What We Learned: Why canceling NHL games could give us the best season ever

22 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

We can all agree that there's no way the lockout ends in time for Gary Bettman's fictional 82-game full season, right?

They'd have to agree to the new CBA, like, as I'm writing this, for the Nov. 2 cutoff date to be met; and even then, it might be a stretch.

I know the League canceled the dates — not the games, an important distinction — through Nov. 1 on Friday. There are also rumors that when the next batch of cancellations comes, it could be larger than the two preceding it. At this point, I think I'm starting to be fine with that, because I came to the realization that a season shortened by 24 games could make for the best one ever.

I decided the other day that what I'd really like to see — and I know it'll never ever happen for a bunch of reasons — is for the NHL to go to a 58-game schedule, just this once. In it, each team could play every other team in the league twice, once at home, and once on the road. In a league that loves reminding everyone about its competitive balance, what better schedule could exist than that?

It solves a lot of problems about competitive balance as well. No longer would the Canucks, for example, get to beat up on Edmonton, Calgary, Minnesota and Colorado a combined 24 games a season as a means of padding their Presidents Trophy credentials while teams in the Central play their way through a 24-date divisional meat grinder.

This way, all 30 teams' playing field for making the playoffs and racking up wins over the course of a season becomes as level as it can possibly be.

(Coming Up: More Alex Ovechkin threats; Pascal Dupuis is fiscally responsible; Nik Kronwall, next captain of the Red Wings?; Predators talk lockout with fans; Don Cherry high on Habs; Islanders to Staten Island; Rich Clune picks the wrong fight; getting Scott Gomez to the Flames; goalie issues for the Blue Jackets and Flyers; and a beautiful goal from the NCAA.)

The Jets play the Oilers just as much as the Kings play the Panthers, and there can be little complaining about strength of schedule. Of course, injuries and other factors will play a part in individual contests, but over the course of 58 games, it works itself out.

This also preserves the slight randomness of what a shorter season can do to get teams into the playoffs when they otherwise might not have. The thing to remember is that playing 82 games gives you a really good idea of teams who deserve to be in the playoffs, so by definition playing 29 percent or so fewer makes it easier for more chaos.

Perhaps one reason it'll never happen is, of course, that teams will object to all the travel.

Even one two-week road trip that bumps six or seven Western Conference road opponents off the docket for teams in the East will be trying, and you know the Red Wings will have a lot to say about all of it as well. This also disproportionately plays to the advantage of Western Conference teams because when they come to the East Coast, they won't have nearly as much travel to deal with going from one city to the next. The NHLPA would probably kick up a bit of a stink about that, and the owners won't be happy to foot the bill for all that jet fuel.

The other issues is that games like, say, Toronto versus Montreal or Detroit versus Chicago (and so forth) are a big deal for this League; and only having two of them a year doesn't make much sense from either a publicity or financial perspective. That, and geography, are why so many long-time rivals are grouped together in the same division, and why there's an unbalanced schedule in the first place.

The upside, though, is that every fanbase gets to see every one of the league's best players and teams. No waiting another two years to see the Oilers kids, or Sid Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. You want to grow the game again? Make sure every fan gets an eyeful of the very best the league has to offer. This could also increase the potential for those home-and-home grudge matches for closer-together teams that don't always get to play each other.

There's no reason at all, for example, you couldn't have a Thursday/Saturday series between Pittsburgh and Detroit. And that would rule.

Again, it would be interesting to see the NHL adopt the schedule-making policies of other leagues, like those in soccer, just for a year. It works very, very well over there, and could work just as well here.

Of course, given that it makes even a little bit of sense, we can all rest assured that it can't happen. Not with these guys in charge.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Ducks prospect Nic Kerdiles had his full-season suspension reduced to 10 games by the NCAA, and an Anaheim executive says that's enough for the kid to stay in school and not jump to major juniors. Nonetheless, he won't get to start his freshman season until the end of November.

Boston Bruins: Here's a video of the Kings' Rich Clune biting off way more than he can chew in a game that ended up being Providence's first win of the season. Bobby Robins delivered a savage beating here.

Buffalo Sabres: Mikhail Grigorenko is making a joke out of the QMJHL, scoring 10 goals and 13 assists in the first 11 games of his season. Not bad for a 25-year-old.

Calgary Flames: The Flames, not unlike their northern Albertan neighbors, would really like to build a new rink. But given how things are going in Edmonton, they're really just sitting back and watching, and they're wise to do so. It's a very entertaining situation, after all.

Carolina Hurricanes: Justin Faulk is injured oh no oh no oh no. Oh wait. It's just a muscle strain and he's fine. Dodged a bullet there.

Chicago Blackhawks: Poor Carter Hutton. His Rockford IceHogs have played four games, and he's been very good, allowing just nine goals in that time. Nonetheless, the team is 0-3-1 because it has scored just five goals in those four games. Not good enough, Brandon Saad and Andrew Shaw.

Colorado Avalanche: Tyson Barrie had a goal and two assists in Lake Erie's win over Oklahoma City, which isn't such a bad team to do that against.

Columbus Blue Jackets: I clicked this link about the Blue Jackets' organizational depth expecting a laugh, and I was richly rewarded by that goaltending situation. Man, I almost forgot they were really willing to enter the season with a Sergei Bobrovsky/Steve Mason combo in net. Is there a place lower than 30th?

Dallas Stars: Not a good weekend for the Texas Stars' PK. It went 38 percent (killing 3 of 8) in a weekend sweep at the hands of Houston. Now, okay, Houston is super-talented. But try to keep the percentage above 50 for the rest of the season.

Detroit Red Wings presented by Amway: Could Nik Kronwall be the next captain of the Red Wings? I mean, he probably has enough frequent flyer miles saved up, right?

Edmonton Oilers: Ben Eager really hit a guy with a chair in a Toronto bar? That's not the Ben Eager I know. I'm still waiting for the police report to confirm whether the guy was facing away from him.

Florida Panthers: The San Antonio Rampage won 1-0 over Milwaukee. Wow, that Jacob Markstrom kid really is the future of the fra… what's that? Dov Grumet-Morris was in net? And Markstrom has a 3.01/.908 line this season? Hmm. Might wanna start looking into that Luongo situation again.

Los Angeles Kings: The LA Kings won something called the Mobile Excellence Award, so you know Matt Greene wasn't involved.

