Your 2012 National Hockey Lockout Thread

[The_Admiral]

1) Guaranteed contracts from their cold, dead hands. What good can possibly come from giving that up? What could the league give back in return?

2) They more or less had two floors under the old CBA. I think you had to spend near or to the midpoint to qualify for full revenue sharing (except for the Coyotes, who get full revenue sharing without satisfying payroll or revenue minimums and still end up $40 million in the red). Why not just widen the range and/or impose a luxury tax?Gaping revenue disparity calls for gaping expense disparity. I would even go as high as +/-$25 million, for something like a 20-70 range. If you're so broke that you need to cut payroll to just over $20 million, you can have that option. Then, you can trade your cap space for prospects so you can get better. This seems equitable to me.

[Kevin W.]

Bettman and Fehr to hockey fans:

Quite accurate.

[The_Admiral]

WARNING: This is from The Nation With A Period, so they might fall just a hair left of Abbie Hoffman, but facts are facts nevertheless and so I find this quite interesting --

http://www.thenation...troying-sports#

I’m sure this must seem like a wild coincidence: four lockouts in fourteen months, affecting three of the four major professional sports leagues of this country. What are the odds? Actually, they’re very good. This is not merely a case of four sets of labor negotiations that have tragically broken down. This is a conscious, industry-wide strategy. A law firm called Proskauer Rose is now representing management in all four major men’s sports leagues, the first time in history one firm has been hired to play such a unified role. In practice, this has meant that in four sets of negotiations with four very different economic issues at play, we get the same results: lockouts and a stack of union complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. It’s been great for owners and awful for players, fans, stadium workers and tax payers.

Proskauer Rose partner Howard Ganz represents the NBA and Major League Baseball, and fellow-partner Bob Batterman has led negotiations for the NFL and the NHL. As Sports Business Daily reported, “Batterman and Ganz provide advice on strategy, as well as on issues that can emerge during talks, such as the legality of using replacement players.”

In other words, they are the people who scuttle collective bargaining and give word when to bring on the scabs. It was the now-infamous Batterman who was lead negotiator when NHL owners locked out the players in 2005 and canceled the entire season. Ian Pulver, counsel for the NHL Players Association in 2005, said of the lawyer, “Bob Batterman is a hard-nosed, smart management attorney who leaves no stone unturned. He will do his best to attempt to execute the orders of his clients including, but not limited to, breaking unions if necessary.” When Batterman was told of Pulver’s words he said, “I would be proud to have that on my epitaph.”

. . .

But even if we could successfully disengage Proskauer Rose from our pro sports leagues, NBA and NHL Commissioners David Stern and Gary Bettman have more in common than just the combined five lockouts they’ve overseen in the past thirteen years. They’re also lawyers who used to be partners at a firm called Proskauer Rose. We are confronting our worst nightmare as sports fans: a vampire squid with a law degree attached to every tentacle.

Also interesting, because god damn it's working:

For management to win a lockout they need to convince the public—and transform the culture—into thinking that lockouts (starving out your workers) is an acceptable practice. No NHL players are starving, of course, but this is about exploiting sports to enforce a new national labor paradigm.

Look, I don't exactly carry around a copy of The Little Red Songbook here. I'm moderate-to-conservative when it comes to money. But sports make for a great stage, and when you think about how these people are using our sports leagues to change the narrative about labor and capital not just with sports but with everything, you can't let yourself get swept up in the propaganda. You have to keep your head, and no matter how much these jocks make, that means digging your heels in and refusing to say "yeah, lockouts are a good thing," because once they're a good thing in hockey, they're a good thing in schools, then they're a good thing in factories, and before you know it we've all been crushed underfoot.

