Linden gets trashed by Hirsch's wife

[Bicycle Repairman]

What in the hell does that have anything to do with players unnecessarily taking other players jobs in europe?

Because it's the nature of the beast. Do try and follow.

 

[Bicycle Repairman]

If you ever had the unfortunate opportunity to meet Cory Hirche and his wife you would understand, I met them several times at season ticket holder events, glad he is gone. Oh and by the way Trevor Linden was one of the reasons Cory Hirsche left the Canucks. Maybe just a little bit of resentment on this one.

Haha.

MEMO

FROM: The World
TO: Corey Hirsch
CC: Shelagh Hirsch

We're out to get you.

 

[struckmatch]

Because it's the nature of the beast. Do try and follow.

Follow what? Your constant replies of "Thats the nature of beast" and "You've got to expect competition for jobs in the hockey business." I get that, thats not the issue, the issue is that these NHL'ers don't intend on STAYING in europe, they are just there to stay in shape, and bide time.

Try to understand that concept, and see how that is incredibly wrong when considering that these european players need these leagues to make a living, but instead they have Joe Thornton boosting his cardio in his place padding his bank account. Can you not comprehend that simple concept?

And you're saying that Corey Hirsch, and players of his ilk should be reconsidering why they are playing hockey in europe? And you're entitled to make that statement how? Hell, aboloish pro sports altogether then, using your logic, should any professional athletes be willing to risk their jobs day in and day out? Not according to you.

If these NHL players were willing to commit their services to these european organizations for a long term, or even a full year, no matter the results of the lockout, then I wouldn't have a problem with it, because then they are there to fully contribute to their respective teams, and not only to stay fit. You and your NHLPA brethren seem to always dodge that argument, do try and follow.

 

[Bicycle Repairman]

Follow what? Your constant replies of "Thats the nature of beast" and "You've got to expect competition for jobs in the hockey business." I get that, thats not the issue, the issue is that these NHL'ers don't intend on STAYING in europe, they are just there to stay in shape, and bide time.

Try to understand that concept, and see how that is incredibly wrong when considering that these european players need these leagues to make a living, but instead they have Joe Thornton boosting his cardio in his place padding his bank account. Can you not comprehend that simple concept?

And you're saying that Corey Hirsch, and players of his ilk should be reconsidering why they are playing hockey in europe? And you're entitled to make that statement how? Hell, aboloish pro sports altogether then, using your logic, should any professional athletes be willing to risk their jobs day in and day out? Not according to you.

If these NHL players were willing to commit their services to these european organizations for a long term, or even a full year, no matter the results of the lockout, then I wouldn't have a problem with it, because then they are there to fully contribute to their respective teams, and not only to stay fit. You and your NHLPA brethren seem to always dodge that argument, do try and follow.

Professional Try out Agreements are commonplace in minor leagues. Players come and go all the time. Nothing is set in stone. Players get released on a more frequent basis than the major leagues. Nothing new here. Now the bumpers are a considerable higher echelon than the bumpees. Doesn't change things one iota.

 

[struckmatch]

Professional Try out Agreements are commonplace in minor leagues. Players come and go all the time. Nothing is set in stone. Players get released on a more frequent basis than the major leagues. Nothing new here. Now the bumpers are a considerable higher echelon than the bumpees. Doesn't change things one iota.

Congratulations, you've proven that debating with you is a lost cause. You will continuously dodge the main arguments of your opponents and only address the points in which you can attack. Seems like you and the PA have something in common, the inability to make a decent concession.

Reply when you can tell me how its justified for NHL'ers to take jobs from european players who intend on making a living in these leagues, and when the NHL'ers are there to only stay in shape and do not need the income.

 

[Bicycle Repairman]

Congratulations, you've proven that debating with you is a lost cause. You will continuously dodge the main arguments of your opponents and only address the points in which you can attack. Seems like you and the PA have something in common, the inability to make a decent concession.

Reply when you can tell me how its justified for NHL'ers to take jobs from european players who intend on making a living in these leagues, and when the NHL'ers are there to only stay in shape and do not need the income.

When one side issues a "Cease and Desist" order, that implies a white flag a' fluttering.

I win.

 

[vanlady]

Congratulations, you've proven that debating with you is a lost cause. You will continuously dodge the main arguments of your opponents and only address the points in which you can attack. Seems like you and the PA have something in common, the inability to make a decent concession.

Reply when you can tell me how its justified for NHL'ers to take jobs from european players who intend on making a living in these leagues, and when the NHL'ers are there to only stay in shape and do not need the income.

OK by your reasoning NHL rookies can no longer go between the AHL and NHL because they are taking someone elses job. Give your head a shake, 90% of the guys in europe came from those leagues. Example, Mattius Ohland will go and play for Lulea after the new year, why not he came directly from there into the Canucks line up without an AHL stop. These guy grew up in these leagues and are just going home to play in front of the home town crowd.

 

[struckmatch]

When one side issues a "Cease and Desist" order, that implies a white flag a' fluttering.

I win.

Once again, you don't reply to my main point. What exactly is it that you've won?

What's depressing is that you represent this forum as a moderator.