Minnesota Wild: Craig Leipold recently told a group of entrepreneurs that they have to come up with a "bodacious" idea to be successful. Yeah, like signing contracts in bad faith and almost single-handedly causing the lockout.

Montreal Canadiens: Don Cherry is hyped for the current Canadiens roster. Which is weird because I checked and there's only two Good Ontario Boys on it.

Nashville Predators: Someone tell Gary Bettman there were Preds employees who had the audacity to actually discuss the lockout with season-ticket holders. The nerve! Fine them into oblivion, Gary.

New Jersey Devils: This is pretty much the do-or-die, make-or-break season in Bobby Butler's career. So it doesn't bode well that he has a measly single assist through three games.

New York Islanders: The Islanders on Staten Island. That's a new one. Although, I do like the idea of them being straight from the slums of Shaolin.

New York Rangers: The Connecticut Whale are 0-3-1 to start the year, but at least Kyle Jean, a rookie and free agent signing, has six points in those four games.

Ottawa Senators: I love what a lunatic Robin Lehner is. He tried to fight two different guys, then settled for beating the hell out of Riku Helenius. (And sure the Senators blew that 5-0 lead but still, fun.)

Philadelphia Flyers: What a headline: "Is Ilya Bryzgalov's KHL inconsistency reason for concern?" Yeah I dunno what about his NHL inconsistency?

Phoenix Coyotes: Today is Day No. 73 since Jude LaCava of Fox 10 in Arizona said Greg Jamison would have the deal for the Coyotes sewn up within the next five days. And now, even Glendale's mayor is all like, "Yeah would it really be the worst thing in the world if they left though? Because, like, then we'd get to have libraries and stuff still. Do people like that? Libraries? I feel like they do. Anyway the no one cares about the Coyotes. Just think about it."

Pittsburgh Penguins: Pascal Dupuis has saved a lot of the several million dollars he's made in his 10-year NHL career and therefore isn't all that worried about money right now. What a concept.

San Jose Sharks: The Worcester Sharks have designs on making the AHL playoffs this season. Their coach, who's been behind the bench there for 15 seasons, thinks they have five or six 20-goal scorers on the roster.

St. Louis Blues: Actual hockey fan on seeing her first AHL fight: "I was like, yay!" That red-haired 10-year-old girl is part of the problem in hockey's culture of violence.

Tampa Bay Lightning: I swear if this lockout means we've seen the last of Marty St. Louis I'm gonna be pissed.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Clarke MacArthur knows what it is: "A week ago, it would be easy to get all excited. Then after this, you could be down in the dumps again." Blah.

Vancouver Canucks: Real nice goal from Zack Kassian in Friday's shootout win over Abbotsford (skip to 30 seconds in).

Washington Capitals: Alex Ovechkin is back to threatening to stay in the KHL. Big talk, bud. No one buys it.

Winnipeg Jets: The Jets may regret drafting Jacob Trouba? Because he might not one day be as good as Filip Forsberg could be? Oh boy are we ever in the middle of a lockout. (For the record, Trouba, a defenseman, has two goals and two assists as a freshman at the University of Michigan.)

Play of the Weekend

PRETTY NICE goal by Alex Petan of Michigan Tech, as the Huskies knocked off No. 1 Minnesota on Friday night. (They lost on Saturday, but that game was awful close too.)

Gold Star Award

Decent weekend for Justin Schultz. Three goals, two of them shorthanded, and an assist in two games. He now has 4-2-6 in four AHL games. That signing could work out okay for Edmonton.

Minus of the Weekend

Pierre LeBrun says he spoke with a team executive who says if there's no deal struck this week, you might as well go ahead and cancel the whole season. Good to see Gary's willing to negotiate.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User "noahhabib" is trying to infuriate two fanbases at once.

To Montreal:

Jay Bouwmeester

To Calgary:

Scott Gomez

Yeesh.

Signoff

Whatcha got under the foil, Mr. Party Pooper? Some party poop?

Ryan Lambert publishes hockey awesomeness almost never over at The Two-Line Pass. Check it out, why don't you? Or you can e-mail him and follow him on Twitter if you so desire.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Wings
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The Vent: Thanking Gary Bettman; if Drake rapped about the lockout

21 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

THE VENT is a forum for rants, raves, pleas and laments from hockey fans across the world about the NHL lockout. It runs every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. If you've got a take on the lockout and need to let it out, email us at .)

Reader Martin Devon would like to thank the commissioner for, ahem, readjusting the popularity of the NHL:

I'm a long time hockey fan who would like to thank Gary Bettman for his contribution to the game of hockey.

When I was 8 years old, my dad made a deal with me: If I did well in school, he would take me to see a real live hockey game at the Montreal Forum. I held up my end of the bargain, so my dad got tickets for us to see the Game 2 semi-final game against the Flyers. Back then (this was 40 years ago), getting a ticket to a Habs game at the Forum was impossible. God knows what he had to pay for the nosebleed seats we got.

I grew up, moved to Los Angeles and became an LA Kings fan, a totally different experience. Sure, the team didn't win, but there were compensations. I could actually see the game live without the aid of binoculars. Wow. I never realized how fast NHL'ers were. Or the how intense it is when a two players crash into the boards.

For my birthday, my wife got center ice, third row seats to see the Kings play the Habs. I thanked her profusely and she looked at me quizzically -- "what's the big deal?"  You could buy tickets on the glass for less than my dad paid for tickets in the rafters in Montreal. Finally I could enjoy great hockey in affordable seats. You didn't have noisy crowds to deal with. You could get a beer and a hot dog without waiting in a long line. You could get out of the parking lot quickly. What a joy!

But then Bruce McNall bought the team and brought that Gretzky fellow to play here. Oy!  Now it started to get crowded. You could get seats but it became much more expensive. It got worse when those party poopers Tim Leiweke and Dean Lombardi got involved. They had to move the team into a fancy new area. Then the SOB's crossed the line -- they built a strong team. Worse yet, the team put it all together and the Kings won the cup. Now LA is starting to have the same problems we used to have in Montreal.

The damn rink is so crowded. We have stupid parades down Figueroa street. People who never heard of hockey are starting to take an interest. "Hey what's that parade for?"  "What's that shiny silver cup for?" Shut up! Nothing to see here. Move along.

I had to wait 3 hours to get my damn picture taken with the cup. They even sold out season tickets this year! What the hell?

The Kings organization is ruining hockey for me. Hockey was supposed to be my private thing.