You can't say "it's just billionaires versus millionaires," because it isn't. You say that and the battle is lost. It's not about Sidney Crosby averaging his cutesy $8.7 million a year, it's about the 5th round draft pick who slogs it out in the AHL for $55,000 a year, gets his cups of coffee on the 23-man roster at a highly prorated $500,000, and washes out of the system with broken bones and brain trauma from the years before he even got there. We forget about those guys easily because they don't score cool goals, but that's who the union is really fighting for, or should be. All the damn time, whenever we have to defend the fortress from people who crap on hockey, or when we get into pissing matches with people who dare to enjoy the NBA, what's the common refrain? "Hockey players are the good guys, the regular dudes, the guys who care." Fallacious a generalization as it may be, we all still say it. And yet hockey fans are almost unilaterally turning against the good guys and regular dudes why, exactly? Because Count Bettman offered to split revenues 50-50 and everyone stopped reading at page one because hey that's all that counts (hint: it isn't)? Now they're all spoiled bitches and greedy bastards? What the hell, you guys? You want to play the solid-bro card, you have to play it every hand, because it's the most solid of the bros, the beloved FOURTH-LINE GRINDER GOOD WESTERN CANADIAN KIDS, who are the ones who will most feel the squeeze from ownership and Proskauer Rose. They're the ones getting screwed by escrow, they're the ones who can't flit off to HC Bratislava at the slightest sign of labor strife, but somehow they're the bad guys? Now it's Comcast, Rogers, Bell, Molson, AEG, MSG, and a gaggle of bottom-feeding con artists who are our heroes because they're the ones with their finger on the switch? That's horrible. For shame.

[troy_3223]

But even if we could successfully disengage Proskauer Rose from our pro sports leagues, NBA and NHL Commissioners David Stern and Gary Bettman have more in common than just the combined five lockouts they’ve overseen in the past thirteen years. They’re also lawyers who used to be partners at a firm called Proskauer Rose. We are confronting our worst nightmare as sports fans: a vampire squid with a law degree attached to every tentacle.

I have no idea why this hasn't been highlighted before. I'd always wanted to hope that the similarities in negotiating between Bettman and Stern were coincidental. This connection ought to be common knowledge. The fact that this connection spans all four major sport leagues ought to be common knowledge. I want to believe that Gary Bettman cares about the NHL beyond furthering an agenda. It's getting harder to believe that.

The thought that these tactics could spread to other industries - I don't want to believe that, but the signs are there. The anti-union sentiment in the US has been growing steadily over the last 20 years. Just about everyone in my dad's generation were part of some union or another. Most of my uncles, my grandfather, most of my parents' friends. In my immediate circle of friends, I can only think of two people who have unions protecting their rights. A teacher and an electrician.

As far as NHL Hockey, I don't see this coming to a resolution. I don't think anyone who is blaming Fehr read past the 50-50. I'm fine with the revenue sharing, I can see a lot of the points in the deal as unfair to the players, but I can see a reasonable demand for most of them. But for the owners to sign ridiculous contracts that changed the competitive landscape of the sport and then fight to not honor those contracts seems almost criminally dishonest. The Parise and Suter deals would be drastically altered. Would everyone have acted the same if they had seen this coming? Look at how much of the offseason moves hinged on the Shea Weber signing. The league has to honor the contracts already made, yet that's the one point they won't compromise on.

I don't see how the league can have anyone's support at this point.

[Sport]

The Blue Jackets hired John Davidson as President of Hockey Operations.

http://bluejacketsxtra.dispatch.com/content/stories/2012/10/24/jackets-to-hire-davidson.html

The fact that this will be the first time they've ever had a competent hockey person above the GM is a huge reason for the franchise's futility. I can't imagine Scott Howson's job is long for this world.

[Waffles]

Via the Daily News' Nets beat reporter:

@NYDNInterNets: Barclays Center and New York Islanders will make a "major announcement" today in presser attended by Wang, Bettman, Ratner.

Incidentally, the Nets are playing a preseason game at Nassau Coliseum tonight.

Edit: http://islanders.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=644105

[lordsketor]

Via the Daily News' Nets beat reporter:

@NYDNInterNets: Barclays Center and New York Islanders will make a "major announcement" today in presser attended by Wang, Bettman, Ratner.

Incidentally, the Nets are playing a preseason game at Nassau Coliseum tonight.

