Things Really Heating Up (NHL)

The Fan 960 in Calgary is reporting the NHL has outright rejected the PA offer reiterating that their offer is their FINAL.

[Q]calgARI '07 Wrote:

The Fan 960 in Calgary is reporting the NHL has outright rejected the PA offer reiterating that their offer is their FINAL.[/q]



I've been on their side through this crap, but they will look like idiots if they don't negotiate this out.

Do we have any detail on the NHL's offer like we do the NHLPA's? Luxury taxes, etc? Revenue sharing? Are those there?

Flames play-by-play man Peter Maher, who is one of the highest up in NHL media, just commented that he really believes something will get done. He is "95% sure" there will be a deal.

It's too bad the fans don't have an organization that could effectively force the firing of both Bettman and Goodenow if they fail to work out a deal. We are the paying customers after all. I don't have any problem with rumors being spread about the canning of either of these guys, and I wish Bettman were not from Cornell.

www.nhlfa.com

not much power but over 27,000 members including myself. the president's have been emailing both Bettman and Goodenow throughout the process. here's a copy of tonight's letter to Goodenow:

The following letter was sent to the NHL Players' Association tonight on
behalf of the NHLFA:


February 15, 2005

Bob Goodenow
Executive Director
National Hockey League Players’ Association
777 Bay Street, Suite 2400
Toronto, Ontario
M5G 2C8


Dear Mr. Goodenow:

After reviewing Commissioner’s Gary Bettman’s letter delivered earlier today
to the NHL Players’ Association, the membership of the NHL Fans’ Association
(NHLFA) appeals to you in the strongest possible terms to accept this
proposal and put NHL players back on the ice.

It has never been the desire of the NHLFA to take sides in this dispute; our
role is to present to you and to the NHL the views of hockey fans who
support the National Hockey League and pay your members’ salaries. We
believe the revenues coming into professional hockey are more than enough
for both players and owners to receive fair compensation.

However, the majority of our 26,700 members feel the NHL Players’
Association must be willing to concede to reasonable terms, which we believe
have been presented to you, by the NHL today.

Remember, this conflict has taxed fans’ generosity and patience to the limit
and there will be serious consequences if your association chooses not to
accept the NHL’s offer.

Sincerely,
Jim Boone
Co-founder
NHL Fans’ Association
www.nhlfa.com

Goodenow's response to Bettman:

[www.tsn.ca]

I'm glad the they're at least putting pressure on one side, but in this labor dispute I'm much more on the side of the players than the owners. NHL hockey players are overpaid, but at least they have made concessions unlike the ridiculously spolied babies that cancelled the World Series just over 10 years ago. Goodenow is correct that Bettman's argument is bogus (all teams will never simultaneously spend up to the cap), and I think it would have been better if the Fans' Association had sent a letter to both Bettman and Goodenow to compromise. That has the most chance of success IMO.

t-minus 3 minutes...

they both had to dig in right at the end, didn't they

Sportsnet is reporting that the NHL will budge off of their final offer.

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

t-minus 3 minutes...

they both had to dig in right at the end, didn't they[/q]

The deadline is 1 PM ET

But Bettman said his deadline for a deal was 2 hours before the conference, i.e., 11 am. 1 minute from now.

Bettman also said on Friday that a deal had to be done by Sunday or no season.

[Q]calgARI '07 Wrote:

Bettman also said on Friday that a deal had to be done by Sunday or no season.[/q]
Haha... very true

TSN reporting Bettman has sent memos to every team indicated that no contact between the two sides has been made since last night.

Modano just interviewed on the Score and said he has heard rumors that both sides moving off their stances.

Good article from the N.Y. Times:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 16, 2005
SPORTS OF THE TIMES

Goodenow Would Not Surrender to Cap, Until He Did
By DAVE ANDERSON

IF I were a National Hockey League player, I'd be ready to cross-check somebody.

Anybody, actually.

Anybody who has been involved all these months in what is now apparently the sudden-death-overtime negotiations in the labor dispute over the N.H.L.'s demand for a salary cap - no matter if there is a last-minute deal or if the season is canceled.

