Best reason why the NHL won't be coming back this year (season)

[Spider-Dan]

Maine, that's a really lazy response.  I don't like Twinkies or Ho-Hos... does that mean I should keep my mouth shut about the Hostess strike?

More to the point: which part of my previous post applies differently to hockey than to football or basketball (two sports I do like and follow)?

[wyvernmcd]

If the players want to play for free, I'm sure the league would accomodate them.

I think I mentioned something close to this before that the NHL owners have brought up the idea of using replacement players (something the league commissioner is OK with. but the NHL board of governors has not approved (currently)) which would mean cheaper prices for the product on the ice. The complications for this currently would be to allow potential players that have no affiliations (whatsoever) to the NHL (example: college players that are not NHL drafted would be eligible as a "replacement player" in the eyes of the League). Any AHL, ECHL, and other directly related minor league NHL affiliates would not be due to signing a NHL related contract though not playing for the league (similar to MLB's minor league set-up of AAA, AA, and single A leagues in the US).

Most likely, this would make the sport a worse product to sell to potential future fans and would create more headaches (hard to believe, right...) in the long run.

[wyvernmcd]

The league pretty much wants to put rules in place to prevent stupid GM's from being stupid. "Contracts are too high and long"? Who gave them out? One of the bigger sticking points is the rolling back of contracts, even ones signed this offseason. Zach Parise and Ryan Sutter both signed matching deals for the Minnesota Wild. I doubt they agree to go there if they knew those salaries would be cut in half.

The Rick DiPietro contract (for me) started this "lifetime" contracts and extraordinary compensation pay with the Kolvachuck one whom is now a Devil until 2025 (provided there is a league to play in) which assumes he will be playing until he is 41 years old. Think that's likely??

Kolvachuck's contact was interesting because it was something that broke the League and CBA agreement but they (the Devils) went with it anyways and their penalty (other than money and lowering the contract value) was losing 1 draft pick of a year of the team's choosing. To me, they got off easy. I would have blocked all of their draft picks for that year to send a message about trying to circumvent these contracts.

If you have the free time, I implore you to go to capgeek.com with the below web addresses to get a better grasp on the money and contract terms:

http://www.capgeek.com/player/339 - Kovalchuck's (started the compensation manipulation process)
http://www.capgeek.com/player/1101 - DiPietro's 15 year contract (started the "lifetime contract")

I call this out because Kovalchuck's next 6 years of play are over 11 million dollars. If he can make it to the 2020-2021 season, his contract value will be $1 million for 3 seasons .

Something the previous CBA did not control, that needs to, is the compensation being badly manipulated in these "lifetime" contracts to how the money is being displaced to be under the cap (which varies depending on how well the League does financially).

Rather than standard compensation (kind of like an even pay scale under a negotiated time period excluding bonuses), they are getting the bulk of the money all up front at once and then tailing it off at the end. For players who are not the "superstar(s)" of their team, they will never get contracts like this where it is so dramatically tiered, yet I would think that most players would want to be paid the bulk of the contract amounts when they are younger so if they can't play when they are older, they don't financially lose out, so this is a problem the players and owners have put themselves into that they should have resolved but chose not to over the summer.

[wyvernmcd]

Courtesy of the CBC:

When the union suggested mediation, the league backed away from two extra weeks of cancellations. After watching Wednesday's farce, I kind of wish they'd done it. At least we'd be at the brink. Something would have to happen or the season would be over.

For the same reason, I'd like to see the players file their "Disclaimer of Interest." There is some nervousness about it, because the NHL will likely respond with the wrath of Zeus -- despite a worst-case scenario of billions in damages.

Whatever happens, it probably brings about the end of this -- one way or another. This is the most self-destructive behaviour ever, and I grew up with four teenage sisters.

So this, along with the "so-called" Just Drop It" movement, seems to indicate the "good feelings" Mr. Donald Fehr mentioned on Wednesday (which was actually BS), are making it seem that the "kill date" for the season (will be January 15th, 2013) could not get here fast enough while and the players and owners continue to fight with each other even after the car falls off the cliff (obviously not the fiscal cliff, but you get the idea). 

