NHL Season GONE

[Brass]

All the player's faults.

[Magus]

well this sux.

at the very least, the rangers will have a 500 record at 0-0-0-0.

[zer0dotcom]

To Gary Bettman and the NHLPA: cry me a river boys...

then go drown yourselves in it

[Waffles]

Thus ends the Rangers' greatest season in 11 years.

[Phil]

You go out of your way to enter a thread about something you don't care about, to tell everyone you don't care about it. Repeatedly. What is your point?

Is there a rule that says I can only post in threads where I'm only praising the topic at hand? The fact is I have my opinions and you have yours. We're not always going to have something extremely positive to say about the topic at hand and if my opinion is that I don't like hockey then just read it and move on. Are you looking to start a fight?

No, but it does seem like you are.

See... when you enter a party, you respect the people there by not repeatedly saying "this party sucks... I hate parties." Yes, you have the freedom in North America to do so, but as a matter of respect, you don't.

Same deal here. But not showing respect to the people in the thread, while well within your right of posting opinions, you're turning people against yourself, and with intended or not, creating conflict. Not that conflict is always a bad thing, but in this case it wouldn't be conflict along topical lines, but rather personal lines, and that's something we'd like to avoid.

Edit... I just realized there's more than one page to this thread! Yay me! Boo Gary and Bob!

[Puckguy14]

Alrighty time to chime in on this. Neither side can't point fingers on this issue. It is both their faults they got themselves into this mess. I write for TheFeeder.com, a Sharks news site. I wrote this article back in October explaining how the mess began.

http://www.thefeeder.com/story/04-1016-01.htm

As for contraction four or five teams

Edmonton

Florida

Pittsburgh

Carolina

Anaheim

As for blame...

OWNERS:

>For agreeing to pay these players the amount they really couldn't afford.

>For passing those salaries to the fans eventually in ticket prices, concessions, memoribilia, parking, etc.

NHL:

>For not exposing the game and players enough. You look at baseball, football, and basketball and some might say over exposure but its getting way more airtime on SportsCenter. I mean, you can count the number of stories ESPN did for the lockout. Multiply that number by 10 for PROMOS for the NBA or College Basketball.

>For over expanding into cities that were not hockey hot beds. Granted I give them credit to try different markets, however, Los Angeles doesn't need two teams. Atlanta got a new building, but has been struggling, although, not as bad as their NBA counterpart. But its almost like if they expanded for the sake of getting more money into the league. That's not the way to make it.

>Lack of a decent television deal. If you are to be a major sport, you don't sign a deal like the AFL or even now the NLL on NBC. You need to fight and claw your way to get something like NASCAR has with Fox. I know, I didn't like the Fox Trax (although, knowing how fast it was going was very cool and unique.) I think for the health of the game, I would think a glow puck would be ok if it brought a serious amount of revenue to offset losses.

>For hiring Gary Bettman, a guy who was the right hand man for David Stern. He handed him a golden gift with this lockout. Total exposure on ESPN. Without the NHL, the NBA, who already stole the spotlight a year after the NHL began its huge deal with ABC and ESPN, signed a big deal for the NBA. When ESPN became ESPNBA, the NHL was pushed to the side stuck to get out of its deal after the way they were treated. Bettman has tinkered with eveything in the game, a game he has no clue of controlling.

PLAYERS / NHLPA:

>For being stubborn millionaires. What $8+ million isn't enough for you Mr. Jagr? While I think they should be paid well, but if your company is struggling and want to keep your job, wouldn't you do what it takes? No you didn't. When the Rangers signed players to a multi million dollar deals, it increased the playing field demands. For example, in San Jose, Joe Murphy said in his contract year, that he wants superstar money like Mark Recchi as he was playing better than what he was worth. That attitude has ruined this sport.

AGENTS:

>Like I said in my article, the one group that has ruined not just the NHL, but professional sports, have been player agents. These cocky, hair slicked back, convertible driving guys who have egos bigger than their players have destroyed the fun of sports. With these guys feeding them ideas of holding out or demanding trades, yada yada yada. It gives the little kids ideas. Now you have kids leaving school early in the NFL after a year, or in the case of the NBA, skipping college altogether. The NHL has had the youngsters in early, but the fact that kids see that the money is out there and not education, sends a bad message. The agents are on campus and at games waiting for them. Where else would they find the person to go to. I will say there are agents in hockey like Bobby Orr that are good people, but most of them are hot shots.

[TBGKon]

Tampa Bay Lightning - Stanley Cup Champs 2 years in a row

about those teams you listed for contraction Puckguy, what if some of them were relocated to cities with a good support system....see as follows

Carolina or Florida ---->Houston

Anaheim ------> Portland

Edmonton------->Winnipeg

[tmorss9]

First of all, I didn't know anything could suck this much. There is no NHL, and only fans seem to care. I swear Gary Bettman is the Stupiedest person on the face of this earth, with Bob Goodenough not too far behind. They need to face a fact that if they ceep this crap up for too long, neither of them will be employed. I try not to say anything negative about people, but these guys are total twits.

