Your 2012 National Hockey Lockout Thread

[dfwabel]

Um, Tank? There's a sledgehammer of irony hanging over your head like the Sword of Damocles. You know who's fighting hardest for the good of the National Hockey League right now? A labor lawyer who made his career working in BASEBALL.

And ultimately, even though Bettman is pretty much awful, he's still a mere figurehead for the Board of Governors, who, let's face it, generally just aren't made of the same timber as the owners in leagues that aren't total jokes. You could invent the perfect commissioner, a longtime NHL star who started a successful law firm after his playing days, and there would only be so much that he could do as long as his bosses were Jeremy Jacobs, Peter Karmanos, Craig Leipold, Bruce McNall, Boots Del Biaggio, the Japanese mafia, and other past and present luminaries of the NHL board.

Wait, the Japanese mafia owned a hockey team? Which one?

Tampa Bay Lightning.

Kokusai Green was the "company", with Saburo (Steve) Oto and Takashi Okubo as principal leaders.

keep in mind that the main mudlsinger of the mafia ties was Marc Ganis who really has never lived up to his work as a sports marketing expert, but still gets media ink.

[Stampman]

Well, I see one good possible outcome from the NHL taking an extended break. It gives people who want to start up rival leagues the opportunity to try. (Even if all serious attempts so far have failed miserably.)

Serious attempts?

Define serious.

Well maybe the KHL qualifies...

[IceCap]

The last work stoppage was less then a decade ago for cripe's sake. Another one so soon (third in total under the current leadership, so yay for consistency I guess) won't be "good for the game."

Didn't the WHA try to set up shop during the last lockout? That didn't quite work out.

[CS85]

?Players in other industries and other sports have recognized the need to make adjustments' date='? Bettman said. ?We?re hoping that ultimately the union here will be in a position to focus on things the same way.?[/quote']

Please see my avatar.

[The_Admiral]

Does it really matter what system of pay that the two sides agree to? Whether it be a salary cap system (hard or soft), luxury tax system, or free for all system, the player salaries will rise as the owners keep giving into their salary demands, and the teams that know how to scout and develop talent (Det, Nas, Bos, Van) will succeed while the crappy managed (NYI, TOR, CAL) teams will continue to fail.

Player salaries aren't going to rise if ownership succeeds in reducing the players' share from 57% to 43%. Are you some Phil Anschutz nuthugger? His nuts don't need your hugging.

and lol at Nashville "succeeding," if you call losing in the early rounds with unwatchable hockey "succeeding." Or do you mean that rap superstar Nas is continuing his feud with Jay-Z by buying the Islanders?

[Sodboy13]

Didn't the WHA try to set up shop during the last lockout? That didn't quite work out.

Oh, the memories.

[The_Admiral]

Poor fella never did get his Coke bottle back, did he.

[bigbean24]

Seriously, I've had enough of Gary Bettman. I hope the next time he makes a public appearance, he gets booed out of town.

[rams80]

- All players shall be made to spend their entire playing careers living in 40-story dormitories like freshmen at Illinois State University. Oops! Had my Magnus hat on too long!

Exile to Normal, Illinois strikes me as a punishment too harsh for anyone.

[BigBubba]

More names were added to the Winter Classic Alumni Rosters:

Detroit:

Paul Coffey

Mathieu Dandenault

Martin Lapointe

Toronto:

Lanny McDonald

Bryan McCabe

Gary Roberts

Tie Domi

Tiger Williams

Brad May

Scroll to the bottom for the full rosters (so far).

[Don]

Not like its going to happen, so who cares? Its like the Caps starting a twitter follower preorder for tickets this year, WHY? Why would anyone buy tickets knowing what we know about the labor situation? I have no confidence in the owners willingness to compromise and get done.

[Sodboy13]

Poor fella never did get his Coke bottle back, did he.

Eddie Belfour had to return it to the store for the 10¢ deposit.

[BigBubba]

Not like its going to happen, so who cares? Its like the Caps starting a twitter follower preorder for tickets this year, WHY? Why would anyone buy tickets knowing what we know about the labor situation? I have no confidence in the owners willingness to compromise and get done.

The Winter Classic is halfway through the season. There's no telling if we're going to lose that much.

