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The NHL 2012 off-season thread. Lockout over!

leekohler said:
Why do you insist it's the players who should be giving in? It's absolutely wrong for them to do so. They did it last time. If they give in again, how long do you think it will be before the owners pull this crap again?
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I'm not insisting anything Lee. I'm stating a predetermined fact. This has nothing to do with who is right or wrong. I know you aren't that naive This is business and all's fair.

The basis of any negotiation at this level is about who has the upper hand. In this case it is the owners. The reasons are simple:
  1. There are fewer of them. The smaller the herd of cats, the easier to manage. Don't underestimate this. It will ultimately be the PA's undoing.
  2. They have deeper pockets. Can wait for more time. Related to #1 -- some players have very deep pockets -- but not many of them.
  3. There were only a few teams "making money" anyway. The ones that were running **** businesses and losing money daily aren't losing as much now so they don't care. The few that were making money have so much of it that they don't care either... Owners that own the arena (like in Boston) can also do other things in that arena like have Celtics games or gymnastics or whatever. Hockey isn't the only use of many arenas (though others it is, I get it.)
  4. They own the infrastructure -- it's their game. And, if they don't bring the "ball" out, no one plays. The old term "it takes money to make money" is pertinent here. They've made the investment, they are the boss-man, they hold the cards. Yes, the workers can piss and moan but eventually they will be back.
  5. There are probably more but I can't waste time thinking about them
This is one analogy that works. If your boss came to you and said "sorry, starting tomorrow you are working for 20% less" you'd probably tell him to go screw. But, if you couldn't work anywhere else for nearly the same money -- meaning that all other jobs were a 50-100% pay cut -- what would you do? For a while you'd not work on principle "That guy isn't going to screw me" but at some point that will fall apart and most people would have to go back. In my case it is because I'd run out of money...

If my boss, who owns the company, is making $1M a year, I don't get to go hold him up to say that I should be making more in a fair and reasonable market. He'd tell me to bite it and get someone else. In the union world though, it's tougher to get someone else... But, as we've established, this is a monopoly. Eventually something has to give.

And, btw, when the company I work for loses money in any given year (known as RISK) I still get paid! Imagine that. Where is the risk in the players contracts to be demanding some % of the overall pie?

As it turns out, I side with the players for the same reasons that Surely mentioned earlier. But, the players have a big problem.

There are 4 groups of players:
  • The Elite - They've made enough money and probably never need to work again realistically. Many overlap with the next group as well.
  • The Ones that can play somewhere else - One Boston writers estimates this as 35-40% of the players
  • The "Poor" - not really but they don't make "much" money or are financially insolvent. (see the ESPN 30/30 show "broke")
  • The ones that are at the end of their careers - There's a group of people somewhere that only have 1-2 years left... they want to play
  • The rest - They might be able to hold out but now they are a minority compared to the other groups.

As I mentioned above, they've already started to fracture. Some of them GET to play -- they went to Europe/etc. so they are happy but most do not so they are the ones holding the NHLPA bag. This has got to piss a bunch of the "not able to play" group off. If this was a real union why would a bunch of guys go and get other jobs and leave their friends behind? What they are basically saying is "yes, we're a union but I'm going to do what's best for me." Don't be surprised when others in the union decide that what is best for them is to take 10-15% pay cut.

The players will hold out for a while but they will eventually crumble -- otherwise, I'll delete the post ;)
 
Yeah I would miss hockey but I wouldn't mind if they had another year lockout. It would save me some money and allow me to put it towards next years' tickets. At the end we would having something better financially and the league will hopefully be more healthy economically.
 
MooneyFlyer said:
I'm not insisting anything Lee. I'm stating a predetermined fact. This has nothing to do with who is right or wrong. I know you aren't that naive This is business and all's fair.

The basis of any negotiation at this level is about who has the upper hand. In this case it is the owners. The reasons are simple:
  1. There are fewer of them. The smaller the herd of cats, the easier to manage. Don't underestimate this. It will ultimately be the PA's undoing.
  2. They have deeper pockets. Can wait for more time. Related to #1 -- some players have very deep pockets -- but not many of them.
  3. There were only a few teams "making money" anyway. The ones that were running **** businesses and losing money daily aren't losing as much now so they don't care. The few that were making money have so much of it that they don't care either... Owners that own the arena (like in Boston) can also do other things in that arena like have Celtics games or gymnastics or whatever. Hockey isn't the only use of many arenas (though others it is, I get it.)
  4. They own the infrastructure -- it's their game. And, if they don't bring the "ball" out, no one plays. The old term "it takes money to make money" is pertinent here. They've made the investment, they are the boss-man, they hold the cards. Yes, the workers can piss and moan but eventually they will be back.
  5. There are probably more but I can't waste time thinking about them
This is one analogy that works. If your boss came to you and said "sorry, starting tomorrow you are working for 20% less" you'd probably tell him to go screw. But, if you couldn't work anywhere else for nearly the same money -- meaning that all other jobs were a 50-100% pay cut -- what would you do? For a while you'd not work on principle "That guy isn't going to screw me" but at some point that will fall apart and most people would have to go back. In my case it is because I'd run out of money...

