The problem is. Your dates for drop dead are right. But they are dates for when the puck has to be dropped for NHL games. Not dates for when a deal has to be reached. They need a week for training camp and at least 5 days for the CBA to be drawn up etc. So thats 12 days right there. Count back from at the LATEST the 19th. That leaves us with needing a CBA agreed upon by January 7th.
stop adding the 5 days for the cba to be drawn up, IT IS NOT NEEDED. the training camps or what ever you want to call it can be done while all the paper work/voting is being taken care of.
and you all will be suprised just how fast fehr moves once that deal is done in principle (the players do not care about the minor details, of the deal once fehr agree's to them so there is no need to inform them of the details.) considering basically the entire offseason is done already, there is not much of a learning curve the GM's, agents need also.
players will not be coming back to their teams and starting camp until AFTER the vote happens. I highly doubt the league takes Fehrs word. They will want the vote.
The NHL wants to start the season January 18th or 19th. A one week camp brings you to the 11th or 12th. Say 4 days for voting and paper work would bring you to January 7th or 8th.
So again, like i said, you are looking at about 1 more week they can negotiate based on the dates the NHL is looking at.
you do realize how much trouble fehr would get into if he back out of a deal in principle right? and i don't just mean with his own players, but with the courts (talk about negotiating in bad faith hmmm doesn't the nhl already have one of these against the nhlpa?), the fans, the nhl, the rest of the sporting world.
any one that thinks the players/owners would not be opening training camp before the vote happens are just plain paranoid. there is no way the players or owners loose out on another couple 100 million just to be safe as people are implying on this board it is complete sillyness to think that.
Its not wise at this moment to unnecessarily provoke the owners, not all of them are faceless corporations like Leafs, but hugely successful businessmen with huge egos just like players.. Make a misstep and make a major insult might provoke them to act like human beings and it wipes the whole season. And this is what i think will happen..
stop adding the 5 days for the cba to be drawn up, IT IS NOT NEEDED. the training camps or what ever you want to call it can be done while all the paper work/voting is being taken care of.
and you all will be suprised just how fast fehr moves once that deal is done in principle (the players do not care about the minor details, of the deal once fehr agree's to them so there is no need to inform them of the details.) considering basically the entire offseason is done already, there is not much of a learning curve the GM's, agents need also.
Its been stated many times by sources that there needs to be at least a couple days time frame for the CBA to be done up and THEN a week for training camp.
Here is something else interesting. If the players get their **** together and get something agreed to by Thursday. They can start a season on the 12th. Which would give the players an extra 100M this season.
Thursday is the 3rd. To the 12th, would be 9 days. So thats a couple days for the CBA and the week worth of training camp.
Te most ridiculous thing is the players will cost themselves the entire season, for one frikkin year on contracts? Completely asinine and I hope they do so they lose an entire yrs salary.
It's the exact opposite of greedy, however.
Hard to keep up with the rants. What are the players today--greedy, stupid, or being led around by Fehr?
Every time I come in here it continues to amaze me how people continue to blame the players for this.
The bulk of the blame here rests with Bettman. His first offer was ridiculous and a clear signal that he wanted a war... well, he got one. He's commandeered us to a strike or a lockout at the end of almost every contract expiration over the course of his career.
And btw, the problem is not how much players are making. The players have already agreed to a 50/50 split anyway... the real problem is revenue sharing. The NHL doesn't have the same kind of revenue sharing that other cap leagues do and it's why the game is in the state that it is. Until every team has the same opportunity to ice a winner you're going to have the imbalance that the owners continue to whine about.
If it were just the Leafs, Habs and Rangers would there be a problem? No. But unfortunately we're saddled with the teams that consistently lose money. Those teams MIGHT be able to get out of the whole if they could compete with the larger market teams if they had the same access to funds that the others do but that's not the case.
The latest contract will NOT solve these problems. These problems will remain until the next contract renewal comes up again and then we'll hear all over again how the Phoenix Coyotes are hemmoraging money season after season. And we'll hear this crap while the Leafs ownership sits there smoking hundred dollar bills.
The Leafs are worth a billion dollars for Pete's sake. What the hell do they need the cap for? They don't. So a cap doesn't make sense unless there's REAL revenue sharing to go along with it.