And if I were a player, the first guy I would cross-check would be my own union boss, Bob Goodenow.

Why did it take Goodenow all this time to finally offer a salary-cap number, $52 million a team, that he and the union could live with? He knew all along that if he did, Commissioner Gary Bettman would come back with a lower number and Bettman did, $40 million a team, but at least each would have a number to negotiate from.

It would make sense for the union and the league to split those numbers down the middle, at $46 million, in time to create, say, a 28-game season before the Stanley Cup playoffs. Bettman has since increased his original number to $42.5 million, and the union countered with $49 million.

But unlike a wrist shot or a kick save, making sense is not a skill the union leaders seemed to possess. Long before the negotiations began, Bettman said the league needed a salary cap. Goodenow had to know that he was not bluffing, that enough owners stood firmly behind him, but Goodenow kept insisting that he would never surrender to a salary cap.

Until he did.

What took Goodenow so long? What is so terrible about a salary cap when two of the other three major sports in North America have one, and the third has a luxury tax on player payroll?

For the last decade, the National Football League has boomed more than ever with a hard cap total that rises each season.

The National Basketball Association has thrived with a cap that is softer but still restricts clubs' spending. Major League Baseball doesn't have a cap as such, but it has a luxury tax on player payroll that George Steinbrenner and the Yankees know only too well.

Instead of realizing that the N.H.L. owners needed a cap to make money, Goodenow refused to surrender. Until he did.

In the process, he not only deprived his players of most of the season, but he also deprived them of most of their season's salary.

Hockey players are not factory workers, who over their long careers can eventually make up the money they lose during a labor dispute. With a cap, most rank-and-file hockey players, and certainly the multimillion-dollar superstars, won't ever make up what they have already lost in salary during this lockout.

Even with what was an average salary of $1.83 million last season, most hockey players know that they're going to make that kind of money for only a few seasons before some hot-shot kid takes their job.

Another question for Goodenow: Why wasn't he talking to Bettman long before last fall's deadline date? Talking continually is why the N.F.L. has had labor peace since the dispute in 1987, when replacement players were used for three games. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue maintains a dialogue with Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the union.

Pro football's salary cap has also made it a better game, as Tagliabue mentioned during his Super Bowl news conference.

"I think it works," Tagliabue said of the cap, noting that it can be complicated but that it "has proved to work very well to keep teams together."

He added, "We thought the system would allow for great competition and repeat winners, and that's what's turning out to be the case."

Like the New England Patriots, who have won three of the last four Super Bowls.

Most hockey players would probably have accepted a salary cap long ago, but instead of letting the union members vote, Goodenow just kept saying he would not surrender to a cap. Until he did - coincidentally on the 25th anniversary of the week leading to the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team's upset of the mighty Soviets and subsequent gold medal at Lake Placid.

During a conference call yesterday, Jim Craig, Jack O'Callahan and Rob McClanahan, members of that Olympic team who went on to play in the N.H.L., were asked about the labor dispute.

Craig, a goaltender, spent parts of three seasons in the N.H.L., one with his hometown Boston Bruins. He mentioned how "it's affecting a lot more people than just the players and the owners," meaning not only the fans, but also people and businesses connected to the game, like arena workers and nearby restaurants.

O'Callahan, a defenseman who played seven seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Devils, talked about how that Olympic victory propelled the growth of hockey.

"It's somewhat humorous to me how you now have billionaires and millionaires arguing," he said, referring to the owners and the players. "They need to go back 25 years. Be a little more thankful, a little more humble; give the game back to the fans."

McClanahan, a forward who spent five seasons with the Buffalo Sabres, the Hartford Whalers and the Rangers, said simply, "I don't have a problem with the salary cap." Which is probably what most N.H.L. players would have said if Bob Goodenow had asked them.

The Score reporting that unless the PA calls in the next 30 minutes, season canceled.

[Q]calgARI '07 Wrote:

The Score reporting that unless the PA calls in the next 30 minutes, season canceled.[/q]

This sounds like a Junior High relationship...Get off of your sulking arse, Goodenow, and make a deal.