If my boss, who owns the company, is making $1M a year, I don't get to go hold him up to say that I should be making more in a fair and reasonable market. He'd tell me to bite it and get someone else. In the union world though, it's tougher to get someone else... But, as we've established, this is a monopoly. Eventually something has to give.

And, btw, when the company I work for loses money in any given year (known as RISK) I still get paid! Imagine that. Where is the risk in the players contracts to be demanding some % of the overall pie?

As it turns out, I side with the players for the same reasons that Surely mentioned earlier. But, the players have a big problem.

There are 4 groups of players:
  • The Elite - They've made enough money and probably never need to work again realistically. Many overlap with the next group as well.
  • The Ones that can play somewhere else - One Boston writers estimates this as 35-40% of the players
  • The "Poor" - not really but they don't make "much" money or are financially insolvent. (see the ESPN 30/30 show "broke")
  • The ones that are at the end of their careers - There's a group of people somewhere that only have 1-2 years left... they want to play
  • The rest - They might be able to hold out but now they are a minority compared to the other groups.

As I mentioned above, they've already started to fracture. Some of them GET to play -- they went to Europe/etc. so they are happy but most do not so they are the ones holding the NHLPA bag. This has got to piss a bunch of the "not able to play" group off. If this was a real union why would a bunch of guys go and get other jobs and leave their friends behind? What they are basically saying is "yes, we're a union but I'm going to do what's best for me." Don't be surprised when others in the union decide that what is best for them is to take 10-15% pay cut.

The players will hold out for a while but they will eventually crumble -- otherwise, I'll delete the post ;)
Click to expand...

We'll see what happens. I contend the owners are also shooting themselves in the foot with where their money comes from in the first place, the people who pay to watch. Don't forget that very important group of people.
 
MooneyFlyer said:
If my boss, who owns the company, is making $1M a year, I don't get to go hold him up to say that I should be making more in a fair and reasonable market. He'd tell me to bite it and get someone else. In the union world though, it's tougher to get someone else... But, as we've established, this is a monopoly. Eventually something has to give.
Click to expand...

I'd say you're right for the most part, but here I don't agree.

The players stated before they were willing to continue to play under the now-expired CBA. The owners didn't want that and have locked them out.

Nowhere have the players asked for more than they were getting before. They have even made some concessions already in the negotiations.

The owners are expecting them to take ridiculously large concessions and have completely refused to budge at all in negotiations. That's not cool.
 
Surely said:
No they don't. Those contracts are legally binding. It doesn't matter that the CBA has expired. They can't just wash their hands of them. Those contracts aren't cancelled just because the CBA has expired. Once a new CBA is agreed on, those contracts will continue.

You can't compare your employment agreement with NHLers' contracts. If you are let go tomorrow, maybe you'll get some severance pay, or maybe you won't. Maybe you'll just get paid for the work you did up to the day you were let go. NHL players' contracts are guaranteed. If a team wants to "fire" a player, they still have to honor the rest of the contract or buy them out.

The fact that the owners were throwing around hundreds of millions of dollars in new, long term contracts just before the lockout started just reeks of bad faith on their part. It's just bad business. Don't give two players over $200 million and then complain that you have no money.



Most teams have plenty of revenue. And ticket prices have been going up and up and up since the last lockout (even though Bettman said they wouldn't). Yes, there are a handful of teams that aren't making much, if any, money (Columbus, Dallas, Florida, etc). Those teams should be forced to move or fold. If the NHL wants to keep those teams around, they need to try to do a better job of emulating the NFL's revenue sharing structure. That league can afford to keep teams in places like Green Bay and Buffalo because of their revenue sharing.

I'm pretty sick of both sides of this fight. I do have more sympathy for the players because they are the engine that drives the business. As others have said, fans don't pay to watch a team because it's owned by some really really rich guy or corporation. The owners are more in the wrong in this fight than the players.

The owners need the players and the players need the owners. Perhaps if they used that as a starting point, they could figure out a solution.

