,000 years from now, it's just what they do. Too many people that don't like each other and live too close to each other.

The players have been overpaid in recent years.

Gomez? Komisarek? Redden? please...

The NHLPA has lost perspective. They look greedy to me.

I'm just waiting for the season to be cancelled and hear the players union flip out.

I wonder who it is that signs these players to these deals. Who, oh who could it be?

Care to you help me look for him?

The possibility of decertification in interesting. I heard it called a "nuclear" option on either Sportsnet or TSN. Bob Mackenzie's comments on that possibility were interesting. It would be scary for both sides.

I don't think anyone has their heads around it yet. But it's not apples-to-apples with the NBA or NFL by any stretch, so players have to be careful about that.

Decertification would mean one of three things:
1) Owners motivated to get an agreement around similar to current parameters
2) Owners hold firm, essentially collude, and make players sweat for jobs
3) Franchises fold, union loses a number of jobs

Two of the three options are deadly for the PA. Tread lightly.

Decertification means no salary cap, true, but also no floor.

It means all RFAs become UFAs meaning somebody can snatch Subban from us at no cost. It also means we can snatch other teams RFAs at no cost.

- It means you don't have to guarantee new contracts.

- Or pay for transportation, medical fees or hotels on them.

- It means no minimum salary.

- It means that waivers are no longer active so you can send down players without having them being picked up. They can also not report, but then you can just fire them.

- The draft wouldn't exist anymore. Underafted or unsigned junior players would be UFA. I don't think that's a problem for the Habs, lots of young players would want to sign with us....

- There's also no longer a minimum age you can sign players at... so that 14 years old wonder kid who people expect to be the next Gretzky? Signed at 14. By us.

- ...and there's no longer a limit on number of contracts, so, lousy exemple, if the Habs wanted to give 10000 dollars to every player in the QMJHL to sign their rights over to the Habs, they could. A whole league for ourselves for less that Gomez costs!

I say decertify! We shouldn't give a ****! We'll be fine in a league without a union! Sure, Phoenix might go **** up, but who gives a ****? We're not the Expos here, we're the Yankees!

You can't paint 30 owners with the same brush because 1/4 of owners have signed horrible contracts. The small markets end up suffering because the big markets overpay and raise the market values.

I laughed and stole this for my facebook status.

Sounds like MLB, doesn't it...

At the cost of 1.5 billion per franchise.. Yeah ... Good luck :laugh:

I would have had some respect for the PA if they reprimanded Versteeg & White as much as they did Hamrlik. They are just wasting time and losing money. Recognition that 50/50 will be the end result is there, so why propose a veiled 50/50 as long as the bottom limit is the highest player portion paid. Yeah, that's digestible by the owners. Fools.

on top of my head, Minny with Suter/Parize , NJ with Kovalchuk, NYR with Gomez/Redden, Edm with Souray, Buff with Leino, NYI with a pretty long list, TB with Vinny, Philly with Bryzgalov, TML with Komisarek, Habs with a few as well, Pitt with Martin...

and there's a lot more... half of these overpaid players being signed by small market teams...

so really ?



reality is, it's f***ing simple: if you can't afford a 10 Mil player -> DONT SIGN ONE.