Enter my hero Gary Bettman to the rescue. He recognized that hockey is getting too popular and came up with the perfect solution -- the LOCKOUT!  Sure, it hasn't slowed down the popularity of hockey in Canada yet, but you have to give Gary time. It is already starting to work over here.

Did you know that there are only 4 more preseason basketball games before the NBA season starts? That first month where the Kings could market to fans before basketball starts? Gone. Meanwhile, the Lakers picked up Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to play with Kobe Bryant (Canadians, think Parise and Suter signing with Philly). Genius!  That's all you hear about anywhere. Sure, the sports radio guys were lamenting the lockout a bit this summer:

"Bummer about the Kings. I was just starting to learn about the sport. Seems like fun...oh well. After the break, we'll talk about how Lakers practice went. Stay tuned on ESPN710."

Hockey is fading away. If Gary can stretch the lockout to take out the whole year before you know it all those crowds will be gone, I can get my cheap glass seats again and enjoy hockey in peace and quiet as it was meant to be enjoyed.

Thank you Gary. I appreciate all your efforts. Don't think that they go unnoticed.

Kyle Allen wants you to run to your windows, open them up, stick your heads out and scream a now-cliché line from a classic 1975 Sidney Lumet film:

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a recession. Everybody's out of work and scared of losing their hockey. The dollar buys a nickel's worth of players, teams are going bust, fans wear a football jersey in public. Basketball fans are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the players make too much and their contracts are too long, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that CBA talks have ended without a deal, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my Playstation and my TV and my NHL 13 and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone!'

Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to the Board of Governors because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the Southern Expansion and the unrestricted free agency and the KHL and the cheap shots along the boards. All I know is that first you've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a hockey fan, goddammit! My life has value!"

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Reader Laurie Owens isn't pleased with the NHL's owners, and is wondering why the commish would dare court the rage of one Sidney Crosby:

Angry? Sad? Disappointed? Oh, all of effing above.

Who was throwing money around like Albert Haynesworth in a Vegas strip club? Um, quite a few NHL owners. So by paring down HRR (learning to hate those letters) and essentially adding a buyer's remorse clause, they are behaving like the arrogant a-holes that Gary Bettman really is. They have the power and control, but seem truly intent on using it for evil.

While it is their choice to play, the players are on the ice taking the risk. They don't know if tomorrow could be their last game or not.

How much did the pay Frank Luntz anyway? Was it worth the cost of a season? An entire fan base? I love hockey and will miss it greatly, but I am not willing to put a dime (US or Canadian) into the pockets of the owners while they carry out Gary's pricey ego trip gone terribly wrong.

Laurie

PS -- Gary has angered Sid. Really?? You want to piss off the face of your league?? It's only a matter of time before he goes to Russia to join Geno.

Via Jeanshorts and Bagged Milk ... this is dramatic. (One NSFW word in text.)

Reader Dallas King has a message for Gary Bettman on how the lockout really affects families and those who love the sport:

Dear Commissioner Gary Bettman:

My name is Dallas King, I live in west central Alberta and I am a DIE HARD OILERS fan! I am writing a detailed letter to vent my frustration with the NHL lockout.

I want to start with a little background. I am the oldest of 3 boys in my family, my father is a huge Oilers fan and he was so lucky to have 3 boys on the dates that he did. I was born in 1985, my middle brother Morgan born in 1988, and my youngest brother Graham born in 1990. Yes all three of those years were Edmonton Oiler Stanley Cup years. So to say the least we didn't have a chance who we were cheering for. So having grown up with such an influence from my father, it took the last lockout to realize where this came from and it broke my heart.

During the last lockout in 2004-2005 I came to notice something that I took for granted so many years before. A few years before the last lockout, my father's mom had passed away, so my grandfather was all alone. He was one of the biggest hockey fans I ever knew, and it was that tradition that he passed on to my dad who eventually passed on to me and my brothers. After my grandma passed away my grandpa just watched hockey, at night, during the day, on weekdays, on weekends, whenever he could he just watched any game that was on, it was like a getaway for him. On that 2004-2005 lockout year it all changed. The one thing that was a comfort to him, his passion was gone. He was lost, he could not watch the NHL that year. I noticed that he wasn't the same, he was getting old and couldn't do much, he moped around and I could tell it just killed him that there was no hockey. It broke my heart to see that, because this affects EVERYONE.

Fast forward to this year, and this lockout has brought a familiar situation. My mom's dad.

My mom's mom passed away 3 years ago, leaving my other grandpa all alone. I know that he is a hockey fan, maybe not to the extent of my grandpa I just previously talked about but I can't believe this is happening again!

This NHL lockout hits close to home just like the last one, as it becomes personal. I want to keep the tradition alive of being able to watch hockey with my grandpa as you never know how long you will have with that person.

So Gary Bettman, you see, this affects all people, all over the world. Not just the owners, or the players, or the people that work for the teams, or the players families, or the workers families, but the fans, and the tradition those fans are trying to keep alive. In the name of the fans please end this lockout.

Regards,

Dallas King

Finally, reader Bryan Vickroy of The Sports Bank was inspired by our own Harrison Mooney's "Lockout Man":

Being inspired by Harrison's splendid rendition of "Lockout Man" I have created my own lockout music. The following is an ode to the commish's desires of the current lockout. Enjoy "Garys Room", a hip check/R&B in the tune of "Marvins Room" by Drake. Enjoy.

And here you go:

Drake … GOOD CANADIAN BOY. (/DonCherry'd!)

Tags: , , , , , Reader, street
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Donald Fehr on NHL honoring full contracts, perception of fans that players are ‘greedy’

20 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

How contentious is the relationship between Donald Fehr and Gary Bettman at this point in the lockout?

Two weeks ago, the answer was that there was mutual animosity but nothing resembling the decade-long blood feud between Bettman and Bob Goodenow that manifested in the last work stoppage.

But after this week's failed negotiations in Toronto, it's getting a little nasty. To wit, Donald Fehr to the Ottawa Sun in their Q&A this morning:

"I don't go in for the very dramatic 'I am very disappointed' press conferences that other people engage in."

He's right: This was a tad dramatic. Maybe it was the creepy black backdrop.