But the owners... don't want to talk about this. They want to solve this problem on the backs of the players and it's not going to work. Really the only way to solve it is to level the playing field. The players have actually been pretty reasonable and have been the ones giving up everything here. I was against them last time around but this time? I don't understand all the vitriol directed towards them when Bettman is the principal villain in all this.
Ah yes, another ill informed post from someone who has been paying zero attention. It's way too easy to just blame Bettman, but people who have no idea of what is going on have a tendency to do that and bring up the Phoenix Coyotes (who are in the situation they are in because of terrible management. Go look at how well the Coyotes were doing in the late 90s).
How are the owners solving their problems off the "backs of the players" as you allude to? They aren't gaining that much in dollars to justify playing in an uncapped league. Did you not pay any attention to 2005 and the quality of hockey before that or the ridiculous contracts being brandished by teams like the Rangers and Leafs?
The cap has resulted in more competitive hockey and emphasizes proper player development and homegrown talent. The Penguins, Wings, Hawks, Bruins, Flyers, Kings are some examples of teams who adjusted well for the cap. The Rangers slowly got around after they spent like fools on Gomez, Drury and Redden. The Leafs on the other hand are hopeless due to terrible management.
This isn't a fight over eliminating or restricting players' rights, it's about leveling the unbalanced scale of hockey related revenues that the players are collecting. A number of loopholes that were exposed in the previous CBA were exploited and abused by a handful of clubs and that is what caused this imbalance. Blame GMs, agents and certain owners for doing so. But I guess it is easier to point your finger at Bettman.
The NHL doesn't have the same kind of revenue sharing that other cap leagues do and it's why the game is in the state that it is.
The NHL doesn't have the same kind of revenue as other leagues, as the TV deal pales in comparison. Why? Forget casual fans, even most hardcore fans don't watch anyone but their own team on national TV. Which is why the same handful of teams are always on. Which doesn't help advertise that the NHL has teams outside of the northeast corridor in the league. But the northeast corridor is where most people live, which means most fans live there. But if even those fans won't watch the sport in general, who's going to give the NHL money to broadcast the games?
Revenue sharing isn't the problem. In relation to revenues NHL shares about the same as MLB and NBA.
NHL have agreed to at least $200M/year (it may be $220M) in revenue sharing. Let's say 15 teams get it. That means every team gets $13.3M/year. Realistically some will get less meaning some will get more. Assuming revenue stays the same it's at least 6% of revenue.
Meanwhile in NBA the most a team can get is $16M per year. How is that so different to NHL?
In baseball, $400M is shared from rich to poor teams. Total revenue for the league was $7.5B. That's 5.5% of revenue.
Can we please, with sugar on top, stop with the myth that NHL revenue shares much less than the other league? The only league that does revenue share significantly more is the NFL and they have so much in television revenue they can shower the teams in money and still be fine.
Its been stated many times by sources that there needs to be at least a couple days time frame for the CBA to be done up and THEN a week for training camp.
Here is something else interesting. If the players get their **** together and get something agreed to by Thursday. They can start a season on the 12th. Which would give the players an extra 100M this season.
Thursday is the 3rd. To the 12th, would be 9 days. So thats a couple days for the CBA and the week worth of training camp.
that wouldn't even be 2 days for the cba to be written up, how many days do you think it would take to get all of the players over from europe to canada/usa? i am guessing about atleast a day if not 2. oh look at that we are into training camps.
you do realize how much trouble fehr would get into if he back out of a deal in principle right? and i don't just mean with his own players, but with the courts (talk about negotiating in bad faith hmmm doesn't the nhl already have one of these against the nhlpa?), the fans, the nhl, the rest of the sporting world.
any one that thinks the players/owners would not be opening training camp before the vote happens are just plain paranoid. there is no way the players or owners loose out on another couple 100 million just to be safe as people are implying on this board it is complete sillyness to think that.
you do realize its not up to Fehr ultimately and the vote still has to happen. The NHL will not lift the lockout until its signed.
No one could say the NHLPA is negotiating in bad faith if they backed out. Thats why it needs to be voted on first and is why the NHL would want it voted and passed first. If it passed and then wasnt signed, then you could talk bad faith negotiating.
