NHL Lockout...Whose side are you on?

[Eye]

It will be too bad if the NHL cancels another season, but if they do, then just GTFO. It's already a niche league, and they probably still haven't fully recovered from the last lockout. I'm a fan of a few of the league's players, and it would really suck to be unable to see them play. Obviously, with any business, the goal is to make money, but from any reasonable perspective, the financial gains that the owners would gain with a new CBA (further) in their favor, are dwarfed by the long term losses of people not giving a anymore with the obvious revenue losses from not giving a anymore, well, for most of the owners anyway.

[Stampman]

I'm on the side of the arena workers who will lose work if there's a work stoppage--whether a lockout or a strike.

[CS85]

I imagine the CBA talks so far going like this:

Starring Joe Pesci as Bettman/owners, and Richard Riehle as the NHLPA.

**NSFW** some obscenity.

[BLUELANDbeliever]

I'm for the owners because the players sign too many awfully long contracts to build a championship team. If the players keep doing this, there wouldn't be enough salary for free agents or rising stars who deserve the money.

Was gonna let you off the hook but...

I'm all for the lockout lasting a good decade.

R.I.P. NHL.

Just like Bieber, stay in Canada NHL.

[IceCap]

I'm all for the lockout lasting a good decade.

R.I.P. NHL.

Just like Bieber, stay in Canada NHL.

I have a feeling that these are types of posts that people like vmd9 remember when they go off on their "ALL OF CANADA WANTS EVERY NHL TEAM IN CANADA" rants. Funny because this one was made by an American in Kentucky who admitted he knows very little about hockey. I guess what I'm saying is that no hockey fan, be they Canadian or American, wants to see every NHL team in Canada. So let's stop throwing that out there as a legitimate talking point.

[RedSox44]

There are only a few people on the side of the owners.

Bettman, and the owners.

[WSU151]

I'm usually a pro-owner guy when it comes to sports, but it's hard to be against the players this time around. I'm amazed NHL owners made this much money in the first place if they are this incompetant in projecting cash flows and budgets.

[Sodboy13]

Here's one that really sticks in my craw. Noted pine-rider/goofball Paul Bissonnette tweeted out the other night that only 4 NHL owners have attended CBA sessions in person. He later revealed that one of those four was Craig Leipold, owner of the Minnesota Wild.

Picture it. You're at the bargaining table, and the guy who just signed two players for a combined $196 million in one day is giving you the sob story about how player salaries are out of control and threatening the financial stability of the sport, and how it's on the players to make the necessary concessions to set things on the right path going forward. Your brain is going to stroke out from the endless methods it devises to tell him to go himself.

[sportstar1212]

There are only a few people on the side of the owners.

Bettman, and the owners.

And Raysfan12

[BLUELANDbeliever]

There are only a few people on the side of the owners.

Bettman, and the owners.

And Raysfan12

EH?

[Raysfan12]

There are only a few people on the side of the owners.

Bettman, and the owners.

And Raysfan12

EH?

I'm now on the player side now that I found out that owners make so much money while others struggle with cash flow. And I officially apologize for anything negative I said about the NHL and hopefully now I don't insult their fine fans in the forum.

[The_Admiral]

Here's one that really sticks in my craw. Noted pine-rider/goofball Paul Bissonnette tweeted out the other night that only 4 NHL owners have attended CBA sessions in person. He later revealed that one of those four was Craig Leipold, owner of the Minnesota Wild.

Picture it. You're at the bargaining table, and the guy who just signed two players for a combined $196 million in one day is giving you the sob story about how player salaries are out of control and threatening the financial stability of the sport, and how it's on the players to make the necessary concessions to set things on the right path going forward. Your brain is going to stroke out from the endless methods it devises to tell him to go himself.

You're leaving out the other, even more stultifying half of the equation, which is that the players are ostensibly being represented by Paul Bissonnette. I guess he has to do something constructive other than fart around on Twitter and get scratched more than a mosquito bite.

[Sodboy13]

I'm pretty certain Biznasty isn't actually a player rep, just well aware of the proceedings.

[ElwoodCuse]

yall should hate Jeremy Jacobs, owner of the Bruins, total jerkweed, and President of the Board of Governors a lot more than you hate Gary Bettman

[Sodboy13]

Oh, don't worry, I do. That doesn't mean I can't consider Bettman a smug, sniveling rodent, though.