The full details on the NHLPA's offer have been leaked to the media, and you can read them on USA Today's site. Please remember that the NHL was slammed by the players for making theirs public. Silly League: leak it next time. Here's Fehr's memo on the third option from the players:

Wrote Fehr: "This means that an individual player under an existing contract would receive the 13% segregated, plus a normal payment, subject to escrow, of 87% of his salary. A player with a new contract would have 100% of his salary subject to the 50-50 split. However, since the 13% of existing contracts are off the cap, this should create more cap space, which will be important as the cap will be squeezed. Over time, the existing contracts expire, and the share will fall towards 50%."

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly had publicly objected to this proposal, saying players would get a 56% to 57% share in the first year and he doubted that the split would ever reach 50-50.

Fehr and Bruce Garrioch had a conversation on Friday that you can read here, and there are a few reactions to it, beginning with:

• Stop with the history lessons. Just stop. Yes, the NHL's owners are likely influenced by the concessions won by their NBA brethren. Yes, their first offer to the players in July was a joke wrapped in a farce wrapped in a 24-percent rollback that set these talks back months due to its ridiculous demands. Yes, the basis for the owners' claims for contractual restrictions and suppression of salaries can be hypocritical and downright nonsensical.

But you know what? Their motivations aren't the issue.

You're not going to shame them into a resolution by repeatedly pointing out that the lockout is built on a shaky premise or that basketball did it first. We all know it is, and most of the owners know it to.

But on Oct. 20, we should be past the "why?" and deal with the "how?"

[Related: NHL and NHLPA wasting time with scare tactics and PR stunts]

• Two questions of note from the Garrioch interview, including this one that's frankly leading the witness a bit:

QMI: Why does the league not want to honour the deals that were signed?

FEHR: "They want to pay less money. That's all. It's really very simple: 'We've agreed to pay to the dollar all the contracts we've signed.' We've now decided that's more money than we'd like to pay.' The reason we made the last proposal the way we did was simply because they want to move toward 50-50. The players have already indicated they are willing to do that over time. The question is: Should you agree to honour the contracts you signed between now and then? Players think that's a straight-forward thing to do and not an unusual thing to do. It's sort of the way everybody does business."

The "make whole" provision the NHL proposed tries to give the owners what they want (an immediate reduction in player costs) and the players what they want (the full value of their contracts, through deferred payment). No one can blame the players for being suspicious or mistrustful about the League's proposal, because the NHL has done little to earn that trust in this negotiation or through its actions back in 2005.

That said, Nick Cotsonika nailed it: This was a path for the NHLPA to achieve its primary objective, and "they could have proposed that it come out of the owners' share instead. They didn't."

The players deserve the full value of their contracts, and any NHL proposal that doesn't achieve that is garbage. But there's no question the League's latest salvo showed a desire to fulfill that obligation through some creative accounting; it's just a matter of whether the numbers add up and who pays for it. Which is why the NHLPA should build off that idea. It has potential.

• This was also interesting, regarding the PR victory for the League this week in gaining major sympathy from the fans:

QMI: What's your message to fans who have spent the past couple of days calling players "greedy" after the 50-50 offer from the league?

FEHR: "It's pretty hard to treat seriously the notion that the athletes, who are the only people who anybody comes to watch, that they would be greedy in the face of a 24% reduction in their pay last time; billions of dollars went to the owners, not the players; seven years of record revenues that was more than anybody thought. The result of all that success is for the owners to say, 'OK, now we want to renegotiate all the contracts again and we want to lower them.' My message to the fans is: I don't think that characterization hits the facts very well. Hockey players are pretty down-to-earth people. That's why fans like and identify with them. They want to do the right thing. The right thing here happens to be proceeding in a way which is not merely, 'Oh the owners asked for billions of dollars I guess we have to give it to them because who are we? Hockey players.' "

Fehr is completely right here.

It's been stunning to witness fans and media turn off their brains and swallow up the NHL's talking points out of an insatiable desire to have an 82-game schedule. There's been way too much "oh, they went 50/50, take the deal boys!"; it's a sentiment that exists without regard for the contractual concessions the players would have to make, the revenue sharing system and other considerations that make "50/50" an unbalanced deal.

We ask these men to sacrifice their bodies on a nightly basis. We ask them to sweat and fight and bleed, to show resolve that many of us couldn't imagine having in pressure situations.

And then we expect them to fold like origami when the League finally makes a mature, quasi-equitable proposal?

Again, it's a credit to Bettman and the NHL (and Frank Luntz) that the proposal and the PR blitz worked this week. But like Fehr said: If you're a "greedy players" person, that characterization doesn't hit the facts very well.

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Tags: cap, , Donald Fehr, , , , , NHLPA, payment,
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NHL CBA blame games; USA hockey will never catch Canada (Puck Headlines)

19 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.

• Nicklas Backstrom joins hands with teammate Alex Ovechkin in celebration of having well-compensating jobs. [@plysenkov via alexovetjkin]

• Great stuff from professor James Mirtle on the NHLPA offers and how they attempt to approach 50/50. (Note: His post doesn't contain the third offer, which may or may not have been written on a cocktail napkin.) [Globe & Mail]

• Mark Spector drops the hammer on Gary Bettman: "Bettman, however, has reached critical mass as the owners' emissary. It was under him that the pendulum swung so far to the players' side that a year-long lockout was required. And even with a step that drastic, it's taking a third consecutive stoppage to get that pendulum back to 50/50. That's why he looks so tired. Why Bettman couldn't even muster up the stage presence to entertain the NHLPA offer over night before countering." [Sportsnet]

• Frank Seravalli on the lockout: "I can get behind the players' wanting every dollar of signed deals to be honored. Otherwise, owners who signed players to mega-deals this summer would not have been bargaining in good faith, knowing that they would be asking for a reduction in revenue sharing." [Philly.com]

• Shawn Horcoff doesn't believe the owners were negotiating in good faith: "There was no talk whatsoever, not even any communication among their own people in the room, among the owners. It was that quick. It didn't really matter what we had to say. Unless we totally accepted their deal, they weren't going to take it. Right away you could tell they're not serious."  [QMI]

• Check out the awesome check from Pat Sieloff in the OHL last night. [Buzzing The Net]

• The AHL is feeling pretty good about the lockout, with attendance up 5 percent. Said President Dave Andrews: "Clearly, we've had far more exposure than we normally have from the main-stream hockey media and, if the quality of your league in enhanced, more people attend the games," said Andrews. "There's about 100 players in our league now who would have been on an NHL roster at the start of the season." [Canada.com]