[Don]

Not like its going to happen, so who cares? Its like the Caps starting a twitter follower preorder for tickets this year, WHY? Why would anyone buy tickets knowing what we know about the labor situation? I have no confidence in the owners willingness to compromise and get done.

The Winter Classic is halfway through the season. There's no telling if we're going to lose that much.

I wouldnt be surprised. These owners dont give a who they tread on to get their way.

[IceCap]

“Players in other industries and other sports have recognized the need to make adjustments' date='” Bettman said. “We’re hoping that ultimately the union here will be in a position to focus on things the same way.”[/quote']

Please see my avatar.

NHLPA counter-offered. Best I can tell, they basically want to keep the same CBA, but take a small salary rollback in exchange for cap flexibility in the form of a luxury tax. Sounds good to me.

The details of their proposal aren't important. What is important is that Fehr put forth a perfectly reasonable outline full of compromise and partnership, while Bettman's offer was so cartoonishly evil that it came with a handlebar mustache. Unlike 2004-05 when many people agreed that the system had to be reworked at the players' expense for the survival of the game, this public relations war has gone completely to the players. Right away, too. Lots of people here have washed Bettman's balls for being "such a good negotiator," but I can see why now: he'd been jousting with fellow denizens of the #4 league. Donald Fehr is big-time. He's baseball. This small-time punk-ass bitch doesn't stand a chance.

Pretty much my initial thought. This response from the NHLPA was quietly agreeable, and I'm curious as to how Bettman's going to handle his rebuttal.

Terribly is my guess...

As condescending as possible.

[Magnus]

Let's stop deluding ourselves with ridiculous silver linings like "cancelling a second NHL season in eight years could be a hidden boon to hockey in Kazakhstan" or whatever. I'll tell you where you can hide your boon. Instead, let's hear your ideas for how you'd change the CBA. So strap on your Magnus hat and come up with some Big Ideas!

- Rollback of the players' share to 53% and a 10% salary rollback. I do this with a heavy heart, but this is inevitable. It's not the NFL and NBA that have dictated cutting the players' share. It's the NHL. By propagating the lowest-common-denominator brand of hockey we have now, the world's best and brightest have a much tougher argument that they're the straw that stirs the drink here. When teams can have considerable success merely by putting some knuckle-dragging schmucks in body armor and having them block shots, how do you demand so much money to ply your trade? Being special doesn't matter anymore. You could play this season with replacement players and I swear to God, people in Nashville, Miami, and Phoenix would never know the difference. So this needs to be adjusted. The ever-expanding union has in some sense brought it upon themselves.

- The range from the salary midpoint has to be increased. ±$8 million is bleeding the weaklings dry. It has to be at least ±10, maybe as high as ±16.

- A variation of the NBA's Bird rights, I suppose in this case "Oil rights," as the impetus here is making sure that teams like Edmonton (and Long Island, too; alas, it's a little late for Chicago), who have torn it all down and built it back up The Right Way won't be made to lose their drafted stars to a hard salary cap. There would have to be limitations, of course, like limiting it to one first-rounder a year, or putting a luxury tax on the overages, but the Oilers are on the verge of something special, as other teams were before them, and others will be after them, and it's in the best interests of the league not to ruin such things.

- Banked cap space should be a movable asset. This could pay huge dividends for rebuilding teams who are keeping payroll close to the floor. For those who don't know, the salary cap hit is calculated on a daily basis, and what isn't spent on the active roster is "banked" for future acquisitions, so while you may have a lot of money on the books at the end of the year, for the totality of the season, you've stayed under the cap. But if the season ends and you've stayed well under the cap, that cap space you didn't use goes to the land of unsold hotel rooms. If you're not going to spend it, why not let someone else spend it, for a handsome price?

So let's say at the halfway point of the season, Philadelphia wants to add a player from Dallas making $6 million a year, but doesn't have room for his cap hit. So Philadelphia goes to Winnipeg and makes a trade for $3 million in heretofore unused cap space that the Flyers need dearly and the Jets don't need at all. Of course, the Jets would hit the Flyers up hard for such a luxury in the picks-and-prospects department, thus making the most of a down season in the long run. Alternatively, a team could pair the cap space with the moving player, so the team moving the player commits the entire salary to its cap space, between what was paid out before the trade and the banked space being sent to the acquiring team, who would still, of course, pay the remainder of the salary. Luxury-taxing acquired space would be a real possibility.