Anyone curious about the "just Drop It" movement can link to the article where I found it:
http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/blog/eye-on-hockey/21346631/nhl-lockout-video-fans-pledge-own-lockout-with-just-drop-it

Personally, I find 2 faults with this (the "movement"):
1. It should have started at the beginning of the season, rather than making a self pledge of cutting out the NHL from their personal lives for the number of games the NHL makes fans miss after December 21st (why that day???)
2. If and when the league comes back, I don't see them having such an issue that maybe 100 to 1000 people don't show up for a couple of games (this refers to the "you take one game from me, I'll take one game away from you" message). Tell me its 10,000 across all 30 arenas for ## days of the lockout (current day 89 of the lockout as of writing this), then this will send a message to the players and owners that they F-ed up by pissing their fans off.

Chances are, when the league comes back, rather than lowering prices, I see the prices going up further to compensate for "lost revenue during the lockout". Hey, its just a business, right?

[Landshark]

Now the NHLPA is looking to do the same thing the NFLPA is doing.  Decertify so they can allow players to sue the league.  I don't like this idea at all.  Either you are a union or you aren't.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/21/3151305/nhl-players-association-expected.html

[wyvernmcd]

This is the way I understood what is going on from the legal perspective:

While decertification is the players walking away from the union, a disclaimer of interest is the union walking away from the players. So a disclaimer of interest occurs when the union terminates its right to represent the players. It's also a less formal process than decertification. It can be as quick as Donald Fehr sending a letter to the commissioner's office declaring the NHLPA no longer represents the players as a bargaining agent. There's no vote, no petition and no decertification election.

- TSN.ca

The measure needs two-thirds approval to pass. If it does, the NHLPA — led by former baseball union boss Donald Fehr and his brother Steve — would have until Jan. 2 to file the disclaimer with the National Labor Relations Board.

The NHL is led by commissioner Gary Bettman, an attorney by trade who anticipates the measure passing and eventual decertification.

The league proactively filed a class-action complaint in New York Federal Court saying it has every right to lock out players in order to negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The league also filed an unfair labor charge with the NLRB.

- Miami Herald

To me, it sounds like a lot of law suits to pretty much wrap up any possibility of any season for this year and maybe next (depending on if the owners bring on replacement players) because a lot of revenue for the year is falling. Stores can't hand out NHL apparel for free (or darn near it) because no one is wanting to buy it (or take it). That along with ticket sales and season tickets they are refunding can hurt owners enough to basically walk away from organizations that they are supporting. To them (and all sports really), its a business and if they are losing their chance at a profit, they will just walk away from this and wont give it a second thought.

Also, the only players that have enough money to sue the NHL are the players with superstar contracts and superstar players. Most of the league is not made up of said superstar players so it does not seem to me that sue, sue, sue, is going to create a positive result for everyone else, just the top 1% players looking out for themselves.

[EDGECRUSHER]

Gary Bettman should be fired. Only in America can you do this poorly at your job and still keep it. Getting raises even. If the season is cancelled, and it will be, then that will be 2.5 seasons lost since 1995.

The biggest problem is Bettman keeps moving the league to markets it has no business being in like Arizona and Florida and then wants the higher revenue teams to cover their losses. The second biggest problem is that he is trying to make the rule idiot proof for all of the idiot GM's who hand out 15 years deals to mediocre goalies who keep getting injured. By lowering salaries and contract length and when players are eligible to be free agents, he is making it so a GM has very few opportunities to screw up and owners like that.

The players caved in 2004, they won't cave this year. Once Crosby moves to Europe or Russia and starts trying to get the puck past Henrik Lundqvist, more players will follow and that will be that. I don't want a season anyway. 48 games is too little and I personally don't recognize the Devils cup in 1995.

[Sunstroke]

I personally don't recognize the Devils cup in 1995...

I wasn't a hockey fan in the 90's, so I have to ask...

1) Did the NHL have a standard-length playoffs after the shortened '95 season? If so, why the Devils angst?
2) Would your position be different if your favorite team had won in 1995?