• Stack.com presents six reasons why USA Hockey will never catch Canada, including "Passion and Pressure": "Canada is expected to win at hockey, no matter whom they play. At the World Junior Championships in Buffalo in 2010, Canadians were lined up for miles to cross the border to watch their country play. During the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, an estimated 80 percent of the Canadian population watched the Gold medal game between Canada and the U.S. In America, the two biggest games in USA hockey history—the 2010 Gold medal game against Canada and the 1980 semi-final game against the Soviet Union—were not even aired live on a major TV network. In 2010,  NBC showed ice dancing over hockey." [Stack]

• Ellen Etchingham's feeling the expansion blues: "… if you're in one of those fortunate places where tickets are cheap and plentiful and you can't imagine life without going to NHL games multiple times a week, if you believe that NHL hockey should be brought to more people even if the product is barely worthy of the name, then riddle me this: where does it end? If two more teams is good, would not four more teams be better? If we want to keep the NHL in Phoenix and Nashville and Sunrise and Columbus, and have it also in Markham and Quebec, why not Hamilton and Seattle and Kansas City? Why not Tulsa? Hell, think big my friends, why not Honolulu? Why not just absorb the AHL in its entirety and have NHL hockey everywhere? If talent dilution is not a problem at 30 teams, and not at 32 teams, then when does it become one?" [Backhand Shelf]

• Kudos to the NHL for going purple on Spirit Day. [NHL.com]

• Connor McDavid is pretty good. [Hockey Primetime]

• The KHL is good hockey and bad business, which we believe automatically qualifies them for NHL revenue sharing. [National Post]

• Another good one from Backhand Shelf as 67Sound proposes a "make-whole" salary cap. [BS]

• Craig Conroy will get his number retired by Clarkson University. [Flames]

• Congrats to Scott Niedermayer for getting into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame. Now, name-check Tom Kurvers in the acceptance speech … [NHL.com]

• Finally, we give to you this Montreal hockey brawl, and at one point turns into a crazy pile-on. As opposed to a crazy pylon, which is Dion Phaneuf:

Tags: , , faith, , , , , , Stack, USA hockey
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Why NHL’s bad faith negotiating damages CBA talk progress (Trending Topics)

19 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

Trending Topics is a column that looks at the week in hockey, occasionally according to Twitter. If you're only going to comment to say how stupid Twitter is, why not just go have a good cry for the slow, sad death of your dear internet instead?

"[We're] going to get a deal done" - Gary Bettman to some dude, October 18, 2012, approximately 2:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

"We were done in an hour today because there was really nothing there." - Gary Bettman to reporters, October 18, 2012, 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Funny, that.

Why, it's almost like the NHL had no intention whatsoever of accepting whatever offer the NHL Players' Association put forward yesterday, and that everything it has done to this point has come as part of bad-faith negotiations disguised as platitudes about how much the fans matter and how important it is for them to get a deal done.

[Nick Cotsonika: Enough with the grudges and greed, get down to business and solve the CBA]

OK, maybe I shouldn't go that far. Getting a deal done is clearly on the League's to-do list, but getting one that in any way serves to protect even the slightest interest of the players (i.e. The Product) is something in which Bettman and the five or six guys driving this Cold War have no interest whatever. Period.

Let's put it this way: Both sides have likely always targeted a 50-50 endgame. How they eventually get there is the real issue, and some of the ancillary stuff — like what revenues they're going to be splitting right down the middle (but not really, wink-wink) and how players are able to actually earn money under that system — is very much up for debate.

So it should have come as no surprise to anyone on the entire planet that the League just happened that extend a 50-50 offer on Tuesday that was couched in a lot of the language uncovered by Deadspin's report on its B.S. focus groupery about 16 hours earlier.

Shared sacrifice, indeed.

Make no mistake, the League knows exactly why fans have been so quick to turn on it in this labor negotiation when they backed it near-uniformly in the last one: Its draconian power grab is as transparent as the Russian players' threat to stay in the KHL.

[Related: 'Not a good day' as NHL and NHLPA meet again, get nowhere]

That's why the Luntz Global questionnaire had all that stuff about "Which stuff about how greedy all the greedy owners are is the MOST true?" Because everyone saw through that first joke of a proposal this summer, and everyone saw through the petulant, teary-eyed foot-stomping about "The PA hasn't made an offer in weeks!!!"

To be totally clear here, the only thing Donald Fehr was brought in to do for the NHLPA was make sure the amputation wasn't as bad as the owners would have liked it to have been. Everyone involved, and even most who aren't, has always known that this deal, like the last CBA the players were bullied into signing, would end with the players losing money. Fehr's goal — and boy is it ever a crazy one — is to make sure the paycut they eventually take doesn't cost them anything that's already guaranteed in their current contracts. What a jerk. What a monster.

Yeah, 50-50 revenue splits in the NHL's deal sound super-fair, and so does increased revenue sharing (and, OK, so it's only like 80 percent of what the players wanted, but it's something). But when the owners are dictating what does and doesn't count as revenue that gets split, and oh by the way you guys have to pay for the "make-whole" issue yourselves because we're not getting involved in that … well, anyone with half a functioning brain can see that this in no way constitutes a good-faith offer.

Donald Fehr called it "borderline unfair" yesterday, and that sounds like a nice way of putting it.

[Also: The Vent: Fan cheers for Leafs to protest lockout; others plan a party]

Let's think about that 50-50 split critically, okay? The current split is 57-43 in favor of the players. We all know this. So the league is essentially asking for that 7 percent back — and in reality, it's a little more than 12 percent of what the players actually make — with what concessions going the other way. Did you guess, "Almost none?" Good job. No intention to honor contracts as currently written, no givebacks on free agency rights. Just suspension appeals going to someone other than Gary Bettman. Whoopie.

The point of the NHL's offer this week was to turn the conversation from, "Hahaha look at this stupid focus group garbage," to, "Aren't the players a bunch of jerks for trying to rob you of an 82-game season by not accepting our slightly-less-insulting-than-the-original offer? We sure think so."

To some extent, it worked. That's why they negotiated in public and put the whole thing, more or less, on its website, complete with a handy-dandy explanation of all the nice and cool things the NHL was offering. Not that there weren't some good things in there (some of which helped the teams that conformed to the league's war against cap-circumventing contracts in an entertaining and largely-acceptable way), but there certainly weren't enough that the players should have considered entertaining it for more than a minute.

