Your 2012 National Hockey Lockout Thread

[ElwoodCuse]

8. Gary Bettman should be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine

[TimEOBrien]

Renaud P Lavoie ‏@RenLavoieRDS

NHL proposal to players: 1-reduce players hockey related revenues to 46% from 57 %. 2-10 seasons in NHL before being UFA.

Renaud P Lavoie ‏@RenLavoieRDS

3-contracts limites to 5 years 4-no more salary arbitration. 5- entry-level contract 5 years instead of 3.

Hello lockout...

Also, upon entry to the league, each player is required to purchase 4 season tickets to the Phoenix Coyotes annually.

7. Whenever Gary Bettman isn't on screen, everyone should ask "where's Gary Bettman?"

HA! Poochie...

[njmeadowlanders]

Renaud P Lavoie ‏@RenLavoieRDS

NHL proposal to players: 1-reduce players hockey related revenues to 46% from 57 %. 2-10 seasons in NHL before being UFA.

Renaud P Lavoie ‏@RenLavoieRDS

3-contracts limites to 5 years 4-no more salary arbitration. 5- entry-level contract 5 years instead of 3.

Hello lockout...

Also, upon entry to the league, each player is required to purchase 4 season tickets to the Phoenix Coyotes annually.

7. Whenever Gary Bettman isn't on screen, everyone should ask "where's Gary Bettman?"

HA! Poochie...

Reference of the day for sure.

[NJTank]

Gary Bettman is killing this sport

[The_Admiral]

Normally I would draft a long-winded reply about how Bettman is merely the CEO of a board of directors, many of whom are crooks, idiots, and crooked idiots, but with that board demanding that they get 11% of league revenue back after years of making the most they've ever made, a demand almost certain to lead to a crippling work stoppage just eight years removed from the last one, then, well, you know what, fine: Gary Bettman is killing this league.

And yes, I know that opening negotiations are never meant to be anything but parameters for a somewhat equitable compromise (unless you're Glendale: "we'll need you to give us, oh...$25,000,000 to run the team." "ok!"), but there's a difference between setting up where you'll work toward the middle and something so absurdly unfair to the players that the only thing it doesn't do is demand that the lake Manitoba named for Jonathan Toews be renamed for Gary Bettman.

[crashcarson15]

I feel like about 10,000 of Tank's 36,000 posts are along the lines of "Gary Bettman is killing this sport."

[oddball]

Well, since the sport is more successful than it's ever been (money wise, just look at the contracts the players are signing), then Gary Bettman has done a great job! And this is with a complete lack of a season and the lack of ESPN coverage, the sport is successful. If anyone is to blame, it's the owners who keep shelling out more money every year for players. Nolan Ryan was the first MLB player to get a contract that averaged over #1 million per year in 1980, now you look and you see players like Ted Lilly who is making $11 per year. You want to try and explain to me how Ted Lilly is 11 times better the pitcher than Nolan Ryan. It's just that over time and with tv contracts have become larger in all leagues. The fact of the matter is that no league should have an agreement where either side gets more than 50% of the revenue. The game will be successful no matter what happens and that is just the truth. I mean we all know Penn State will pull in butt-loads of money even though by all rights any one associated with or who ever liked, or supported Penn State should abandon the program after the horrifying acts on children, but people will follow sports and support their teams blindly. It's just the fact.

[Billy B]

I feel like about 10,000 of Tank's 36,000 posts are along the lines of "Gary Bettman is killing this sport."

Correct.

[FiddySicks]

I feel like about 10,000 of Tank's 36,000 posts are along the lines of "Gary Bettman is killing this sport."

Correct.

POTD.

If you don't get this reference, you haven't been here long enough.

[Funky Bunky]

Gary Bettman is killing this sport

NJTank is killing this forum

[njmeadowlanders]

I feel like about 10,000 of Tank's 36,000 posts are along the lines of "Gary Bettman is killing this sport."

Correct.

POTD.

If you don't get this reference, you haven't been here long enough.

I miss Tank's trivia *pausenot*.

[crashcarson15]

I feel like about 10,000 of Tank's 36,000 posts are along the lines of "Gary Bettman is killing this sport."

Correct.

Shea Stadium.

[Still MIGHTY]

I feel like about 10,000 of Tank's 36,000 posts are along the lines of "Gary Bettman is killing this sport."

Correct.

