Hockey un-cancelled?

[agn]

Looks like there is a chance all 49 fans will have their season back

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1994750

[Arandar]

Can they even do that since they already made the "official" announcment that it was cancelled? It shows how greedy some of these people are though that they don't give a damn and then when the season is cancelled they all of a sudden try to negotiate after the fact for their millions. I swear the NHL is starting to show more drama then a Jerry Springer show.

[Burr]

I don't know what the fuck is going on. Now supposedly talks have broken off again. Players pissed that the league changed back to an old offer. They had a press conference scheduled and everything and now it's not going to happen. This is fucking absolute nonsense. How can they jerk everyone around like this, unless it was all the media..

The league can cancel/uncancel whenever it wants. There's no law against it. Just an inconvenience. Bettman said on the day of the cancellation that he wished he would have to suffer the embarassment of having to come back out and uncancel the season. Some people say it was spurred by the threat of ESPN dropping the NHL altogether.

[Green]

Why'd you have to jinx it, agn? Why?! :smt022

[All-Night John]

No deal.

[Burr]

I don't care what the facts say. I'm blaming this all on the fucking Panthers. Fucking hate them! At the very least they are rumored to be one of the more vocal franchises against the deal.

[All-Night John]

I blame the Rangers for giving such huge contracts to Holik and Kasparaitas.

[Green]

I think I initially started out favoring the players position, but over the past few weeks that had been weakening. But after today's shit it seems like this is squarely the fault of the owners.

God dammit.

[Burr]

It seems like some of them want to be guaranteed profit with a low enough cap. I do agree with the league's theory that the cap can act like a magnet and draw teams up to it, but when you start getting it down to 45 million there isn't nearly as much the competitive disadvantage by continuing to ice a 30 million or less payroll. After a certain point you have take some responsibility and grow your own damn revenues instead of cutting costs. However, the players NEED to realize this is the best deal they're EVER going to get. There is nothing more to win after this point, only more to lose as the league can put linkage back on the table and start from an even lower cap number as the negotiation gets put off to starting next season on time.

[All-Night John]

If the players didn't dick around for so long, screaming, "No cap! No cap!" when it was blatantly obvious that there would be no more NHL without a cap, we'd have hockey now.

[Burr]

According to Edmonton sports radio hearsay, the following teams killed the deal:

Boston, Chicago, Edmonton, Carolina, Florida, Washington, Buffalo and Nashville

Boston and Chicago?? WTF?!!??!? &#@^%$#@& Fucking cheap ass Jacobs and Wirtz. They're making money under the CURRENT system!

Those are the 8 teams needed along with Bettman's supermajority vote, so obviously he is to blame as well.

[Arandar]

If thats true then Boston for one shouldn't be complaining seeing as they choak every year in the playoffs. Maybe once they get by the first round then they can ask for more money. Unless somehow they are somehow being vastly underpaid right now, which I really doubt thats the case.

[Burr]

"I thought [$42.5 million] was a figure we could live with, but we were stretching," said Jacobs. "And I know there are teams in this league that cannot survive at [$49 million]. Even at $42.5 million, there are clubs that would still be in peril, definitely. To make that work, we'd still have to take money from other clubs to support them."

Heaven fucking forbid you share any of your revenue, you greedy little asswipe. If it's good enough for all the other leagues, why not the NHL?

Jesus Christ, everyone on both sides is so fucking shortsighted about this whole thing. If you fix the system, the money will come rolling in and nobody will have to cry poor.

[All-Night John]

Jacobs isn't going to share a dime. :lol:

Though it's not right to call him cheap. Greedy was the correct term.

[Burr]

Nice take by a football guy..