[The_Admiral]

In searching high and low for people who actually support the owners, I seem to have found them among--ugh, where else?--Coyotes fans. Of course they want costs to be artificially driven down. This brings up what's to me, however, quite an insidious double-bind regarding the entire "we need to save Westgate!" thing. If a lockout happens and many or all games are missed, one of two things would happen:

1) Without the foot traffic that the Coyotes generate, the entire strip mall will go out of business because there's seriously nothing else going on there, and the city will be deprived of sales tax revenue. This will prove Team Westgate right, but if the team does come back, it will come back to a dead mall: Applebee's doesn't get to take a year off and come back like nothing happened.

2) There will be no appreciable change in business and sales tax revenue, as people will reallocate their entertainment dollars from hockey to movie theaters and Jimmy Buffett concept restaurants. This will prove Team Westgate wrong, and the team will be proven not to be a critical part of the economy.

[IceCap]

yall should hate Jeremy Jacobs, owner of the Bruins, total jerkweed, and President of the Board of Governors a lot more than you hate Gary Bettman

It's been brought up before, but I think it warrants being re-examined given recent events.

The question is, how much power does Gary Bettman actually wield, and how much can he be praised/blamed for the NHL's fortunes?

The pro-Bettman crowd points to the NHL's increased revenue since the last lockout as proof positive that he's good at his job. Yet when labour negotiations turn sour, mostly due to stubbornness on the NHL's part, the pro-Bettman crowd says "well he's just a figure head who has to answer to the owners, leave Gary alone!"

You can't have it two ways. Either Gary Bettman is responsible for the increased revenue the league has enjoyed as of late, or he's a powerless figurehead who can't influence the direction of labour negotiations. He can't be both, despite a certain subsection of hockey fans wishing both were.

I directed this in a response to your post Elwood, because I know you've defended the Commissioner with the "he's just a figurehead" and "he's done so many great things, look at the increased revenue!" arguments, though it's obviously open to be responded to by anyone.

The most likely answer to the "how much power does Gary Bettman have?" question, I think, lies in between the two extremes. He's obviously the not the dictator of the NHL. He represents the owners, and as such he ultimately champions their policies.

It's precisely because he represents the owners, however, that gives him a degree of power then his supporters often claim he lacks. He works for the owners, and so the owners are in charge. The problem, however, is that there are 30 29 ownership groups. Twenty-nine different groups, all primarily concerned with their own teams and finances. Twenty-nine different owners who are often too busy running their own teams or businesses to pay much, if any, attention to the day to day running of the NHL.

Which is where Bettman comes in. He's hired to be the guy who runs the league, to be the guy who manages the day to day operations the owners can't be bothered with. So when something big comes up, like potential relocation or labour negotiations they turn to Bettman to lead the way because they all know he's the guy who knows what's going on better then they do. He's the one who deals with the league's workings day in and day out, after all. He works for the owners, yes. The job the owners hired him for, however, is to be the guy in charge.

So while he's not a dictator, he's not this powerless puppet either. He has a legitimately large degree of influence among the NHL's ownership, and so he does deserve a good deal of blame when things fall flat.

[The_Admiral]

Ed Snider seems to be getting a lot of play as an ownership hardliner this time around, which is funny since he just tried to sign Shea Weber for a zillion dollars (and in failing, has probably destroyed a Predators team that doesn't make any money as it is). I know Jacobs has a lot of power (controls a lot of teams' concession contracts), and Peter Karmanos seems to exert undue influence with his little jerkwater club. Dolan and Ilitch just want to do whatever the hell they want, a contigent I had always grouped Snider under.

Speaking of the pretend owner of the Flyers, I wonder when the real owner of the Flyers is going to step up. I refer, of course, to Comcast, which is now looking at not just decimated CSN schedules but a growing NBC Sports Network without its crown jewel. I know the NBC deal says that the NHL gets paid for TV rights this year no matter what (they'll just play a year after the end of the contract with no US TV revenue), but it sure would be nice if they still said "listen, you :censored:ers, you screwheads, you better figure something out fast."

[Magnus]

Not sure if this should be posted here, but...

ESPN Team Rankings

[ElwoodCuse]

I directed this in a response to your post Elwood, because I know you've defended the Commissioner with the "he's just a figurehead" and "he's done so many great things, look at the increased revenue!" arguments, though it's obviously open to be responded to by anyone.

They aren't mutually exclusive. He's hired by and answers to the owners. Why would they get rid of a guy when revenues are through the roof and in the last CBA they got basically everything they wanted, including a salary cap? Why change unless he had a significant amount of enemies like Fay Vincent did?

Gary Bettman is not necessarily the reason for the explosion in NHL revenue, but the explosion in NHL revenue is absolutely the reason for his continued employment.