Once again, the NHL has lost all its motives to strike a deal now. The union made the moderate owners run away, and now we are at the point where the league knows there won't be a season. Why else was Gary so angry last Thursday at the press conference. He knows it is over. The PA is just too asinine they have given up on the best deals they are going to get.
Or an alternative interpretation of last week's events.
The NHL brought in the so-called moderate owners after Bettman and Jacobs had played the bad cops. The good cop moderate owners with Bettman and the other owners backing were brought in to see if they could take one last crack at getting the union to crack or make more concessions. The well written statements supposedly written by the owners just before talks broke down were largely scripted and prepared in advance. Bettman got pissed at Fehr for his press conference stunt. The date that has always been in mind for the owners is a Jan 1st start date. The union hasn't cracked so it's time to get a deal done.
Full disclosure: this is all conjecture and your views may vary.
I love how the desertification talk has virtually gone away. The players have probably been told by Fehr and their lawyers that they waited too long and most judges would laugh them out of court leaving them with absolutely nothing to stand on. The players better wake up. They have once again shown the sporting world the hockey players not the smartest athletes around.
Fehr doesn't believe in it. He is 100% union. Fehr never decertified or disclaimed interest when he ran the MLB players association.
I think they'd put it on the table if Fehr came back and accepted the terms, but something tells me Fehr doesnt plan on doing that and this will just erupt again.
The thing is, aren't they at the point where there'd be no more meetings unless one group or the other did planned to give a bit more?
Again, if I was the players, I'd come back and give in on the 8 year deal in exchange for 7 year max contracts, for example. Or taken further, give them 8 years and give them their 5/7 max contract setup, but make them raise the cap and/or the make whole dollars.
I think that's maybe the only benefit to this latest staregy by the PA. You've got the NHL on record with the subset of their seemingly endless list of demands that they won't cave on. So give in on those and then double dip on the others.
CBA Exhibit 1 - Standard Players Contract
18. The Club and the Player severally and mutually promise and agree to be legally bound by the League Rules and by any Collective Bargaining Agreement that has been or may be entered into between the member clubs of the League and the NHLPA, and by all of the terms and provisions thereof, copies of which shall be open and available for inspection by the Club, its directors and officers, and the Player, at the main office of the League, the main office of the Club and the main office of the NHLPA. This SPC is entered into subject to the CBA between the NHL and the NHLPA and any provisions of this SPC inconsistent with such CBA are superseded by the provisions of the CBA.
How can anything supersede something that doesn't exist? If the previous CBA is null and void, how can some parts apply but others not?
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Originally Posted by HarryHabs
First of all, even in the previous CBA (2005-2012) the contracts were not guaranteed 100% either. It is what is called escrow, meaning if the player salaries during the season exceeded 57% of total league revenue projections, the players would give back money the following year in escrow payments. If the player salaries were less than 57%, they would receive that money back (just like this past year)
Then why are NHL contracts referred to as "guaranteed?" The escrow fund and owners not having to pay out contracts signed under the previous CBA (yet still have the players rights retained) isn't the same thing...
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Secondly, the reason the NHL was willing to give $300M was to aleviate the escrow payments that would result going from 57% of revenues to 50%. After 2-3 years, the league revenues would grow enough to cover all existing contracts or at the very least reduce escrow payments to the current level.
That's still not a guarantee of any sort, and the owners saying "Yeah, we'll pay (x)% of what we told you we'd pay you previously because we're not happy with the contracts that were handed out (even though we approved them)..." is a ****** way to do business in my opinion.
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Last but not least, the player agents knew exactly that the new CBA would look totally different, so they took advantage of that to get massive signing bonuses and huge front loading contracts. Both parties were at fault this summer.
I'll agree with that bolded part, but the contracts signed prior to this summer/season that were front-loaded with heavy signing bonuses weren't forced upon any team. As has been argued here before, if you can't afford the promised amount of the contract, don't sign someone to it.
Hamilton doesn't need an arena, Albany doesn't need an arena, the Phantoms don't need an arena, the Oil Kings don't need an arena, the Wolves don't need an arena, and XL Centre can host the Whalers. Original 6 ftw!
I would love to say a deal comes this week but I just don't see it. Nothing will be settled either way til late December. Either a deal or cancelled season.
Just because the offer is off the table, it doesn't mean that it is gone forever. Pretty sure if the PA was serious and want to renegotiate, the league and owners would be more than happy to bring back the offer.
I think they'd put it on the table if Fehr came back and accepted the terms, but something tells me Fehr doesnt plan on doing that and this will just erupt again.
But he won't. This tactic is to bring down the PA demands and then inevitably give it back to "make the deal". This is where I will back off my support for the owners, if it happens. I'm 100% behind the owners because they've played a lot less games than Fehr. They need to stay away from it here.
The right tactic would be to take it off the table and re-negotiate. That drives their bargaining chip so low. It's unfortunate, but Bettman warned them 3 times it was going to be taken off the table.
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Originally Posted by bp13
I'm going to respectfully disagree.