[Sunaya Sapurji: Meet the most interesting man in junior hockey]

But again, it was a PR move, and so the NHLPA fought back in the only way it knew how, offering three proposals with all different terms, but two of them with revenue shares based on growth, rather than just flatly dropping to 50-50 as the NHL's does. The other, which they had to know the league would never accept under any circumstance, sure doesn't make Bettman look good. Basically, it said, "We'll go to 50-50 today if you give us the money you owe us on the current deals up front."

Oof. That last part really has to sting Bettman. The players were ready to capitulate to your 50-50 demands right away, as long as the owners you represent in all this gave them the money contractually owed them.

Instead you pitched a fit to the media and considered it to be in a different language than what you were asking.

This is, in the NHL's mind, not acceptable. Reason enough for Bettman to storm out of a Toronto office building after talking about how deeply disappointing all this non-capitulation is — and to be sure, that's the only thing he's upset about — then get in a hired car and take the first flight back to New York City. Second time in a row that's happened. All the PR spin in the world can't change the fact that it's the league, not the PA, that refuses to negotiate.

"There was nothing to talk about," Gary? Sounds to me like that's only because the things to talk about weren't exactly what you wanted to hear. Next time try holding your breath until your face turns blue. That'll show everyone that you and aren't being inflexible at all.

Don Fehr, the players, and the fans (one of whom you directly lied to less than two hours before your press conference) will know you mean business.

Pearls of Biz-dom
We all know that there isn't a better Twitter account out there than that of Paul Bissonnette. So why not find his best bit of advice on love, life and lappers from the last week?

BizNasty on the bright side: "Insult me all you want but I'm still tied for 1st in every single statistical category in the NHL right now."

If you've got something for Trending Topics, holla at Lambert on Twitter or . He'll even credit you so you get a thousand followers in one day and you'll become the most popular person on the Internet! You can also visit his blog if you're so inclined.

Tags: , , , , , , , standard
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‘Today is not a good day’, says Donald Fehr, as NHL, NHLPA meet again, get nowhere

18 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

Just prior to Thursday's meeting with the NHLPA, Gary Bettman was confronted by a hockey fan named Barry Murphy, who told the commissioner that, as a fan, he felt disrespected and neglected. "What are you going to do to show us you care about us?" Murphy asked Bettman, according to Elliotte Friedman.

"We're going to get a deal done," Bettman responded.

It was yet another reason for optimism ahead of the meeting, which was precipitated by the NHL's surprise proposal to the players on Tuesday, offering a 50/50 revenue split and the same definition of hockey-related revenue to the players, and a faint glimmer of hope to fans. Might Camps Fehr and Bettman find some middle ground Thursday?

Nope.

When the two sides emerged from the meeting just an hour later doing the Charlie Brown walk of sadness, it was clear things had gone badly. It was also clear, according to Bettman, that they weren't speaking the same language. From TSN:

"This is the best offer that we have to make," Bettman said of the proposal from the league earlier this week. "The fact is, we're nowhere close to what we proposed."

[...] "I don't know what the next step is," added Bettman. "I'm obviously very discouraged."

The players surprised the NHL with three offers. According to Bettman, none of them even began to approach the 50/50 revenue split of the NHL's most recent proposal.

One reason for that: the union wants all contracts honoured. In breaking down the latest breakdown in talks, Donald Fehr made specific mention of the deals signed this summer. "We'll get you to 50-50 but you have to agree to honor the contracts you have signed," he reportedly told Bettman.

According to Fehr, and in direct opposition to what Bettman told Barry Murphy, the players want to make a deal. Apparently, the owners don't. Fehr:

"The reason I say 'apparently they don't' is that after the proposal was made, they did what they have done before: they take very few minutes, they don't think about it, they don't analyze it, they don't talk to the other owners, they take less than 10 minutes... all three proposals are rejected in their entirety. And secondly, the proposal that we recently got is their best offer."

"They might be willing to tweak it around the edges -- a tweak is sort of a small and insubstantial thing, and they agreed -- but that's it, and that's what we're supposed to do."

"And when you think about it, if you assume that's their best offer, why in the world did we see it four weeks into a lockout? ... I can't answer that question."

Fehr summarized the meeting thusly: "The vibe we got was, unless you're prepared to sign with very minor variations, don't bother us.'"

The damning characterization of the NHL likely has something to do with combatting the way the NHL's proposal set the players up to look like the badguys.

Let's not fool ourselves. Disappointed though Bettman may be, he's nowhere near as disappointed as hockey fans are, and that was sort of the point. The NHL's offer was designed to stoke fan optimism and force the NHLPA to crush it, putting the pressure on the players to make concessions and save face.

In that sense, today went exactly how it was supposed to go, and I'd say Barry Murphy has every right to feel he just got the Cindy Lou Who treatment.

Unreported by Friedman: when Murphy asked, "Why are you stealing our Christmas tree?" Bettman responded, "I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear. I'll fix it up there. Then I'll bring it back here."

Now, the season dangles perilously on the edge of a metaphorical Mount Crumpit. For a deal to get done, someone's heart is going to have to grow three sizes.

"Today is not a good day," said Fehr. "It should have been, but it wasn't."

Tags: Barry Murphy, Donald Fehr, , , , , optimism, ,
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The Vent: Reaction to 50/50 offer; open letter to Gary Bettman

16 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

THE VENT is a forum for rants, raves, pleas and laments from hockey fans across the world about the NHL lockout. It runs every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. If you've got a take on the lockout and need to let it out, email us at .)

Here' is Andrea Gallo's letter that she sent to Commissioner Gary Bettman. It's a powerful one:

Dear Commissioner Bettman,

I'm a New York Rangers season ticket holder. I was so excited about their Spring run that I decided I'd write a book about following them this season. It's called "DIE-HARD: A dying fan's year of NHL hockey."

You see, I'm living with stage four stomach cancer, so I'm not sure if I'll expire before Brad Richards' contract does.

In the last 18 months, seeing hockey live with 18,200 close friends has been an honest-to-God life-affirming way to spend many of my evenings. Now I'm going to have to write on the LOSS of the pro game. Ugh.

Hockey runs deep in my blood. My father was a Bruins season ticket holder. When we moved to New York when I was ten, I picked up on the local kids' sports allegiances. He said to me "Well, at least you're Original Six." Even he could understand my infatuation with Jean Ratelle and the GAG Line. Of course, the Bruins were Bobby Orr's beasts back then and he must've thought my fandom was misguided.