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/peter_king/02/20/mmqb4/index.html

I will miss the NHL. I know I'm in the vast minority, but I love the hockey playoffs -- went to game 7 of Mighty Ducks-Devils and got emotional at it, and I like to see the pucks three or four times a season. Here's where I find fault in the negotiations: How can you be Bob Goodenow, the head of the players association, and say for months and months you won't accept a salary cap and it's non-negotiable, and then, hours before the league is going to hold a news conference canceling the season, say you'll accept it? How can Goodenow not have seen the solidarity of the owners, the way Gene Upshaw saw the solidarity of the football owners 13 years ago? Say what you want about how Upshaw is too easy on the owners in the NFL. All I know is football teams split $85 million per year (the 2005 cap figure) for 53 players and everybody is happy. And in hockey, with no appreciable TV money to think of, the players association doesn't think it's fair to have almost an exactly equal per-player cost, with a $42.5-million cap number for half the number of players. Odd to me. Think of that: The NHLPA won't take a cap of half what the NFL's cap is -- even though its roster size is half what the NFL roster is. I do think the one demand the league fell down on was the floor; it's unfair to have one team be able to spend significantly less than the cap. The league should have been able to force its teams to have a floor close to the $42.5 million.

[All-Night John]

Stern said it best (http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?id=115407),

But, he (Goodenow) deciced that the style was you don't give anything until what you perceive to be the 11th hour and then in the pressure of the situation you can get your way. One of the worst miscalculations in the history of sports.

[Burr]

Well to be fair, it worked in 1994, when the players pretty much raped the owners at the last minute. But the catch is most of the owners back then are now gone and are not the pussies they were before, LOL. sux2bgoodenow.

[All-Night John]

Everyone could see that was not going to happen this time. Well, eveyone save Goodenow, apparently.

[Burr]

http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000837032305/

Go Mark Cuban!

[Burr]

Gretzky and Lemieux were set up. (http://tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?id=115751)

Gretzky also confirmed to the paper that both he and Mario Lemieux had been invited to the meeting by the NHLPA, where he expected the players to present a proposal that would include the hard cap number they'd be willing to accept.

"Mario and I believed our role was going to be to do what we could to help the players get to the number that was going to get a deal done," Gretzky told the Post. "Gary never told me or led me to believe [the NHL] was coming to the meeting with a new proposal, or had committed to raising the hard cap number from the previous $42.5 million. Gary never told me the league was prepared to go to $45M.

"I wasn't there to negotiate, and neither was Mario. That wasn't our role. You have to remember, this wasn't the NHL's meeting. If Gary had wanted to call another meeting, he would have done it Wednesday morning before he announced cancellation of the season."

Gretzky then spoke to the Post about what actually occurred during the six and a half hour session.

"So when the meeting began, I took Trevor (Linden) and Vincent (Damphousse) aside and asked how they thought we could bridge the gap between $42.5M and [the PA's last proposal of] $49M to make it work," Gretzky said. "They told me they weren't prepared to talk about a hard cap number until the other issues like arbitration, qualifiers and entry level were done.

"That's when I told them that I didn't have a role in that at all, that I wasn't there for that. And that's kind of the way it went. There never was real discussion about the cap number."

Such wonderful people in the NHLPA. :rolleyes:

And note, Goodenow has already denied all this after Bettman described this exact situation on the radio yesterday. I think I'll trust The Great One here..

Bettman's word:

During the interview in question, conducted by Mike Francesa of WFAN, Bettman sounded off on what he perceived as questionable actions by the union.

"I think this was a set up," Bettman told Francesa. "I think this was done intentionally to try and cause the type of reaction we saw all weekend. I think they were trying to position us into an offer they knew I couldn't accept - either because they wanted me to make a mistake that I couldn't get through my board (of directors), or so we would ultimately agree to something we couldn't afford."

Bettman said the whole ordeal was tougher to deal with than cancelling the season, which he did on Wednesday.

"What happened with our fans, in raising the level of expectation... I was sick to my stomach. It was more trying than what I had to do on Wednesday.

"And after Saturday, when everybody realized that they had been had, then they had a field day in the media, killing us on Sunday."

Francesa told Bettman both sides deserved the bad press for dragging the fans through that emotional roller coaster on the weekend.

"You're right," Bettman agreed, "except all we did was - all that information about a deal, a season, a press conference, the whole business of making an offer - it was all a pack of lies. I can't control the lies that are being told by whomever is telling them.

"We got criticized by people saying, 'How can you cancel the season Wednesday and then talk about undoing it on the weekend?' We never talked about undoing it.

"This is a case were it all ran amok, and none of it came from us (the league)."

[All-Night John]

Cubes is just gearing up for the upcoming NBA CBA.