Biggest reason for this prolonged lockout - Goodenow "we will not play under a cap"

[Dr Love]

Give me a break. Guerin spent a couple of years at Boston College.

Just because Guerin went to BC it doesn't make him a smart man. He may very well be, but going to college and being an athlete doesn't always mean intellegence.

 

[CarlRacki]

Give me a break. Guerin spent a couple of years at Boston College. Trevor Linden is extremely smart and he was the Canuck player rep in 1994. The players understand exactly what is going on. They pay Goodenow and their agents to provide advice. The idea that they are being led around is ridiculous. They know exactly what is at stake.

The fans are being led around by the Gary Bettman travelling medicine man and media manipulation circus. Snake oil, $1.50.

Tom

Yes, and Ron Artest spent a couple of years at St. John's. We all know what a brilliant mind he posses.
Please. Guerin attended BC for an education no more than most stud football and basketball players attend college for an education. It was a two-year stopover on his way to the NHL, nothing more.

Funny that you're quick to believe millionaire busisnessmen (i.e. the owners), educated and experienced journalists and a majority of fans are easily manipulated by Gary Bettman's Snake Oil, Inc. , yet find it impossible a bunch of high-school (barely) educated athletes couldn't possibly be led around by their attorneys.

 

[YellHockey*]

Yes, and Ron Artest spent a couple of years at St. John's. We all know what a brilliant mind he posses.
Please. Guerin attended BC for an education no more than most stud football and basketball players attend college for an education. It was a two-year stopover on his way to the NHL, nothing more.

Guerin could have turned pro or gone to the CHL to play instead of spending two year in college. Unlike football and basketball players, he had other options then college.

Funny that you're quick to believe millionaire busisnessmen (i.e. the owners), educated and experienced journalists and a majority of fans are easily manipulated by Gary Bettman's Snake Oil, Inc. , yet find it impossible a bunch of high-school (barely) educated athletes couldn't possibly be led around by their attorneys.

The owners are the ones selling the snake oil. Bettman's just their bagman.

And how educated are the "journalists"? Here in Ottawa, one only got his job because his friend resigned to become a golf pro while another one got a job because of his last name. I've known plenty of people who have taken journalism at one of the best journalism schools in Canada and none of them had any idea of becoming sports "journalists".

There are plenty of Ivy League educated players in the NHL. Why wouldn't those players speak out if they feel like they're being led around by their attorneys?

 

[me2]

Yes, and Ron Artest spent a couple of years at St. John's. We all know what a brilliant mind he posses.
Please. Guerin attended BC for an education no more than most stud football and basketball players attend college for an education. It was a two-year stopover on his way to the NHL, nothing more.

Funny that you're quick to believe millionaire busisnessmen (i.e. the owners), educated and experienced journalists and a majority of fans are easily manipulated by Gary Bettman's Snake Oil, Inc. , yet find it impossible a bunch of high-school (barely) educated athletes couldn't possibly be led around by their attorneys.

Tom is right. The players understand what is at stake here and its not some high moral principles like free agency, better working conditions, etc. Nope, it's nothing but pride and that pure, age old desire for more money. Players, even stupid ones, understand money as a driving force.

Players want money, money, money. Owners want to save money, money, money. Just business.

 

[kingsfan]

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/2004/11/23/727468.html

"All we've heard from Gary is this stance: 'Salary cap, salary cap, salary cap.' We've given them well-thought-out proposals and he's not willing to negotiate. What we've gotten back is just ridiculous. We presented a proposal with hundreds of pages of fine details. What we got back is six concepts and the longest one may have been 230 words and some were 30 words."

Just so you know, this quote was 64 words long. What exactly could the league type out as a 'concept' that is 30 words long? They can't just say salary cap, as Goodenow says. There is more to a cap then just saying the cap is 31 million or whatever. Terms about when a player is an RFA, arbitration, etc. would have to be also discussed, in the 'concept', since a cap would impact those and Bettman and the boys would have to explain how they are effected. It isn't a concept till it is explained how everything is effected. How you'd even generalize how to sum that up in a mere 30 words in beyond me.

Bottom line, just because Goodenow says it, don't believe it. If Bettman had said that his proposals were actually 100 pages long, would you believe him?

 

[kingsfan]

Guerin is a vice president of the NHLPA and on the negotiating committee. This means he has seen every piece of paper generated on the dispute and he has attended every meeting and negotiating session. He speaks for the organization. To call him uninformed is quite the insult.



Like you would put any weight on it anyway. If the information isn't part of an officially sanctioned Bettman media minute, it's garbage isn't it?

Tom

Actually, if memory serves me right, didn't Guerin blow off a few NHL/NHLPA negotiations during the World Cup because he was playing? To say he's been at every meeting/negotiating session is faulty if I remember correctly. And who knows if he's "seen every piece of paper generated on the dispute and he has attended every meeting and negotiating session" since then either. No one knows that conclusively besides the NHLPA hierarchy.

