It’s now clearly obvious to anyone (ie: even the detractors) that our friend Joey must indeed be a “someone” … and therefore he probably does have sources in the form of “boots on the ground” there in New York … personally I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised ! At any rate, I just want to say that I feel we’re very fortunate to have the likes of Joey here at PHT. I learned a long time ago back at college, that with “public speaking” one must always strive to attain three things in-order to be deemed a success:

1) to inform
2) to entertain
3) to persuade

Well I submit to you friends that on a daily basis, our man Id4joey is bringing all three of these things in “bushels” to the PHT table here ! So on behalf of all of us, a big “thanks” Joey for taking the time to always “value-add” here the way you do ! … Blomfeld

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ps: here’s an “informative yet succinct” piece just offered by Joey on another article …

id4joey – Dec 12, 2012 at 11:20 AM

williplett, yes. The owners agreed to these long term front loaded contracts. Why? These guys are competitive business men who want to win hockey games or win in whatever business their involved in. They have legal counsel shred the CBA to pieces looking for loopholes to gain the competitive edge. Like a player who trains hard to be at his best when the puck drops. These contracts were signed under the terms of the CBA that was in place at the time. Be it 3 years or 1 week before it expired. Point being is the consequences /risks of not signing those players whether it was 3 years or 1 week before the CBA expired was the same. Losing players they felt gave the team a competitive edge on the ice. Do you really believe Nashville could afford that huge contract they gave Weber? They were forced into submission by the system, which now they believe needs to change. Everyone close to the game knew the owners would attempt to fix the CBA after it expired. Players, agents and owners knew it when the first front loaded contract was signed.

I never wrote long term contracts are a benefit to wealthier teams. Front loaded contracts are a benefit to wealthier teams. It allows them to go after the RFA or to prevent their superstar player from becoming an RFA with a big loot of cash and minimize the cap hit, which gives cap space to spend more. let say contract terms are limited to 5 years. Under the expired CBA a team can pay a player 40 million over 5 years. He’s paid as follows;

Year 1 / 15 million
Year 2 / 15 million
Year 3 / 5 million
Year 4 / 3 million
Year 5 / 2 million

Under the expired CBA the cap hit would be 8 million. It’s all about the finances as opposed to who is and is not winning the cup. The owners solution is to limit contract terms and allow no more than a 5% variance in a players salary year to year. It just about the economics, and if it remains the same, then it becomes a league for the richest markets. Even though the owners created the mess there is nothing wrong with them trying to fix it. We need to look at the conflict from three perspectives: 1- as fan. 2 – as a player 3 – as an owner. If you can remain objective then you can rationalize.

NFL- 3.086 Billion

NBA- 976 Million

MLB- 740 Million

NHL- 40 Million

These numbers don’t include local TV contracts

Bettman is doing a great job! Other leagues look for more ways to bring in revenue, the NHL just locks its players out.