The players will eventually cave. They always do. Billionaires can wait out millionaires.
Sad part is, the average NHLer is the one taking the hit. Their careers average what, 5.5 years? For the rank and file player (non-star), missing a year is missing 20% of their career earnings. Fehr doesn't care about that, he cares about winning. Hopefully the players realize that sooner rather than later.
My Caps source tells me the league would take a 40 game regular season and playoffs to make a season happen this year. If it looks like that can't happen, I see it being completely cancelled, probably around Christmas/New Years time...
Yes they probably lose 20% of career earnings, but its the same effect if they take 22% paycut, saddest thing for the average nhl joe is that he will most likely lose 1 year of his career, and have to take a 22% paycut..
Yes they probably lose 20% of career earnings, but its the same effect if they take 22% paycut, saddest thing for the average nhl joe is that he will most likely lose 1 year of his career, and have to take a 22% paycut..
The difference between losing a season and accepting an (escrow controlled) rollback is that, in this case, the rollback would probably only happen for one season... maybe two if growth is poor due to the lockout. Losing 20% of one or two seasons is much better than losing 100% (or whatever it would actually be, given signing bonuses and whatnot) of one season, especially for guys with short careers.
The tradeoff is that it probably robs them of a bit of leverage the next time new CBA negotiations come around. But I can't see it being worth that much...
The Orioles are a treasure this year. It's like the 70's teams again (almost).
I can't believe how little I miss the Caps. I don't care about them at all.
Same here. I typically watch an average of 70 games a year in the regular season, the Caps not being on frees me up to watch more shows, or get stuff done. I thought I'd miss it but there's always stuff on TV.
Same here. I typically watch an average of 70 games a year in the regular season, the Caps not being on frees me up to watch more shows, or get stuff done. I thought I'd miss it but there's always stuff on TV.
Not like they were going anywhere this year anyway. Just moves us closer to the Kuz / Forsberg era!
Ha! I've paid 50x my share of dues with the Caps. I'll always pull for em' and hope they put a championship team together one day. But uh...I'm just not missing the mediocrity right now. The whole NHL has become mediocre, though. Watered down. Too many teams. Too much player movement. It's hard to care about players who blow in and out of town in a couple years. <shrug>
Ha! I've paid 50x my share of dues with the Caps. I'll always pull for em' and hope they put a championship team together one day. But uh...I'm just not missing the mediocrity right now. The whole NHL has become mediocre, though. Watered down. Too many teams. Too much player movement. It's hard to care about players who blow in and out of town in a couple years. <shrug>
Ha! I've paid 50x my share of dues with the Caps. I'll always pull for em' and hope they put a championship team together one day. But uh...I'm just not missing the mediocrity right now. The whole NHL has become mediocre, though. Watered down. Too many teams. Too much player movement. It's hard to care about players who blow in and out of town in a couple years. <shrug>
The core has been pretty much same for the last 5 years... Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin, Green. Then you have the fillers that change around, and are actually IMO a good part of the game, getting to learn about new players. Knuble... Fedorov... Kozlov...
Then the great young rookies... Alzner, Carlson, MoJo, Orlov... Hopefully Galiev this year if there is a season... Forsberg next year. Kuznetsov the year after.
@atlas, i understand that you dont like the team as it sits. ok. the orioles downright sucked for....how long? thats how you feel and thats ok.
my real question is, which caps players in the ovechkin era were players that blew in and out of town in a year or two that you cared about? just from my perspective i can only think of fedorov and knuble that were players that would be loved that left after a couple of years and both were players at the end of their careers who played out the end of their careers for the caps.
The core has been pretty much same for the last 5 years... Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin, Green. Then you have the fillers that change around, and are actually IMO a good part of the game, getting to learn about new players. Knuble... Fedorov... Kozlov...
Then the great young rookies... Alzner, Carlson, MoJo, Orlov... Hopefully Galiev this year if there is a season... Forsberg next year. Kuznetsov the year after.
Kuz will hardly be a rookie when he gets here. Basically like a (good) free agent pickup.
@atlas, i understand that you dont like the team as it sits. ok. the orioles downright sucked for....how long? thats how you feel and thats ok.
my real question is, which caps players in the ovechkin era were players that blew in and out of town in a year or two that you cared about? just from my perspective i can only think of fedorov and knuble that were players that would be loved that left after a couple of years and both were players at the end of their careers who played out the end of their careers for the caps.
Kuz will hardly be a rookie when he gets here. Basically like a (good) free agent pickup.
no...he will be a rookie. a better compare is that he would be like a college star that wanted to finish his college eligibility/degree before turning pro. many of those kinds of players step right into the nhl at a decent level like umberger and matt read, but they still made rookie mistakes and wore down like rookies. they were just more physically developed and could hold their own size wise with full grow men better.
make no mistake that playing khl hockey on the big sheet is nothing like the small ice game of the nhl. the speed of the game is totally different and its those things that rookies always have to adjust to. kuznetsov would be no different.
I'm sure it will change once October baseball is behind us, technically going as late as very early November, but for the life of me I haven't given one damn about this lockout so far. Total indifference.