The way things are going, we'll have to wait for quite a while before either sides breaks.
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Without this turning into a PSRSI debate, I want to say that Italianblend is correct in some cases-at least in California.
http://business.ca.gov/StartaBusine...ploymentOpportunityLaws/AtWillEmployment.aspx


that aside I will say this-

No one made, Philly, Nashville and Minnesota make a mockery of their caps and free agency by signing those contracts. Columbus tried to do it for 4 months and got screwed. The owners demanded cost certainty and a cap last time and got it.

The owners have the most to loose here. They need their product to keep getting rich. They cannot afford to not have their stars. However, Europe will take our players-the KHL would love to keep Ovie, Malkin and Kovalchuk. That way they can find a way to keep them in Russia through the olympics so the players dont have to "defect" to Russia to play if we decide not to go (which won't happen). Guys like Couture, Hopkins, Eberle, Landskog can take over the AHL. Our players can play elsewhere. Whether or not they should and take someone else's job is a separate discussion.


My bottom-line point is this-

While we must maintain a competitive balance among the teams and work to keep all teams healthy, the NHL does not have to FDIC insure its teams. Competitive balance is not the same as cost certainty. Competitive balance is related, but you cannot stop a team from spending all their money on two guys and then having those two guys do nothing and the team be stuck with no cap room for a decade.
 
leekohler said:
We'll see what happens. I contend the owners are also shooting themselves in the foot with where their money comes from in the first place, the people who pay to watch. Don't forget that very important group of people.
Click to expand...

It's a good point but I don't think we actually matter. After the 2004 lockout hockey had the greatest increase in viewership, ticket sales, and ultimately revenue over the next 7 years. There's a good chance that this doesn't repeat but no one I know has given up their season tickets yet or has declared that they won't watch hockey.

I believe that the owners are banking on this. A short term loss for a long term huge gain. This strategy definitely has risk to it.

zioxide said:
I'd say you're right for the most part, but here I don't agree.

The players stated before they were willing to continue to play under the now-expired CBA. The owners didn't want that and have locked them out.

Nowhere have the players asked for more than they were getting before. They have even made some concessions already in the negotiations.

The owners are expecting them to take ridiculously large concessions and have completely refused to budge at all in negotiations. That's not cool.
Click to expand...

True - the players have not gone to ask the owners for more. That is a very fair point and I think you are right. But, the owners have moved from their original (ridiculous) position from what I read to another ridiculous position. I just don't feel like mining the facts to present them. I believe it was something like 57/43 initially to something better than that.

I still maintain my bottom line.
 
MooneyFlyer said:
True - the players have not gone to ask the owners for more. That is a very fair point and I think you are right. But, the owners have moved from their original (ridiculous) position from what I read to another ridiculous position. I just don't feel like mining the facts to present them. I believe it was something like 57/43 initially to something better than that.

I still maintain my bottom line.
Click to expand...

I just think it's ridiculous that they have and will probably spend more months screwing around and not getting **** done when it's pretty obvious they're going to come down to a 50/50 split in the end. That's what all the other major leagues do.

Meanwhile they sit around on their fat rich asses while all the minimum wage arena workers and people who work in the bars by the arenas are scraping by with half of their normal income to try to pay rent.
 
zioxide said:
I just think it's ridiculous that they have and will probably spend more months screwing around and not getting **** done when it's pretty obvious they're going to come down to a 50/50 split in the end. That's what all the other major leagues do.

Meanwhile they sit around on their fat rich asses while all the minimum wage arena workers and people who work in the bars by the arenas are scraping by with half of their normal income to try to pay rent.
Click to expand...

Greed doesn't care who gets hurt.
 
Teh Don Ditty said:
*humps Surely*
Click to expand...

Now that's the good stuff.



I like me some Bobby Ryan:

Anaheim Ducks winger Bobby Ryan told a New Jersey newspaper he will not "run from" the lockout and doesn't want to take anyone's job overseas.

"I'm going to continue to skate with the guys ... whether it's coming back here [to South Jersey] for a couple weeks at a time. ... I think it's important to stay here [in the United States] and be part of the solution and not just run from it," Ryan told New Jersey's Courier-Post.

Ryan also seemed to have a distaste for those players who signed deals in the KHL and other leagues are not supporting the NHLPA.

"I'm going to handle things the way I think things should be handled," Ryan said, according to the report.
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http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/19596/bobby-ryan-wont-run-from-lockout
 
Surely said:
I like me some Bobby Ryan:
http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/19596/bobby-ryan-wont-run-from-lockout
Click to expand...