I've taught my niece and nephew about the game and they've learned to love it too. Josh is a stat-head who plays fantasy hockey and thus knows more about the Western Conference than I do! Nina doesn't watch as much because since she was four, she's played organized hockey and would rather be on the ice. It's my pleasure to report that she's a Connecticut State High School hockey champ. As a third-liner, she'll never be elite, but it doesn't matter to her (or me.) She loves the teamwork, the comraderie, the rush up ice, the ref signaling a goal for her senior scorers, the handshakes after each contest.

And I know how she feels. After the game, I'll rush to hop on the uptown C to be home in time to watch the post-game interviews. Yep, the NHL employs the best athletes in the world. And there's nothing better than a glimpse into a winning lockerroom. And I NEED John Tortorella in my life!

We fans are going to miss all of that: The thrill and tension of the game, its speed, its rare hipchecks, the goal songs, the fans' chants, the players' personalities, even the stale popcorn leftover from the Knicks' previous game.

This is not to elicit sympathy. I'm 52 and have enjoyed the life I've wanted. Josh and I attended this year's Winter Classic in Philly. I've been the volunteer art director for Ice Hockey in Harlem for over a decade. I attended the Cup parade on June 17, 1994. I love this town so much that when I was laid off from on top of a prominent magazine's masthead in 2008, I got my license to be a tour guide. It's an enormous paycut, but it adds to my quality of life. When I'm on that big red bus passing MSG, I talk about the glories of the hometown team and enjoy being razzed by the Canadians on board.

Like many fans, I live a rich well-rounded life, but hockey is a HUGE part of it. Tonight, I'm heading to Hartford with other NYR diehards to cheer on Chris Kreider and welcome Jeff Beukeboom back into the NYR family. Tomorrow morning, Nina has a game I'll attend. Oh, I'll find hockey. And I'll enjoy it.

But tonight I'm going to miss seeing the Kings' banner go up, with my team in attendance. We'd be SO inspired by that. And Quick vs. Lundqvist? WHAT a match-up!

So, I don't know what more to say. Get a deal done, I guess. Like soon. My doctors have verified that I bleed blue. But now I'm blue for a terrible reason.

Please bring back the game we love too much.

Thank you,

Andrea

Not much more to say after that. Get it done for Andrea.

Here's Peter Santangeli on today's cautious optimism from the NHL's proposal:

This is a pretty good deal if you buy into the numerology that 50/50 is fair.

Where the owners sort of have the players over a barrel on this is that with this deal they are looking at a 10% delay in payment (with probably some risk to it if the repayment is growth based), but on the other hand, if they turn it down, they are kissing goodbye 1/2 of a season, the money from which they will likely never see again.

Long term, I think even most players will admit, 50/50 ends up being the deal. So as a player, are you willing to throw away 1/2 a years salary, and at what cost? If the alternative is a delay and some risk of %10 of your salary? It only really even seems to be a question for existing very long term contracts.

Very clever on the part of the owners to let just enough of the season get cancelled, while keeping the ability to bring it back as a bonus, that this looks good. Not dumb people.

Not at all. This offer had Lidstrom poke-check timing.

From reader Eric B., a Maryland alum (yea!) and a sci-fi nerd (double yea!) who is on his meds:

I took today off work, recovering from Wisdom tooth surgery.  Between the painkillers, no solid food, a mild fever, watching the Ice Breaker Tournament, the Oil Kings-Hitmen game, and old-school Transformers cartoons on DVR, I just awoke from the following dream:

I was in a board of governor's meeting. A major sticking point of the CBA negotiations was the league wanting to drop a player because he had a really stupid vehicle mode (some sort of Zamboni/cherry-picker thing), which was completely un-marketable.  A secondary concern was some shoddy, out-of-date stereo system the league wanted to put in all the arenas.

The Zamboni-bot would probably be a Autobot named "Steamer", and his mortal enemy would be a Decepticon that pretends to be an arena parking enforcement vehicle. At least that's how it worked in our Fan-Fic.

From John Muir, a New York Islanders fan:

Actually, more of a bittersweet realization...

"The League" is claiming losses of $350M (100 for pre-season, 250 for regular) from the games now cancelled. As much as I think this number is unadulterated crap, this really means that fans are KEEPING most of that $350M in THEIR pockets. How is this bad?

Regular humans can now put money towards getting through daily life (bills, car repair, tuition payments, etc) and not worry how attending the next game is going to impact their spending before the next paycheck. Yes, add in some sympathy for restaurant/bar owners and innocent arena staff who have no say in any sort of labor talks, yet are getting hosed on this as well. They have jobs that are directly or greatly influenced by a properly functioning league.

Right now I don't particularly miss professional hockey games. Will this change by New Year's? Probably. Still...how exactly am I supposed to feel slighted and enraged by the fact that I'm about to SAVE a few hundred bucks over the next 12 months?

Fan apathy has already been verbalized by Dark Helmet, "I knew it, I'm surrounded by a--holes."

Finally, here's the Hookdwinked Films boys with "More Things You Won't Hear During the NHL Lockout" … and bloopers!

Tags: Andrea Gallo, , , , holder, , new york rangers, ,
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Reaction to NHL’s proposal; don’t choke coaches; Andrew Ference, spin fighter (Puck Headlines)

16 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

• Struggling to decide which college hockey team you should cheer for? Let this chart, which was created using the science of emotion (i.e. not science) be your guide. Click to enlarge to readability. [Lost City of Bettman]

• Jesse Spector on the NHL's latest proposal: "There is Bettman's genius: By holding out until now to ask for what he really wants, to put a true first offer on the table rather than the wish lists the NHL has previously trotted out, he looks reasonable. And by putting a 10-day shelf life on the offer, Bettman addresses what has been a major annoyance for the league—the NHLPA slow-playing negotiations all summer long, going back to waiting a full month to make a counterproposal after the NHL came to the table with its initial desires." [Sporting News]

• Chemmy's not so into the proposal: "This does not seem like a genuine attempt to end the lockout. This seems like NHL owners are trying to win the PR war so they can wage an extended lockout and force NHLers into their terms. The NHL's offer was designed to get people excited about a season happening in much the same way that Luntz' coining of 'death panels' was designed to get people to dismiss health care reform in the US." [Pension Plan Puppets]