I have to ask of all the hockey fans on here, when the NHL (in some form or another) comes back, will you be there to pay for tickets, to buy sweaters and hats, and subscribe to the Centre Ice package? I can honestly tell you that I dont think I will. Maybe it would be different if the game were played as it was in the '80's, but not the slow crap that the diluted player base plays today.

By the way, is there anyone happier about this than ESPN???? Now they dont have to worry about squeezing hockey onto ESPN2 when they could be showing some division 3 basketball game, or some shmoes playing cards all night. I hate ESPN, I hate Bettman and Goodenough, and I swear to God I'll never understand what in the heck this whole thing is about.

[puckhead42]

7 meetings in since September that?s not an effort if they truly truly cared about this

Sport or this league they would have been meetings non stop from September to now.

Had they even tried they could have worked something out.

THIS IS EXACTLY what I cant understand.......There was absolutely NO effort made to work this out.......NONE....one thing I think alot of people forget is............

THIS HAS HAD TEN YEARS TO BE RESOLVED

[ROCHitman]

I agree with Melrose.

Come October, the league will start up with replacement players and those that are locked out, will cross the line. That should send a message to the NHLPA that they need work & income NOW....not when the league is deemed "fixed".

[JQK]

Well, with this Arena Deal, it seems Steinbrenner's not going to give up on the Devils, which i am happy to see.

As for cutting down the league (which i have believed all along will happen)

Florida

Carolina

Pittsburgh

Atlanta

Anaheim

Nashville

[Survival79]

If the league is going to cut teams, they should start with the franchises that have never won a Cup.

[Stampman]

I can't see Edmonton moving to Winnipeg--it makes no sense.

I doubt Edmonton would be the first to contract, fold, or move.

But if they did it would hurt the Flames.

Maybe they could merge the teams and play out of Red Deer!

Anyway--the Flames are structured so that they shouldn't fold right away, and with the ownership group the Oilers have--even if some give up, there would still be some who won't.

I can't comment on the other specualtion--I'm not as up on their owners...

[SmoothieX]

OK, so I am not that big of a hockey fan, but they cancelled Enterprise, so I can relate. Let there be hockey and good sci-fi again!

[zer0dotcom]

If the league is going to cut teams, they should start with the franchises that have never won a Cup.

I disagree with picking that as a criteria to fold a team.

Ideally, all teams should be able to survive, but the economics bring home the reality that they all can't.

I don't know enough about the economic side of the game, but I do realize that there are teams that don't have a strong fan base to begin with, and that probably are not being stregnthened at all by the lock-out. I do think that several of the teams that have relocated or been created in the past several years are not going to have as much fan support when they come back compared to teams that have been around for several decades.

I do wonder if Carolina, Tampa and Florida, Atlanta would be able to survive. I think that either the Lightning or the Panthers would be able to survive in Florida, but 2 teams might be too much. I know they didn't have alot of support in the beginning, and I don't know if that improved much for Carolina. The last four expansion, Atlanta, Nashville, Columbus and Minnie, I have to wonder if they have built up a strong enough fan base to support the team after a lock-out. Minnie though does have a hockey background though.

Those are my thoughts just as a fan going on what he knows. All I know for sure is that if they don't do something the fans are going to seriously turn ont he league ala Major League Baseball and there are teams that will have to merge or fold once the bills start piling up.

One point I want to make too, the game isn't about the owners or the players, its a bout the FANS. without us, there are no jobs for these people. Teams locate where they do because they think the FANS will support them. Buisnesses adversite on a teams rink, sponsor their evetns because they think the FANS will see their ads with the team. The FANS pay their hard earned moeny to watch the games, to buy that cable package, to go to the arena, to buy the sweaters and concessions. Without FANS, there is no league, no one to pay to watch your game, no one to look at the ads people pay to displace in the arena. Without the FANS, you're just a guy with a stick who can play a game well, and just some guy who knows how to coach a game well.

Without us, the NHL is NOTHING

[-kj]

If the league is going to cut teams, they should start with the franchises that have never won a Cup.

Ummmm.... no. Keep in mind that you would cut out teams such as Vancouver, Ottawa, San Jose, Minnesota, and worst of all, St. Louis. These are rather sucessful franchises at the moment.

[IronChefShark]

Im glad we dont have notorious around for this I can say that much

[zer0dotcom]

Im glad we dont have notorious around for this I can say that much

amen, this is one discussion better of without the divine intervention of the Hockey Gods

[slapshot]

The AHL All-Star Game will be on ESPN on Valentine's Day, so at least one professional hockey game will be broadcast by ESPN this season.

[GeorgesL]

i was watching the score and the league is going to make an announcement either today or tomorrow that the season is officially cancelled.

this isn't a big surprise to me but this really sucks!

Hey, life goes on. Besides, only 4 more months till Canadian Football season! YAY!!!