I don't know if it's true for all of the European leagues, but for some of them (the KHL for sure), they added additional temporary roster spots for the lockout. So, at least for these teams, while an NHL player might be taking away some ice time in the games, they aren't actually costing any other player their jobs. These players are still on the teams, still go to all the practices, etc.

Not sure if all of the leagues are doing this the same way though.
 
zioxide said:
I don't know if it's true for all of the European leagues, but for some of them (the KHL for sure), they added additional temporary roster spots for the lockout. So, at least for these teams, while an NHL player might be taking away some ice time in the games, they aren't actually costing any other player their jobs. These players are still on the teams, still go to all the practices, etc.

Not sure if all of the leagues are doing this the same way though.
Click to expand...

Still not good enough, IMO. Just because they created extra roster spots so they could sign NHLers, doesn't mean they can dress more players during games. So the players who lost their spots are sitting in the press box watching instead of playing in games and adding to their point totals. The NHL players aren't just taking "some ice time in the games" away from the regular players- they're taking away the opportunity for those players to show that they deserve their next contracts. You can't really do that in practice. If those players are still getting paid then that's a good thing, but if they can't prove their worth because a bunch of millionaire hockey players from North America need to stay in shape, that's not cool.
 
zioxide said:
I'd say you're right for the most part, but here I don't agree.

The players stated before they were willing to continue to play under the now-expired CBA. The owners didn't want that and have locked them out.

Nowhere have the players asked for more than they were getting before. They have even made some concessions already in the negotiations.

The owners are expecting them to take ridiculously large concessions and have completely refused to budge at all in negotiations. That's not cool.
Click to expand...

Not quite. The players have asked for the same cut of the pie - a pie that is inevitably going to get bigger. Maybe not at the 7.1% annual rate the players are stating in their proposal, but there's nothing to say that revenue is going to stop increasing. So they are asking for more.

It's just annoying that it's most likely going to be a prolonged lockout for an easy agreement to come to - play next year at somewhere between 55-57% for the players and slowly decrease to 50 for multiple years at the end of the agreement, guarantee prior CBA contracts with some accounting wizardry (deferred bonuses, escrow caps, whatever), and that's all.
 
cuestakid said:
When he said that you can be fired at any time in CA.
Click to expand...

I didn't disagree with that (actually, I don't even remember him saying that), and I'm aware of at-will employment. I just stated that you can't compare a regular working guy's employment contract to an NHLer's contract.

An NHLer is going to get paid his full salary or a good portion of it, even if he's cut from the team. You can't say the same thing about a person with a regular job.


And you certainly messed up the quoted post. :p
 
Surely said:
I didn't disagree with that (actually, I don't even remember him saying that), and I'm aware of at-will employment. I just stated that you can't compare a regular working guy's employment contract to an NHLer's contract.

An NHLer is going to get paid his full salary or a good portion of it, even if he's cut from the team. You can't say the same thing about a person with a regular job.


And you certainly messed up the quoted post. :p
Click to expand...

My apologizes and we now return to our usual banter..
 
Surely said:
Now that's the good stuff.



I like me some Bobby Ryan:



http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/19596/bobby-ryan-wont-run-from-lockout
Click to expand...

As predicted, it starts -- and, more importantly, good for him.

But, others took after Bettman and the owners:

Chimera:
“I think there will be a season,” Chimera said, “but players are pretty adamant. The players are pretty unified. I don’t know if Gary thinks a lockout is another tool to help him. He’s the only guys in sports who seems to like lockouts.”
Click to expand...

http://www.csnwashington.com/hockey...kes-aim-at-Bettman?blockID=783869&feedID=6357

Ference tried to kick it up between the owners yesterday:
“It’s disappointing because in most any other business you would continue working while negotiating a new union contract,” said Ference to CSNNE.com. “They were not forced to cancel games, it is voluntary by them. I remain optimistic that there are a number of owners who are just as unhappy as the players with this work stoppage – and that they will be more vocal in their private talks with the league.
Click to expand...
http://www.csnne.com/hockey-boston-...ith-frustration-di?blockID=784037&feedID=3352
 
It's just beyond pathetic at this point that the owners haven't even tried to negotiate.

Their only tactic is "lock them out" and then refuse to budge in negotiations.

**** you Jeremy Jacobs.
 
zioxide said:
It's just beyond pathetic at this point that the owners haven't even tried to negotiate.

Their only tactic is "lock them out" and then refuse to budge in negotiations.

**** you Jeremy Jacobs.
Click to expand...

Just watched a series of videos on this. The owners are douchebags. The players agreed to revenue sharing for struggling teams and even a pay cut. This is all on the owners. ******* you Bettman.
 
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