The economy suxs,

Masses are unemployment

and all we want to see is our HOCKEY !!!!

When we are all employed and too busy… than squabble… Right now we need you to play.

SO STOP SCREWING THE FANS

So here is to the biggest suckers in all of the land,

HOCKEY FANS !

I think your right…please read the first post to see what I’m defending guys. Thanks.

Obviously that woudln’t work in the NHL, because so many guys spend most of the entry level contract in the minors most of the time. But the guys that don’t, still have to put in 6-7 (i forget the number off hand) years before they are UFA’s.

Players should take 50%. Owners should give them RFA if they have 3 years(but change the compensation to something reasonable), and UFA at 4-5. Sit down, figure out what is and isn’t hockey related income, and sign the dang thing.

But no, you will get owners who made bad investments that want to have it both ways, and players who have an entitlement, and a chip on their shoulder, so we will get a long, protracted lockout.

as far as the “owners are the ones who gave out the contracts” agrument goes, see above. That is just “whaa we gave up stuff last time”. It fixes nothing. Want to pick about what is and isn’t considered as hockey related income, fine, that’s more than reasonable. Act like you are being asked to give up your first born child because the owners of the business would like to keep 50% of the money (and they still have plenty of other expenses to cover, this is income, not profit) that comes in, is at best juvenile and unrealistic. If you expect the league to survive. There are literally 3rd line players in the NHL that come home with a bigger profit at the end of the season than the guy that signs their checks.

I’m sure there are 8-10 owners taht wouldn’t mind keeping it right where it is now. Maybe if the players are willing to cut 2/3 of their jobs, they can keep the 57%, and everyone will be happy. But as long as they want to keep all the teams they ahve now, it’s not an option. Even if you move the worst teams, that takes the large chunks of losses out, but you still have most of the leagues revenue condensed in 5-6 markets.

I mean, I’m a Flyers fan, so if it’s a spending war, my team is going to win out most of the time. In the NHL, I’m all for no cap from a personal standpoint. But if the league, and the players (as they claim) want every team to truly have a chance every year, and not have their players walking to the same few teams once they become FA’s, player cost HAS to come down for a lot of teams, half of the league at least. I for one, would not want the NHL to become MLB

The players are getting too much, period. Getting 57% of revenue. That is a dead business, anyway you look at it. You want to talk about ruining the league, how healthy of a league is it when only 5-6 teams are turning a decent profit. If something that costs much as an NHL franchise doesn’t bring in at least 10% of it’s “value” (aka cost), it’s considered a terrible investment. That would describe more than 2/3 of the league. Most of those teams are making about 3-4%. The league’s first proposal was ridiculous, that’s a given. But a 50/50 split of Hockey related income seems about right to me, if not in the players favor. Now I could understand if the players were willing to agree to 50/50, but wanted to gripe about things that were and were not included in hockey related income, but they acted like the offer was some sort of insult.

Is it much the owners own fault for giving out he contracts? Of course it is, and I’m sure teams like Philly, Toronto, Detroit, Montreal etc would love to keep giving them out. But crying “we gave up stuff last time!” does not fix the problem.

Secondly, the players aren’t digging their heels in because they want to keep the loopholes that the owners and GM’s allowed to be exposed. The players want a proper split of HRR, a clear interpretation of what HRR even is, and a deal that will not roll back guaranteed contracts … again.

I’m not saying any one side is perfectly clean here, but the responsibility for us being here again lies almost squarely on the owners. They’ve been playing under a system designed and implemented by the owners, and yet once again the owners are unable to cope with where their deal has left them / where they’ve taken themselves, and once again the only solution they can come up with is to demand more from the players.

If the owners want to come up with a solution they need to look long and hard at ways to adjust the system from a balanced point of view, not simply demand roll backs (or escrow payments with a lowered salary cap that come out to be essentially the same thing) from the players.

You want to balance the budget implement a cap with a luxury tax and allow for more revenue sharing ..computers dying …ahhh

I also believe that, while the teams you mentioned did lose money this past year, they can be very profitable given good leadership, on-ice success, and ownership stability. I rarely think relocation is the simple solution to revenue losses, but with teams like the Coyotes, who have struggled to fill seats despite putting up a very competitive team, maybe it is the key. Teams that cannot be economically viable yet complain about losing money need a wake-up call: shut up or shut down.

If the league is going to cry and act like it’s only as successful as its weakest team(s), then they ought to have equal revenue sharing across the board and no team will have any sort of economic advantage. If not, then fold/move the weakest links elsewhere. If the players actually hold out, the big boys who actually make money in the league might start to throw their weight around a bit and reign the whiners in a bit and get something done. We all want the game back but sometimes it’s worth it to hold out for something better.

Yes, but thats how negotiations work. The owners made their “hah, not happening” offer, the players responded, and the owners came back with a better but still not good offer. Its the players turn to step up and make another offer, and it doesn;t sound like they want to.

Now I keep saying that I agree with the players, but at this point I don’t agree with either side. I just want to watch hockey this fall, and neither side seems interested in seeing that happen…