I'm torn as to when you would close the book on movable banked space. Should there be a window between the end of the season and July 1st to send 2013's banked space to a team in 2014? I don't know. I do know that trading future cap space is a no-go: first of all, the midpoint changes from year to year, so there's no telling what the future brings. Also, you know the Sharks would trade all their 2016 space between ceiling and floor for a bunch of guys, choke in the playoffs, and get to the year they mortgaged away with only enough cap space to dress ten janitors. And then with those ten janitors they'll hire Dave Tippett and win the Stanley Cup. But the point is that it would be limited to what has been banked.

- To continue with the NHL's model of revenue sharing contingent on still at least making some money, a "Quixote Tax" on the league for teams that don't pull their weight. We hear a lot about how the league and the union are partners in the new NHL. It's then incumbent upon the league to do right by its partner by conducting business in locations that maximize revenues for the partnership. For teams that miss revenue benchmarks for two or more consecutive years, the league should have to compensate the players for income they're losing out on because the NHL is leaving good money on the table in other markets to tilt at windmills. The league has to be prodded into being where it is most lucrative to be. They shouldn't have to be, but they do.

- All players shall be made to spend their entire playing careers living in 40-story dormitories like freshmen at Illinois State University. Oops! Had my Magnus hat on too long!

Aside from the pot shots at me, I'm intrigued by your proposals. I particularly like the "Quixote Tax", as you put it, because teams floundering in locations where fans don't exist won't fill the seats just doesn't fly with me. I'm not sure how I feel about "movable cap space", though. Isn't that just a way around the salary cap? That's what I'm reading. I would like to see teams that have drafted well keep their players. Would something like a franchise player tag exemption be applicable to certain players? If a player is made to be known that their services are valuable to a particular team, and the fans love them, I would hope that would give them more reason to stay. The almighty dollar isn't everything - especially when you're making pro-athlete money. (Or at least, it shouldn't be the driving motivation...)

Also, they have 40-storey dorms at ISU? I did a quick look at the University Housing Services site for ISU (just now), and the highest I saw listed was 28 stories.

[The_Admiral]

I'm not sure how I feel about "movable cap space", though. Isn't that just a way around the salary cap?

Correct! However, if it comes at the expense of organizational assets and a luxury tax, is it really that bad? You're not just spending more money, you're trading for the right to be penalized for spending more money. That's fair. Why should a contending team be able to use the money it saved, while a rebuilding team has to let its allotted budget disappear into the ether? If this facilitates stacked rosters down the stretch to the ultimate benefit of the league and the sport, then the failing teams should just take their luxury tax payouts at the end of the season and like it.

A problem I realized with the Quixote Tax is that too many of these failing teams are in ironclad leases, and the NHL couldn't flee them if they tried. You can take money from the league year after year for staying in Phoenix and Columbus, but with the Creatively Financed Public-Private Partnership, there's not a way out of Columbus for another thirty years. Good for McCarthy, bad for the Blue Jackets, worse for the idea of encouraging placement of franchises in locations that can support them. Quelle disastre.

[Magnus]

I have an inkling of an idea about teams trying to circumvent the cap ceiling in a given year, and I want to see if it holds any water. If a team is found to be over the cap ceiling, would it be reasonable to have the league disallow them from playing until they reduce their salary to a level below the ceiling? (Sort of in the spirit of punishing soccer teams for match-fixing - force them to play in empty stadia) - this would go one step further and not allow them to play at all. I know THAT might be damaging to a team's bottom line.

[The_Admiral]

I don't follow. How is a team "found" to be over the ceiling? If a transaction would put a team over the cap, Central Registry won't accept the transaction. I know the Devils and Flames have both been made to play games without twenty-man rosters because of the salary cap.

[dfwabel]

I have an inkling of an idea about teams trying to circumvent the cap ceiling in a given year, and I want to see if it holds any water. If a team is found to be over the cap ceiling, would it be reasonable to have the league disallow them from playing until they reduce their salary to a level below the ceiling? (Sort of in the spirit of punishing soccer teams for match-fixing - force them to play in empty stadia) - this would go one step further and not allow them to play at all. I know THAT might be damaging to a team's bottom line.

Before the start of the season, each team cannot be over the cap.

Also, say the offending team starts the year on the road? Since game revenues are kept by the home club, they have lost additional revenue from parking, concessions...