Flames play-by-play man reporting that the PA is trying to negotiate. Better hurry up.

[Q]calgARI '07 Wrote:

Flames play-by-play man reporting that the PA is trying to negotiate. Better hurry up.[/q]

I don't understand what there is to negotiate. It sounds like the owners and Bettman are completely calling the shots.

I find it to be pretty poor journalism / editorializing for all those articles not to mention that Bettman's dropping of the tie to revenue is what kickstarted this whole thing. Whether you give him credit for doing it, or blame for not doing it sooner, is your call. But that article makes it sound like the union just said $52 million cap out of nowhere, where all along the union had said "we will not accept a salary cap tied to revenues". Reports may have loved to summarize that as "no salary cap", but that wasn't what the majority of union's statements actually said.

Then a guy writes a whole article blaming Goodenow for refusing to move to a cap earlier and doesn't even once mention that it was Bettman's eventual offer to remove the linkage that held the whole process up and his elimination of that instance that actually, finally ended the stalemate. Blame him for it or credit him for it, but get your facts straight.

Bettman just took the mic

It's over.

"We will immediately begin planning for a 2005-2006 season"

"We will pursue a collective bargain agreement with the players"

"It wasn't as close as people were speculating"

"An arbitrarily negotiated number (salary cap) put all of the risk on the clubs."

"We couldn't be in the fifties or high forties."

"We were stretching to get there ($42.5 million) because we knew we would lose money for the next two years."

"When they came back with 49, we knew we couldn't make a deal."

"$6.5 million difference multiplied by 30 is actually a $200 million difference."

"It's a difficult process when the other side doesn't know your numbers. We have asked them to audit our books for five years."

When they finally get around to reaching an agreement, the fans should boycott the NHL until both Bettman and Goodenow resign or are fired.

I'm actually glad that this is over. And not because I'm (much) more of a college fan than a pro-hockey fan. I hate the idea of playing something like a 25 game season and then going to playoffs that may last longer than the season itself. Why mess with a broken product at this point? OK, we've cancelled the season. Now sit down, continue to work at it and get something in place for next season, when we can start fresh.

Of course, the fresh start assumes that bargaining can/will continue once the deadline is removed and that nobody moves the goalposts as a result of the cancellation (Bettman in particular).

I wonder if the cancellation, which guarantees no paychecks for this season, will cause the players union to fracture. I've read reports (opinions maybe) that third and fourth line players are very unsatisfied with the union negotiators. If true then today's events could cause them to speak out. Then again, I heard plenty of speculation along these lines in the last baseball negotiations and nothing came of it (admittedly there were no missed paychecks in MLB '02).

Bettman regarding the draft - "Before we play again there will need to be a draft. We haven't focused on that."

Great idea.......no

Okay, my hour of mourning is over...LGR!

Bettman also said the current offer is now off the table (obviously off the table since the season is cancelled but also off the table as a start for future negotiations). He also said he doesn't see a deal without linked revenue.

Yea, the players may have to settle for a worse deal than the one they were offered today.

[Q]mjh89 Wrote:

Yea, the players may have to settle for a worse deal than the one they were offered today.[/q]

Or not. How many times during negotiations did the league say "you're not going to get any offers better than this one," yet they were willing to offer something better after all?

I'm not the only one who feels this way....

[sports.yahoo.com]

[Q]Steve M Wrote:

I'm not the only one who feels this way....

[/q]

Uhhh Barry Melrose and Don Cherry don't care about themselves?


Good article, and a pretty fair analysis of both sides.

Good luck to the players ever getting anything close to that deal and good luck to the NHL ever getting fans back.

Good article, good points. The only conflict of priorities that Barry would have on any issues if is his hair was somehow brought into the negotiations.

[Q]Tub(a) Wrote:

Steve M Wrote:

I'm not the only one who feels this way....

[/Q]
Uhhh Barry Melrose and Don Cherry don't care about themselves?


Good article, and a pretty fair analysis of both sides.

Good luck to the players ever getting anything close to that deal and good luck to the NHL ever getting fans back.

[/q]

Barry Melrose only cares about one thing: his mullet.