 

[John Flyers Fan]

Just so you know, this quote was 64 words long. What exactly could the league type out as a 'concept' that is 30 words long? They can't just say salary cap, as Goodenow says. There is more to a cap then just saying the cap is 31 million or whatever. Terms about when a player is an RFA, arbitration, etc. would have to be also discussed, in the 'concept', since a cap would impact those and Bettman and the boys would have to explain how they are effected. It isn't a concept till it is explained how everything is effected. How you'd even generalize how to sum that up in a mere 30 words in beyond me.

Bottom line, just because Goodenow says it, don't believe it. If Bettman had said that his proposals were actually 100 pages long, would you believe him?

Don't you think if it wasn't true, and the actual proposals were significant ... the NHL would have jumoed all over Guerin's comments, refuting them, and showing the media exactly what their proposals have been ???

The NHL owners have been on top of this PR battle the entire time, if what Guerin said wasn't true, Bettman or Daly ... would have been all over this.

 

[Johnnybegood13]

Guerin is a vice president of the NHLPA and on the negotiating committee. This means he has seen every piece of paper generated on the dispute and he has attended every meeting and negotiating session. He speaks for the organization. To call him uninformed is quite the insult.

Tom

Personly i would call him an informed idiot then,if there is one player that you could call greety it would be him.
And his Pejorative Slured comments alone make him an idiot.

 

[HckyFght*]

This guy thinks that Goodenow should step aside and sit this one out...

http://www.sportsfanmagazine.com/content/view/978/69/

-HckyFght!

 

[kingsfan]

Don't you think if it wasn't true, and the actual proposals were significant ... the NHL would have jumoed all over Guerin's comments, refuting them, and showing the media exactly what their proposals have been ???

The NHL owners have been on top of this PR battle the entire time, if what Guerin said wasn't true, Bettman or Daly ... would have been all over this.

If memory serves me right, didn't the NHL repeatedly call their proposals 'informative' and the like during the whole attempted negoations just before the lockout started? I don't see what they can 'be all over this' for though. If you are going to start bickering over how many words are in a CBA proposal, then things are way past being way out of hand. I just feel that for it to be only 30 words is a little perposturous.

 

[me2]

The problem with their offers to this points is that they were a paragraph each in length.

A legitimate CBA proposal would have to be a minimum of 50 pages.

A CBA proposal can't just be, salaries will equal 53% of "hockey revenues"

I think is a bit of a silly statement. Where has the NHL attempted to pass of the proposals off as an implementable CBA in their own right? They are proposal that might be implemented into a CBA and are not meant as CBAs in their own right.

Was the players proposal 50+ pages of new stuff? I seriously doubt it. How much was just rehashed junk.

 

[quat]

This guy thinks that Goodenow should step aside and sit this one out...

http://www.sportsfanmagazine.com/content/view/978/69/

-HckyFght!

Yeah, this was a good read, and I'm pretty much in full agreement. I'm sure it will be slagged and slandered here by several in the near future.

 

[MarkZackKarl]

booooooo

Just because Guerin went to BC it doesn't make him a smart man. He may very well be, but going to college and being an athlete doesn't always mean intellegence.

There's plenty of people who have a university or college degree who aren't more intelligent than the average person... from the looks of things, there are a lot of those people on this site alone.

 

[txomisc]

in 10 years half of these guys would retire anyway
let them hold onto their weak position for ten years while they play in other leagues for small money and the game passes them by. We'll still be watching Sidney Crosby in the NHL. We'll have tons of new stars who are every bit as good as anyone in the nhl is now.
its not like all the young hot rookies are gonna not play in the NHL because the NHLPA has been on strike for several years

Sure, NHL can play their 100 mil revenues and 750 mil fixed expenses + replacement salaries for any number of years they want to, but if Goodenow and NHLPA has a legally binding (=financially severely hurting) steadfast support of top 300-400 players for the next 10 years (which they apparently have), then profit-making owners are not really that stupid businessmen, that they are not willing to negotiate a compromise not including a hard cap, in an effort to restore their 2+ billion revenue industry.

 

[txomisc]

sure he has seen all the papers but what we dont know is if he even has an ability to read

Guerin is a vice president of the NHLPA and on the negotiating committee. This means he has seen every piece of paper generated on the dispute and he has attended every meeting and negotiating session. He speaks for the organization. To call him uninformed is quite the insult.



Like you would put any weight on it anyway. If the information isn't part of an officially sanctioned Bettman media minute, it's garbage isn't it?

Tom

 

[txomisc]

it is impossible for them to negotiate. that requires two sides willing to speak.

Goodenow has said that the dispute can be settled quickly once the owners get off the salary cap. He has not suggested that all of the other issues can be quickly resolved once the players accept a salary cap. He has stated flatly that the players aren't accepting the salary cap.

At least some of these other issues are being raised because teams will need greater flexibility in a number of areas if the system legislates inflexibility around money. Bettman has said that once the core issue is accepted by the Union, the rest will not take months to tie up. It can be done expeditiously, he says.

That's not the point. The point is that the least the owners can do is table an A-Z CBA. They can pick one of their "concepts", fill in the details, and table it. Until they do, they are not negotiating anything.

Why haven't they done it? They can't get to impasse until they do. What is the point of waiting?

Tom