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Lockout II - Moderated: Talk about your plenty, Talk about your ills...
Is tomorrow basically it as in salvaging a season?
They probably have about a month left to sign a deal. Once the new year rolls around, the season is as good as dead if a deal hasn't been signed or is very close to being signed (i.e. closer than it is now).
I don't see any way they wait until mid-February again. At that point we're talking about a 1.5 month season. The freaking playoffs would be longer than the regular season at that point.
Is player safety the elephant in the room regarding CBA negotiations? It seems to be a forgotten portion.
Quote:
Last month there was a major symposium at Toronto Western Hospital’s Krembil Neuroscience Centre. Marc Savard, the brilliant Boston Bruins centre who appears to have lost his career to a headhunter’s foolishness, has joined the advisory board of the Canadian Sports Concussion Project headed by Dr. Charles Tator. Other athletes, from football and hockey, are increasingly stepping forward in this project to tell their stories of the struggles they and their families have faced in dealing with the long-term effects of severe blows to the head.
And on Monday, Brain, a leading scientific journal, carried a report on the world’s largest study on concussions. Scientists at Boston University studied the brains of 85 athletes involved in high-impact sports and determined that 68 of them – including those of hockey players Reggie Fleming, Derek Boogard and Bob Probert – were found to show signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The long-term effects can be devastating.
“I don’t think we can ignore it any longer,” Lead author Anne McKee, a professor of neurology and pathology at the U.S. school told The Globe and Mail. “It’s not going to go away if we pretend it doesn’t exist. It does exist.”
At times last season more than $50mm of salaries were on IRs around the league due to concussion. Eliminating concussions might go a long way to cutting down the $182mm difference reported between league and union.
Is tomorrow basically it as in salvaging a season?
Not really...but if no traction is made the next couple of days with the BOG meeting coming up and the ability to start the season in time for the holidays then just hibernate until about a week before the drop-dead date because no progress will be made till then.
Just like Tom Gulutti called the Kovy reports baloney in the days before it actually happened
I've never actually heard much good from Russo. So I'm not sure about this other guy... but would be inclined to believe him before Russo.
__________________ "It’s not as if Donald Fehr was lying to us, several players said. Rather, it’s as if he has been economical with information, these players believe, not sharing facts these players consider to be vital."
Is player safety the elephant in the room regarding CBA negotiations? It seems to be a forgotten portion.
At times last season more than $50mm of salaries were on IRs around the league due to concussion. Eliminating concussions might go a long way to cutting down the $182mm difference reported between league and union.
Go back to leather pads and flexible boards and you might get somewhere on this issue. I really dont understand why some practical solutions arent discussed further.
There aren't many people I'd trust even a bit with that kind of news. This guy isn't one of them. Zero optimism due to this report.
That said, if he's correct he will gain instant-credibility from a ton of people. Seems like a hail mary from a guy who covers mostly MLB and NFL. He has nothing to lose.
He needed to make this negotiation about the past, not the future.
The best way to achieve that goal was to unite the players behind a secondary idea, the idea that the owners were and are lying to them at every turn, that they won’t bargain fairly, that the players are giving and giving more and more not getting anything in return, that Bettman and Jacobs and the rest of them are trying to take food off the table of today’s player and the player of the future.
It doesn’t have to be true to work.
Seems more like a pro owner piece, although Cox is usually level headed. Interesting take.
Man that's gotta be a tough sell for Fehr: how to convince the players that the owners arent lying to them, bargaining unfairly, and on a continual clawback quest even when revenues are rising.
Poor old Fehr, all he can sell the players is distrust, and with honest brokers like Bettman and Jacobs at the helm, its so hard to understand why. I mean they have been really nice and open and just trying to do whats good for fans and the game. Poor owners must be at a loss again - why do the players always do this to us, is it something we said?
It's not exactly a hard sell considering what happened in 2004, when the PA offered a 24% rollback as a substitute for a cap, then the owners started including that IN their cap proposals without any quid pro quo back the other way. Not to mention the owners' hiring a PR firm this year then days later all of a sudden coming up with 50-50 that gets public sentiment on their side while not giving the PA any reason to do that deal with the contract limits, FA being pushed back, etc.
I do agree that Fehr thrives on confrontation and the NHLPA on some level wanted a fight, as represented by the very hiring of Fehr. I don't think they had to be 'convinced' of anything. Cox is making it sound like Fehr brainwashed them into wanting a fight...if they didn't want a fight, why is Fehr the union head and not Paul Kelly?
Man that's gotta be a tough sell for Fehr: how to convince the players that the owners arent lying to them, bargaining unfairly, and on a continual clawback quest even when revenues are rising.
Poor old Fehr, all he can sell the players is distrust, and with honest brokers like Bettman and Jacobs at the helm, its so hard to understand why. I mean they have been really nice and open and just trying to do whats good for fans and the game. Poor owners must be at a loss again - why do the players always do this to us, is it something we said?
the NHL could have 4 billion in revenue but if the profit garnered for the entire league is still only 225m then it aint working
Gross revenue means nothing, if the profit margin is so scant that some franchises are juggling creditors.
The owners do not trust Fehr whatsoever and that is the other side of the coin and part of the reason why Fehr is painting the owners as duplicitous and the players as victims of the "greedy" owners.
As Cox states Fehr has made the negotiation more about the past and less about the future
While the pro-union will crowd will see this article simply as a pro owner piece which it really isn't. Cox's subtext is more or less, why does it seem the players can't get a break on the leadership that they themselves hire.
From Eagleson through Goodenow and onto to the mess that came after his ouster, to Don Fair, the players leadership never seems to have their best interest at heart and indeed work from a position that satisfies some kind of agenda unrelated to the real problems at hand
Daly denied the rumours of an imminent deal. His denial was absolute. I don't think he'd lie about that, instead of simply denying having any information.
Man that's gotta be a tough sell for Fehr: how to convince the players that the owners arent lying to them, bargaining unfairly, and on a continual clawback quest even when revenues are rising.
Poor old Fehr, all he can sell the players is distrust, and with honest brokers like Bettman and Jacobs at the helm, its so hard to understand why. I mean they have been really nice and open and just trying to do whats good for fans and the game. Poor owners must be at a loss again - why do the players always do this to us, is it something we said?
What part of offering the best revenue split in NA pro sports to the players in the poorest major league in NA pro sports in time for a full season is unfair? Because everything else is just satellite issues.
Daly denied the rumours of an imminent deal. His denial was absolute. I don't think he'd lie about that, instead of simply denying having any information.
=You really believe what Daly says? Common, he is the best liar around after Gary Bettman.
