Gretzky sounds totally defeated

TSN interview with Gord Miller on TSN.ca

Sounds like he's lost all hope.

 

I watched that interview, sounds just like Gretzky usually does. Doesn't show a lot of emotion, you especially won't hear it in his voice simply because you never have, it's not his game.

He actually sounded fairly positive in my mind, a lot more than I would have thought someone in that situation would feel.

 

I think he felt that way Wednesday. Nothing today has changed that.

 

Players didn't even bring an offer, heck...I would be disappointed as well. He just blew a couple of hundred bucks on a flight from Phoenix to New York and for what? Nothing, nada

 

From all reports the NHL invited the NHLPA to New York, and then presented essentially the exact same $42.5 million offer that the NHLPA already turned down.

If the NHL wasn't going to come off the $42.5 million offer from Tuesday, why invite the NHLPA ???

 

All the media reports of a player mutiny vs. Bobby Boy... that's why.

 

Maybe to tell them this is how much trouble the business is really in and to be partners and stop fighting us so we can all salvage this situtation..

I have not heard Gretzky this down since Billy Smith swept his Oilers in 1983 and mocked him when he won the MVP..

 

Apparently so, as The Hockey News is now reporting that the offer presented to the players today, was actually worse than the Tuesday offer.

http://thn.com/en/headlines/detail.asp?id=27377&cat=954945254360

If that's actually the case, I've lost even more respect for the ownership group, presenting an offer that they had to know would be rejected ... doing something public that they knew would build hope in the fans again, only to stomp all over them again.

If you're going to present the same offer, or a worse one, send it via e-mail .. instead of trashing your fans base for the 2nd time in a week. Completly disgusting.

 

The whole partnership line has become a complete joke .... Illitch, Cablevision, Comcast etc. don't want to be parteners with Lemieux, Karmonos, Leipold etc.

 

Of course its worse, every offer from now on is going to be worse.

 

Every offer isn't going to be their best because the hard line owners won't get their way if the owners offer something they think the players will accept.



The players are going to have to be the ones to make the offer that some of the hardline owners want, because some of them have to vote on it. An offer from the owners only needs a majority.

 

That's fine in June or September, but don't get the fans hopes up, 3 days after you crushed them, with a bogus offer, after floating the idea that $44-45 million is doable. IMO just another act by the NHL office showing the don't give a damn about the fans.

 

Whats wrong with doing it now?

Bogus offer? Are you ****ing kidding me? Find any other better offer currently available for the PA in the whole rest of the universe.

 

i usually can respect you as a rational opposing viewpoint but that is crap. You can cut the showboating arguments. Both sides respect the fans and to think otherwise is silly. I too am a bit scared that the NHL is going militant here and I'm a calgary fan.

 

Guys I don't see what's so hard to understand. Season was canceled Wednesday. Didn't you hear Brian Burke? "I can't understand for the life of me how this gets better for the players". Revenues are going down. Fans are quitting. NHL's offer are going to decrease.

It has already started. Eventualy the Cap number will go down from 42.5. Eventually linkage will be re-introduced. It's going to get worse and worse and worse for the NHLPA. I think Bettman invited them to NY and gave them a worse offer to make them realize it ASAP.

Players have to give in at some point. They have no choice.

But by the time it'll all be over, the League will only be a shell of it's former self. Cap will likely be so low that Russians will be better off staying in their homeland making 3 million$ a year. Many Europeans will likely be unwilling to come to North America to play as the money won't be the same anymore.

It's armaggedon.

 

What's wrong with doing it now ???

Three days after the NHLPA rejected an offer, you give them something worse, and expect them to accept? The NHL couldn't have honestly thought the NHLPA was going to accept today.

That's fine if the season was officially cancelled, but IMO its a kick in the groin to fans, when you tell them there is a possibility of saving the season after you cancelled it once.

If the NHL made the offer they made today March 15th, I'd have had no problem, but not after raising the fans hopes, for no reason at all.

 

I am a big backer of management and even I conceed that the owners screwed this one up.

 

This is the same hockey news that brought all this false hope that everyone on both sides at those meeting completely denied as an accurate rumor. If your going to trash anyone start there because it's the only thing they can agree on and add EJ Hradek and his false deals are done proclamations.

If this is as high as the league can (42m) the players are going to have to understand but as far as we know they made no offer and stayed at 53.9 and wanted profit sharing but no linkage. All reward, no risk.

 

Truthfully, it was the MEDIA that gave us false hope, not the owners. The media had this as a "deal done", 28 game season before they even met! Right now, I wouldn't trust ESPN, TSN, and other sports shows on this issue if my life depended on it. Shame on The Hockey News for reporting a deal was done prematurely- got all the fans hopes up, only to **** on us again. This is what is going to drive more fans away, the media better be careful with this hype, they are on thin ice now with people like me ready to turn away from this for good.

 

Let's put all this bullspit into perspective. The NFL is the most financially succesful sports league in North America. The average NFL salary is $500,000 less than the average NHL salary. And the NHL is what - 10th, 11th right behind bowling, darts and curling.

And for all those that think the Russian league will lure players away from a $42 million hard cap NHL, where the hell do you get that? Are they paying 2-3 million dollars now to their best players?

 

Can you blame them? They do an excellent job with their teams whil the others, well......

 

There probably was a deal all but done and then the PA got to the meeting and started talking about a bunch of other stuff and didn't deliver what was said they'd deliver in back channels.

It's really the only way to read it.

 

I understand this a little, BUT......you don't report a deal is done, and talk about a 28 game season, until you have absolutely proof that this is the truth. They ALL went by one source- The Hockey News, and didn't want to wait for confirmation that this was, indeed, in place. It got fans and others, such as lots of business owners around the league that depend on hockey for their livelihoods, excited over a false hope. Even people who work around the league, were getting excited, being told this was done, and their jobs were coming back. This was such a let down to the fans, but imagine how much of a let down this is to people who depend on hockey for their livelihood? You just don't mess with people's minds like this. They are already on dangerous territory messing with the fans minds....

 

Don't say that Bettman didn't dangle out $45 million ... he did it at the press conference on Wednesday and he then did it again on the radio in Toronto.

The media didn't put words in his mouth. The media also didn't invite the NHLPA publicly to New York.

 

I taped the press conference and the best he said he could do was a hundred thousand or so when he was pushed in a question about how much the league could improve it's offer. The 45 million which to date the NHLPA never offered from all reports has not been offered by either side.

The media did not invite anyone but they did once again mislead folks with negotiations and rumors that both sides completely denied.