Edit: http://islanders.nhl...s.htm?id=644105

According to the NY Post, the Islanders are officially moving to the Barclays Center.

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/islanders/islanders_skate_to_barclays_in_brooklyn_s8QVci06EOnyL06hK4atnL

[IceCap]

That's good news, I think. It's small and the sight lines are terrible, but hopefully they can fix that. Cashing in on the excitement surrounding the Nets' move and Brooklyn's desire to have teams of their own night just re-energize this team.

Would be nice to have a season first though

[griffelh]

But even if we could successfully disengage Proskauer Rose from our pro sports leagues, NBA and NHL Commissioners David Stern and Gary Bettman have more in common than just the combined five lockouts they’ve overseen in the past thirteen years. They’re also lawyers who used to be partners at a firm called Proskauer Rose. We are confronting our worst nightmare as sports fans: a vampire squid with a law degree attached to every tentacle.

I have no idea why this hasn't been highlighted before. I'd always wanted to hope that the similarities in negotiating between Bettman and Stern were coincidental. This connection ought to be common knowledge. The fact that this connection spans all four major sport leagues ought to be common knowledge. I want to believe that Gary Bettman cares about the NHL beyond furthering an agenda. It's getting harder to believe that.

The thought that these tactics could spread to other industries - I don't want to believe that, but the signs are there. The anti-union sentiment in the US has been growing steadily over the last 20 years. Just about everyone in my dad's generation were part of some union or another. Most of my uncles, my grandfather, most of my parents' friends. In my immediate circle of friends, I can only think of two people who have unions protecting their rights. A teacher and an electrician.

As far as NHL Hockey, I don't see this coming to a resolution. I don't think anyone who is blaming Fehr read past the 50-50. I'm fine with the revenue sharing, I can see a lot of the points in the deal as unfair to the players, but I can see a reasonable demand for most of them. But for the owners to sign ridiculous contracts that changed the competitive landscape of the sport and then fight to not honor those contracts seems almost criminally dishonest. The Parise and Suter deals would be drastically altered. Would everyone have acted the same if they had seen this coming? Look at how much of the offseason moves hinged on the Shea Weber signing. The league has to honor the contracts already made, yet that's the one point they won't compromise on.

I don't see how the league can have anyone's support at this point.

Why isn't the union decertifying and suing in court for unfair labor practices? That is the move that seemed to get the NBA and NFL situations resolved and the NHL owners are certainly negotiating in more bad faith than any otjer league.

[bosrs1]

That's good news, I think. It's small and the sight lines are terrible, but hopefully they can fix that. Cashing in on the excitement surrounding the Nets' move and Brooklyn's desire to have teams of their own night just re-energize this team.

Would be nice to have a season first though

Don't see how that'd fix that. Not without ripping part of their brand new basketball arena apart. And even then that won't solve the capacity problem. This has to be a short term thing until they can get a new arena out on the island.

[STL FANATIC]

The Blue Jackets hired John Davidson as President of Hockey Operations.

http://bluejacketsxt...e-davidson.html

The fact that this will be the first time they've ever had a competent hockey person above the GM is a huge reason for the franchise's futility. I can't imagine Scott Howson's job is long for this world.

Excellent hire. The Blues simply grew beyond needing JD (and couldn't afford to keep him on just to keep him), and that's because JD planted the seeds and got them going.

Watching him help another team in the division might not be fun, but Columbus needs it and deserves it, and he should do a great job. I hope they give him the freedom and support to do it.

[Sport]

The Blue Jackets hired John Davidson as President of Hockey Operations.

http://bluejacketsxt...e-davidson.html

The fact that this will be the first time they've ever had a competent hockey person above the GM is a huge reason for the franchise's futility. I can't imagine Scott Howson's job is long for this world.

Excellent hire. The Blues simply grew beyond needing JD (and couldn't afford to keep him on just to keep him), and that's because JD planted the seeds and got them going.

Watching him help another team in the division might not be fun, but Columbus needs it and deserves it, and he should do a great job. I hope they give him the freedom and support to do it.

