Hockey_Nut99 said:
Both sides have made mistakes. There is no doubt about that. I just hate when the players say it is all Gary's fault. He overexpanded into places where he shouldn't have, blah blah blah. For gods sake. Gary got a whole bunch of non nhl'ers extra jobs and raised the NHL revenue up to 2.1 billion!! Why didn't the nhl players ever complain 5 years ago? Yeah Bettman hasn't been perfect, but the players were just milking the system which they had a right to, until it expired. Only now they say the NHl shouldn't have expanded and such...Both sides are idiots but these comments from the players really tick me off, especially since the players only benefited from all this.
The players, in my eyes, just have shown a lack of respect. That's all. I do like how they are approaching things now though. Things look a little brighter.
Everyone loves to compare the NHL to other businesses, so I'm gonna do that okay? Here we go.
If a business, wants to expand, hire more employees, who's gonna object? No one, right? Right. The business says its doing good, thus it needs more workers, can handle more projects, make more profits, etc. Everyone is happy. But almost immediately after expanding, the business dives downward. What happened? The business was either not ready to expand, or expanded into the wrong markets. Who's to blame? The employees, who should have said "hold on boss, don't give more money to other employees," or do you blame the owners, who run the business, know all the financial stuff, make the key, big decisions, etc. Who's fault is it? Obviously its the owners.
Now lets look at the NHL. Over the past year or so, they've basically been saying they've been hurting since the CBA was signed about 10 years ago. Yet what do they do? Expand. What kind of a business expands when it is unhealthy?
Now they're two major reasons why the NHL expanded, to receive expansion fees and too try and get a large US TV deal. In the process, they needed more players, thus needed to pay more guys, some of whom belong in the minors. If I'm a player, I look at this like, "okay, the league must be going well, the union gets bigger, more players to go around, hey, this is great."
Obviously, the league was not ready or over did it, thus is now paying the price. And you're blaming the players for not wanting expansion since day one? Why should they oppose if that's what the owners wanted to do, creating more jobs in the process? If the owners want to shell out more money to their minor league buddies, why should they object? Is it the players' responsibility to keep the business healthy, or is it the responsibility of the owners, who own the business, to make all the business related decisions? These owners are all billionaires, they know what their doin', why should I, a hockey player, step into their expansion plans?
And even if a majority of players did oppose the move to expand, do you honestly think that the owners, hungry for their expansion fee money and US TV deal, would listen? Did they listen to the fans who opposed the rapid expansion? No.
You ask why the players didn't complain 5 years ago. Well why didn't owners complain 5 years ago that this CBA was robbing them? Why did they expand this CBA, the one that they simply cannot live with anymore, not once but twice?