Shea Stadium.

what is this im in phone

[NJTank]

Well, since the sport is more successful than it's ever been (money wise, just look at the contracts the players are signing), then Gary Bettman has done a great job! And this is with a complete lack of a season and the lack of ESPN coverage, the sport is successful. If anyone is to blame, it's the owners who keep shelling out more money every year for players. Nolan Ryan was the first MLB player to get a contract that averaged over #1 million per year in 1980, now you look and you see players like Ted Lilly who is making $11 per year. You want to try and explain to me how Ted Lilly is 11 times better the pitcher than Nolan Ryan. It's just that over time and with tv contracts have become larger in all leagues. The fact of the matter is that no league should have an agreement where either side gets more than 50% of the revenue. The game will be successful no matter what happens and that is just the truth. I mean we all know Penn State will pull in butt-loads of money even though by all rights any one associated with or who ever liked, or supported Penn State should abandon the program after the horrifying acts on children, but people will follow sports and support their teams blindly. It's just the fact.

Every time the NHL begins to get some momentum, this Bettman shuts it down. How many more lost seasons can the league actually survive. He needs to be more reasonable and not try to destroy the players but no he is willing to wipe out another year.

[IceCap]

If there is a lockout it'll be the third under Bettman's watch, with the last two not even being a decade apart.

I don't see how you justify keeping him on with that track record.

[Lights Out]

Bettman makes Stern look like a :censored:ing patron saint. This is just sad, he's killing hockey with his unreasonable crap. If the NHL loses another season and Bettman isn't fired, I hope someone starts up a real hockey league without crooked owners and funny money that people can follow.

[Sodboy13]

Bettman makes Stern look like a :censored:ing patron saint. This is just sad, he's killing hockey with his unreasonable crap. If the NHL loses another season and Bettman isn't fired, I hope someone starts up a real hockey league without crooked owners and funny money that people can follow.

Well, there's the KHL, though I've heard the efforts of certain teams have had some trouble getting off the ground.

[The_Admiral]

You know, I read somewhere that Jeremy Jacobs was one of the biggest proponents of the southern expansion*. More people should be going after that guy. He and Anschutz are a combined modern-day James Norris, running everyone's concessions and arenas, respectively.

*Anaheim was mostly the work of Bruce "Coins" McNall, a guy who should be considered the dirtiest team owner ever, but because it's the NHL, is still down the list. He pushed hard for expanding to Anaheim under the pretense of getting Disney's serious money behind the league and capitalizing on a growing greater L.A. market. Then, as if it just dawned upon him all too late that Anaheim was near Los Angeles, he turned around and demanded that Disney pay him an indemnification fee equal to 50% of the expansion fee for having the nerve to encroach upon southern California at his invitation. Disney told McNall to shove his collection of drachmas straight up his Mickey Mouse, so to speak, and ultimately settled for diverting half the expansion fee straight to the Kings and divvying up the other half across the rest of the league. And that's how Teemu Selanne spent much of his career dressed up as Averman!

[Kevin W.]

Bettman makes Stern look like a :censored:ing patron saint. This is just sad, he's killing hockey with his unreasonable crap. If the NHL loses another season and Bettman isn't fired, I hope someone starts up a real hockey league without crooked owners and funny money that people can follow.

Well, there's the KHL, though I've heard the efforts of certain teams have had some trouble getting off the ground.

Too soon?

[Kramerica Industries]

I'm the loosest goose in the world, but something that involved catastrophic death to over 40 people, including several notable former NHLers, doesn't jive at all with me. Playing NHL 2004, as often as I do, serves as a constant reminder when I see the likes of Salei, Rachunek, Demitra, Korolev, Karpovtsev, Skrastins, and Vasicek.

So, not to be the proverbial wet blanket, but jokes like that are always of the "too soon" variety, from my POV.

Vincent Lecavalier played in Russia during the last lockout, and said of the planes:

That was the thing when we were over there was the planes. We all talked about it. They're older planes and that's all we talked about, the players kind of jokingly. Five or six years later there you go, a plane goes down. They've got to make sure your safety, all that stuff, is up to par and up to the level they should be, and I hope they do that.

Describing the planes: Just old. Everything, I don't know. I didn't feel safe in the air. I was happy to come back and fly in America. I didn't feel that the safety we talk about so much over here is the same over there. In the plane, though, it just looked old. It just didn't look right. It seems that things are done 80 percent of the way or 90 percent. It's not like here. It's sad.