This story really got lost yesterday with the whole Islanders hullabaloo , but it's big news in Columbus. At least it is for me.

From the sound of the press conference, he's got full autonomy when it comes to hockey related affairs so they will give him the freedom to run the team as he sees fit. As a long-time advocate of my favorite team actually hiring someone at the top of the organization with confirmed hockey experience, I'm pretty happy with the hire. It'll be a few years before the results begin to show on the ice (because it takes a while to turn a franchise around and because we won't see the team until 2013), but I think he'll instill a culture that has never existed in Columbus. It's long been the place you come to play where there's no pressure or accountability. Vinny Prospal referred to it as "the country club" three weeks into his stint with the team, and he's 100% right. Davidson will change that and even if they're not good for the first few years, they won't be easy to play against. Right now, they're one of the easiest teams in the NHL to play against.

Anyone who watched last year's disaster will tell you that the biggest problem is that nobody in the organization had any direction or plan for that hockey club. They had no identity because they didn't know what they wanted to be. This will at the very least give the team a plan to move forward as a team with a purpose instead of just existing as a group for 20+ freelancers put together by a GM (with no idea of what he's doing) in order to fill out a roster.

#FireHowson

[The_Admiral]

So does this make Scott Howson redundant? If Davidson has full control over hockey operations, that makes him the de facto general manager, no?

It's long been the place you come to play where there's no pressure or accountability.

There and like six other places on the map. Another systemic problem with the league: too many places to hide.

[infrared41]

WARNING: This is from The Nation With A Period, so they might fall just a hair left of Abbie Hoffman, but facts are facts nevertheless and so I find this quite interesting --

Lots of really good stuff edited for space...

...That's horrible. For shame.

I don't have enough hockey knowledge to post intelligently in this thread...some would argue that I don't have the requisite intelligence to post any thread here but I digress... I do drop by on occasion just to see what's going on. My post won't add anything to the discussion, but I just had to comment on the Admiral's post. Excellent work, Lt. Colonel.

[STL FANATIC]

So does this make Scott Howson redundant? If Davidson has full control over hockey operations, that makes him the de facto general manager, no?

In St. Louis, JD entered as President and oversaw GM Larry Pleau. It's hard to know for sure, but it seemed like they worked as a tandem (and with the rest of their staff). Pleau still handled your regular day-to-day stuff, including, I believe, trade negotiations, but everything was run by and discussed as a group.

With Pleau nearing retirement, JD hired Doug Armstrong as Assistant GM and GM in waiting to ease a smooth transition. That went so well that it basically nudged JD out of the picture. The team was strong enough to not need JD as it's marketing face, and Armstrong had earned the right to lead the hockey decisions.

Obviously JD's goal isn't going to be to get himself pushed out again, but I'm sure he's happy with the success of his plan in STL, and it wouldn't surprise me if he tries to do something similar. In this case, however, I suspect Howson might be removed of his duties and a GM brought in and trained under JD's guidance.

I don't think it's ultimately redundant to have a President of Hockey Ops and a GM, but the roles will probably be a little untraditional, at least at first.

[NEW.ERA]

Columbus really lucked out getting JD. Was hoping the Flames would throw everything at him, plus he has connections to the city. Ken King needs to be shipped to Taiwan. Oh well

[njmeadowlanders]

Looks like all of November is about to be axed as well. Fantastic.

[HedleyLamarr]

They won't be playing until 2013.

As long as it's football season, there won't be much of any media-fueled pressure to get a deal done.

[njmeadowlanders]

They won't be playing until 2013.

As long as it's football season, there won't be much of any media-fueled pressure to get a deal done.

In the US there will NEVER be much of any media-fueled pressure to get a deal done. But god forbid we lost a week of NFL training camp or some preseason NBA games. Rabble Rabble Rabble.

[The_Admiral]

Maybe we'd have had more rabble if the league had doubled down on the northeast and cemented its status there instead of overextending itself into goddamn Nashville and Raleigh.