richardn
Registered User
It is clear now to me that Bettman never had any intentions of saving the season to begin with. I believe Bettman is trying to crush the union all together. I mean think about it. The players offer 24% rollback with luxury tax and what does Bettman do. Takes their offer and combines it with his triple cap , thats got to be the worst negotiateing tactic I have ever seen. How in any way does that show you are willing to negotiate. He then waits till the last second to take linkage off the table. So what does the PA do? The PA says ok, lets make a deal and offers a cap only to be rejected with a final offer thats insulting to the players after every thing they have concieded. Bettman then waits to the press conmerence to say that he probably would have took 45 million cap, but yet he didn't offer it when the NHLPA made their counter of 49. Instead he sent Goodnow a letter saying that their cap puts the league payroll at 75% of league revenues and that they had to 11 am to accept the offer . If anyone actually believes this they are not all there. Let me get this straight all 30 teams are going to all of a sudden go to the cap max. The fact is 9 teams tops would be at the cap max. How many people think the teams with 20 something payrolls are going to all of a sudden say lets make our payroll 49 Million.
My take is Gary Bettman knew that he had the players by the balls when they offered the cap. He purposely went out of his way to piss off the players by slapping them in the face with his final offer, knowing full well the players would not accept his final offer. Bettman really wanted to cancel the season so he could use it for leverage. I mean with no season now and all offers off the table. Bettman can crush the union now which is starting to give signs of being divided. He knows that by cancelling the season he has a great shot at getting his triple cap at 30 and change. Thus giving everyone an oscar speech on how sorry he is that he has no choice but to cancel the season. If Gary had any intentions on saving the season he would have swallowed his pride and got on the phone and said Bob how about 45. Where do we go from here know. If we don't have hockey come september and I don't count scabs as NHL hockey, I don't know if the NHL would be able to survive a work stopage of two full seasons, which is where this appears to be going.
My take is Gary Bettman knew that he had the players by the balls when they offered the cap. He purposely went out of his way to piss off the players by slapping them in the face with his final offer, knowing full well the players would not accept his final offer. Bettman really wanted to cancel the season so he could use it for leverage. I mean with no season now and all offers off the table. Bettman can crush the union now which is starting to give signs of being divided. He knows that by cancelling the season he has a great shot at getting his triple cap at 30 and change. Thus giving everyone an oscar speech on how sorry he is that he has no choice but to cancel the season. If Gary had any intentions on saving the season he would have swallowed his pride and got on the phone and said Bob how about 45. Where do we go from here know. If we don't have hockey come september and I don't count scabs as NHL hockey, I don't know if the NHL would be able to survive a work stopage of two full seasons, which is where this appears to be going.