Despite the fact Bettman was shaking more than his usual shaking self last week when the took his proverbial ball and went home, I think these guys realize they're too close to let a season go. Moreover, taking their make whole offer off the table could obviously been conditional upon what they asked for in return for THAT package. In other words, I think make whole will be right back on the table so long as the players give up more.
I'm coming around to the owners in this, at least to the extent that the players need to make the next move. The owners have made clear what they must have, numerous times. I say the players give it, every little bit, then take their pound of flesh back elsewhere, either in the make whole, the cap total, %HRR, whatever.
I would love to see a vote by Thursday... but if we don't get it this week we are in trouble. Hope you are right.
Just because the offer is off the table, it doesn't mean that it is gone forever. Pretty sure if the PA was serious and want to renegotiate, the league and owners would be more than happy to bring back the offer.
It's largely semantics really. Once an offer is rejected then legally the offer doesn't stand.
Just because the offer is off the table, it doesn't mean that it is gone forever. Pretty sure if the PA was serious and want to renegotiate, the league and owners would be more than happy to bring back the offer.
I would be mightily surprised if the NHL offers $300M in make whole again.
Just because the offer is off the table, it doesn't mean that it is gone forever. Pretty sure if the PA was serious and want to renegotiate, the league and owners would be more than happy to bring back the offer.
I agree with this. I don't think ownership would be dumb enough to pull an offer, that they proposed, and let's face it, an offer the owners felt was a WIN for themselves, otherwise they wouldn't have offered it. The same offer, maybe with even a few sweeteners, will probably be the last offer the owners offer. The players will take it.
Let's say you and I are negotiating and I have an internal deadline of Feb.1 that I don't tell you about. But you guess that my deadline is somewhere around that date. And one thing you know is that you won't see my best offer until that date.
Now it's early December and I make you an offer. Do you accept it knowing that I haven't reached my own personal pressure point?
Let's say you choose not to because you strongly believe there's something better to come. Does that mean you are wasting time or does it mean you are just reacting to a negotiating partner that you know to be willing to waste time?
The problem is that with each cancelled game the offer has to get that much better to make it worth while. We are at the point that no offer the NHL would realistically give could make up for the amount of money lost to get it. It makes absolutely no sense.
It's just legalese saying all contracts are governed by each CBA subsequent to the one the contract was signed under.
It would be chaos to do it any other way.
Keep in mind, they can have exceptions if they are negotiated into the new CBA, but they're not automatic.
Okay, those are small, bite-sized words I can understand.
That still seems like a really, REALLY ****** way to have a contract structured. If it were me, I don't think I'd take the risk of having a contract that extended past the life of whatever current CBA there was.
Then again, I'm just a mindless "PA jockrider," so I suppose that's par for the course.
How can anything supersede something that doesn't exist? If the previous CBA is null and void, how can some parts apply but others not?
I'd wager that that the SPC states that if the active CBA between the NHL and NHLPA contradicts anything in the contract, what is in the CBA stands.
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Originally Posted by RedMenace
Then why are NHL contracts referred to as "guaranteed?" The escrow fund and owners not having to pay out contracts signed under the previous CBA (yet still have the players rights retained) isn't the same thing...
You can't cut players without buying them out.
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Originally Posted by RedMenace
That's still not a guarantee of any sort, and the owners saying "Yeah, we'll pay (x)% of what we told you we'd pay you previously because we're not happy with the contracts that were handed out (even though we approved them)..." is a ****** way to do business in my opinion.
The PA agreed to the above stipulation in the CBA, they knew about it or at least their agents should have told them, complaining about it now is part of theatrics that have been going on during the negotiations.
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Originally Posted by RedMenace
I'll agree with that bolded part, but the contracts signed prior to this summer/season that were front-loaded with heavy signing bonuses weren't forced upon any team. As has been argued here before, if you can't afford the promised amount of the contract, don't sign someone to it.
The signing bonuses were paid out.
If the PA didn't want SPCs that could have been changed by future CBA negotiations, they shouldn't have agreed to that during the last round of CBA negotiations.
I would love to say a deal comes this week but I just don't see it. Nothing will be settled either way til late December. Either a deal or cancelled season.
It's largely semantics really. Once an offer is rejected then legally the offer doesn't stand.
An offer can be rejected and still stand, but the original offer is terminated once a counter offer is made. The owners, for good measure, took the offer off the table before acceptance was delivered... That should have cleared up the situation for the players, but it apparently hasn't.
An offer can be rejected and still stand, but the original offer is terminated once a counter offer is made. The owners, for good measure, took the offer off the table before acceptance was conveyed... That should have cleared up the situation for the players, but it apparently hasn't.
No, outright rejection of an offer ends the offer. Once an offer is rejected you cannot then go back and accept it.
Wiki:
"2) Rejection: Once an offer is rejected by the offeree it can no longer be accepted. Rejection can take the form of an outright refusal or a counter-offer - that is, a purported acceptance but on different terms. "
In this case the NHL has said it is taking everything off the table. It doesn't really mean anything as legally the NHLPA could also strat over again. This isjust posturing by Bettman.
Winnipeg is dead because their arena only seats 15,000! 