[EDGECRUSHER]

They had a regular playoff schedule, but only 48 games instead of 82. This year, the Kings didn't make the playoffs until the final game and they won the cup. Hockey is different from other sports because if you are faster or tougher than the other team, you can win if you aren't as talented. So, it's vital to play a full season to ensure the best best 16 (or close to it) get in. In a 48 game season, a slow start dooms you. The Rangers were the 8 seed in 1995 due to a poor start and they beat the hell out of the #1 season Quebec Nordiques (Colorado Avalanche).

If it were 70 games, it's tolerable, but not 48 or below.

I am a Rangers fan and right now they are a Top 3 favorite to win the Cup and I am PRAYING for no season because I wouldn't want a Cup with an asterisk next to it. It wouldn't be real to me.

The Heat's win counts because the basketball season is too long anyway and 66 games is fine.

[Spider-Dan]

They had a regular playoff schedule, but only 48 games instead of 82. This year, the Kings didn't make the playoffs until the final game and they won the cup. Hockey is different from other sports because if you are faster or tougher than the other team, you can win if you aren't as talented.

In what way is that different?  Less talented teams can win in every sport.  (And in most sports, being "faster" is considered a talent.)

So, it's vital to play a full season to ensure the best best 16 (or close to it) get in. In a 48 game season, a slow start dooms you. The Rangers were the 8 seed in 1995 due to a poor start and they beat the hell out of the #1 season Quebec Nordiques (Colorado Avalanche).

If you're going to discount '95 because the #1 seed got stomped by a #8, I've got some disappointing news for you about 2012, 2009, 2006, 2002, and 1998.

Higher ranked teams lose in the (unshortened) NHL playoffs all the time.  I have mentioned this in a previous thread.

[EDGECRUSHER]

I am not discounting it when a #1 seed goes down, just that the seeds were out of whack with talent due to the shortened season.

I am discounting it because the season was just too short. It doesn't show what teams really are. Some teams are flashy and can start off hot, but they can't handle the long grind of the season. That would be eliminated with a shorter season because they would be better rested.

It's just not real to me. I wouldn't recognize a 10 game NFL season either, regardless of whether the Dolphins won (which won't happen anyway).

[wyvernmcd]

from CBSSports.com

• This is so stupid. We are now 104 days into the NHL lockout, and 626 regular-season games have been missed. There's also the Winter Classic, which was scheduled for next week in Ann Arbor, Mich., as well as the NHL All-Star Weekend in Columbus.

I thought this part of the article was interesting. Despite a 48-game season not ending up to ba a satisfying and closer to a real schedule of physical and emotional tolls a regular full season has, there is still profit to be made

• Even though the NHL is looking at a potential 48-game season as a best-case scenario at this point, it would still stand to make a lot of money.

How much? Potentially 70-75 percent of the $3.3 billion that it made last season. Or, in other words, about $2.5 billion. How would the league not see its revenue take a significant drop despite losing half of its season? Because, as James Mirtle writes in the Globe and Mail, the playoffs would remain the same length (four best-of-seven rounds) and that is where the league makes the bulk of its cash.

"Unless you've had a fan revolt, unless you've had a large percentage of season-ticket holders cancel their tickets, you've got a base to get revenue from," Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, told Mirtle. "Sponsors are typically on long-term deals and still with you. Television and media-rights holders are all waiting for that content to come back. It's a formula that gives them some level of certainty ... and a huge drop would be shocking."

No wonder they don't seem to be in any rush to get back to the bargaining table and get this idiocy settled once and for all. (Courtesy of the Globe and Mail)

[Landshark]

Lockout is over

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/nhl-lockout-over-players-owners-reach-tentative-cba-102905515--nhl.html

[miamid45]

Should be an interesting season.  Every game is now meaningful.  Here in Montreal and the rest of Canada, the fans will come back...not so sure for many of the markets down South?

[EDGECRUSHER]

The non-traditional markets were struggling as is, I don't think the Panthers or Blue Jackets will match last year's attendance. Especially Columbus who traded away their best player for absolutely nothing because the GM held onto him for too long. As a Rangers fan, Great Trade 

This 48 game season favors the Rangers a lot actually because they grind a lot and wear their opponents down with hitting and blocked shots. With 34 fewer games, they won't be gassed like they were in last year's playoffs. So, this nonsense makes them even more of a Cup favorite now.