• Eric Duhatschek is a bummer: "It is easy to jump the gun in these situations. For proof, consider the events of December, 2004, when the NHLPA offered a 24 per cent rollback that felt as if it should get a deal done. It didn't. Instead, the two sides were still bickering two months later and then the season was eventually cancelled." [The Globe & Mail]

• How Tim Horton went from hockey sticks to stir sticks. [National Post]

• A Minnesota man was sentenced to six months in prison for choking in his son's hockey coach. See, you're not supposed to do that, is the thing. [Star Tribune]

• Calgary Flames' prospect Sven Baertschi is off to an amazing start in Abbotsford. [Calgary Herald]

• "We care about sport more than spin," said Andrew Ference, using spin. [CSNNE]

• Steve Dangle and Andrey Osadchenko are doing KHL highlight packages for the Nation Network. Here's Novokuznetsk versus St. Petersburg. The headshot at 0:52 is absolutely horrifying. [Leafs Nation]

• Mark Spector thinks it's time for Gary Bettman to go. He is the first person to think this. [Sportsnet]

• Why NHL fans should be rooting for the success of the KHL. [Pensburgh]

• The top 10 references to the Canucks in TV and film. I think every team blog should do one of these. Hockey teams show up in some strange places. [Canucks Army]

• Are NHL hockey players the toughest athletes? I'll say no, because ferret legging is a thing. [The Hockey Writers]

• In the wake of the NHL's latest offer, 7 steps the NHLPA can take to keep public perception on their side. [The Province]

• Getting a phone call from someone trying to sell you Blue Jackets tickets: offensive on so many levels right now. [Nightmare on Helm Street]

• Meanwhile, totally unrelated to public relations, NHL Green is the NHL's new sustainability blog. [NHL]

• Read H.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Fellowship of the Revenue'. [Lighthouse Hockey]

• And finally, enjoy this beauty of a shot from 17-year-old Dylan McLaughlin, who goes between-the-legs for the goal. [Buzzing the Net]

Tags: Andrew Ference, blog, , , NHLPA, , reaction, table,
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Shawn Horcoff: Gary Bettman’s ‘blatant lie’ about caring for NHL fans

16 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

You can understand Shawn Horcoff's frustration with the NHL lockout.

The Edmonton Oilers forward is 34 years old. He's scheduled to make a base salary of $6.0 million in 2012-13, and his annual wage tumbles to $4 million and then $3 million the final two years of his 6-year contract — and that's before whatever type of rollback the NHL ends up winning in this round of CBA talks.

Horcoff's deal is kind of creative accounting the owners and GMs perfected since the salary cap was implemented, and are now attempted to eliminate in this work stoppage. So he feeds from one hand and gets punched in the face by the other. It's rather jarring, we imagine.

So Horcoff, who has been an active member of the NHLPA, isn't a fan of the lockout. Or the NHL's brass. Or Gary Bettman and Bill Daly in particular, as he revealed to Craig Custance of ESPN.com on Monday:

"It's the same thing every time with the owners. [Commissioner Gary Bettman's] first defense is to cancel games and test the players. There's been no effort to negotiate on his stance. Their negotiation is 'The players have to come down to us or we're not moving at all,' " Horcoff told ESPN The Magazine. "Gary has forced the players' hand into this situation and frankly, he's [ticked] us off. I think at the start, that first offer they gave out, that was a big, big mistake on Gary's part."

Well, yeah. There's no question about that, given that the players still believe the NHL's offer includes a 24-percent rollback. It could be argued that the NHL's initial offer — made with an eye towards starting the talks — set the CBA negotiations back weeks, maybe months.

But Horcoff also doesn't buy that the NHL actually cares about the paying customer in this dispute.

From ESPN:

"I sit there and read Gary and Bill's comments about, 'We feel sorry for the fans.' Well, I find that really hard to believe," Horcoff said. "I think it's a blatant lie, personally. I don't feel they feel sorry for the fans at all. Gary feels like no matter what, [the fans are] going to come back and couldn't care less if they're frustrated with this. He's going to do what it takes to get the best deal and couldn't care less what they feel."

There are a few ways to read Gary Bettman's affinity for fans, or lack thereof. Does he take us for granted? Of course, as does the rest of the NHL, blind to the damage this work stoppage is doing to its core audience.

Does Gary Bettman care about what fans think? Not about him, for sure. But he does have a general interest in the fans' likes and dislikes about the game? Sure; why else hire Frank Luntz to find out what we believe during the lockout?

But to Horcoff's point: Does Gary Bettman feel sorry for the fans?

Probably as much as the players do.

s/t Kukla

Tags: , , , , , , , rollback, Shawn Horcoff,
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Good news, bad news on NHLPA’s CBA offer as talks with NHL continue Tuesday

15 Oct
2012
by in Fantasy Hockey, General

The NHL is headed to the NHLPA's turf for more collective bargaining on Tuesday, with the meetings taking place in Toronto.

So they're talking. Which is great. But about what?

One has to assume that core economic issues have been addressed in some fashion during their various talks about the ancillary stuff, but there hasn't been a session dedicated to the crux of the lockout in recent weeks.

[Also: 30 NHL team updates]

As John Shannon of Sportsnet wrote on Monday, it's a stalemate endorsed by the players:

How do we get to a compromise without Don Fehr or Gary Bettman losing face? The League maintains it is up to the Players to put the next offer on the table. Bettman and Daly snuck into town 10 days ago, and tried to pry one out of Fehr.

On their conference call on Friday, the players en masse reaffirmed to the executive director NOT to advance any offer unless the NHL shows something back first. The owners have always asked for some sort of salary adjustment. And if the players' proposal doesn't include such a rollback, then there is no point in talking. So much for compromise.

As Shannon notes, there's still a deep mistrust on the part of players that the NHL will take a mile if they give an inch; like when Bob Goodenow offered a 24-percent rollback on existing salaries in 2004, claimed a salary cap was a "non-starter" for the players and then had the NHLPA swallow both in the eventual settlement.

That said, a glimmer of hope from Darren Dreger of TSN:

Keep hearing about a radically different PA proposal. NHL also pondering its next move. It's all spin until a proposal is made.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) October 15, 2012

So that's good news. Sorta. Obviously, any players' offer is going to have preservation of current contracts at its core, and the NHL want a salary adjustment. So round and round we go …

Tags: , Darren Dreger, , , John Shannon, , , NHLPA, rollback, Turf
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