 

[struckmatch]

OK by your reasoning NHL rookies can no longer go between the AHL and NHL because they are taking someone elses job. Give your head a shake, 90% of the guys in europe came from those leagues. Example, Mattius Ohland will go and play for Lulea after the new year, why not he came directly from there into the Canucks line up without an AHL stop. These guy grew up in these leagues and are just going home to play in front of the home town crowd.

Going from the AHL, and other minor leagues is basically a required step to making the NHL for rookies, its pretty much mandatory for players to move up in the ranks in terms of skill level, and calibre. You're comparing that to NHL'ers in europe whom are there to exercise?

 

[garry1221]

OK by your reasoning NHL rookies can no longer go between the AHL and NHL because they are taking someone elses job. Give your head a shake, 90% of the guys in europe came from those leagues. Example, Mattius Ohland will go and play for Lulea after the new year, why not he came directly from there into the Canucks line up without an AHL stop. These guy grew up in these leagues and are just going home to play in front of the home town crowd.

it's one thing to go to your home country and play on the team you played on BEFORE coming to the nhl. It's another matter entirely as puckyou has said, to take a european league'ers livelyhood away from him by coming over and taking his job, only to come back across the ocean when the nhl starts back up. If they want to excersize and keep in shape there's plenty of beer leagues to do it in over here.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

I don't know why we keep using "free market system" as a basis for argument on this issue. Isn't the notion that a free market system is NOT the best system for professional team sports in North America one of the main bones of contention regarding the entire NHL lockout???

Maybe it's just me.

 

[Lard_Lad]

Regardless of the ethics of the situation, having a large number of its members playing in Europe isn't a positive development for the NHLPA. The guys they're displacing might have been content to stay in Europe if the NHL succeeds in getting an impasse declared and starts next season with replacement players. But now they're pissed off, and are going to be first in line for the replacement jobs. Dave Nonis can pencil Hirsch in as the Scabnucks' starting goalie.

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

I don't know why we keep using "free market system" as a basis for argument on this issue. Isn't the notion that a free market system is NOT the best system for professional team sports in North America one of the main bones of contention regarding the entire NHL lockout???

Maybe it's just me.

Collective bargaining in sports is about making a trade off between reserve rights and free agent rights. When professional sports began, the owners invented the reserve system to forever tie players to the team that signed them. That's one extreme. The other extreme would make athletes as free as any other employee.

Finding a balance between these extremes is the reason to have a CBA. That is always the key issue. It is in this dispute too. If there was no free agency, who would care about a salary cap? The owners would do what they did in the 1950's, which was to pay the players whatever they wanted. Take it or leave it.

The court of appeal decision in the baseball case lays out this core issue for every professional sport:

For the most part, unionized employees in the industrial sector may leave one employer for another without restriction. The employee may have no bargaining rights with regard to the terms of hire by the new employer, which may be set by a collective agreement, but is nevertheless generally free to go from one unionized job to another.

The professional sports industry has a very different history and very different economic imperatives. Most professional sports leagues have always had some form of what has become known as the reserve system... (For clarity, I've removed the case citations in the opinion.)

As noted, this is a system by which the right to a player's services becomes the property of a particular club with limited freedom for the player to seek employment with another club. The reserve system in one form or another has been used in major league baseball for over a century. Until the arbitration decision in 1976, the reserve system prevented players from offering their athletic services to competing teams. A player's services were thus the property of a single team until he was traded or released. In enforcing a complete reserve system, Major League Baseball was exercising monopsony power -- a buyer's monopoly.

However, there are many reasons, apart from maximizing the transfer of revenues from players to clubs, why reserve systems exist within professional sports. Fans might not be interested in games between teams that had entirely new lineups for every contest. Moreover, high quality play may require that individuals practice and play with the same teammates for at least some period of time. Teams may also want to recoup what they regard as training costs invested in players while they gained experience. In antitrust litigation, the leagues perennially argue that some form of reserve system is necessary for competitive balance... (It is interesting to note that the competitive balance argument always fails to impress the courts.)

Indeed, even in a system of complete free agency, one would expect to see many long-term agreements binding individual players to particular clubs.

There are also reasons, apart from maximizing the transfer of revenues to players, why a union of professional athletes would seek free agency. It is very difficult to set individual salaries in professional sports through collective bargaining. Although unions of professional athletes may bargain for uniform benefits and minimum salaries, they do not usually follow their industrial counterparts and seek relatively fixed salaries by job description, seniority, or other formulae. Players often play positions requiring very different skills. Moreover, the level of performance and value to a team in attracting fans differs radically among players, with star athletes or popular players being far more valuable than sub-par or nondescript players. Usually, therefore, players unions seek some form of free agency as a relatively simple method of setting individual salaries.

Most importantly, however, both the leagues and the players unions view free agency and reserve issues as questions of what share of revenues go to the clubs or to the players. The more restrictive the reserve system is, the greater the clubs' share. The greater the role of free agency, the greater the players' share.

A salary cap system defines the share of revenues that go to the players and the clubs and limits the role of free agency in determining that share. Obviously the owners would love such a system. That's what the owners mean when they say they want a completely different economic system. They want to negotiate a player share rather than allow free agency to set the player share.

Unfortunately for them, the case law gives the players the right to complete free agency if they decertify while anti-trust law prevents owners from imposing a complete reserve system under any circumstances. In other words, the extreme case that favours the owners is illegal. The extreme case that favours the players is legal and available to the players. Obviously that impacts on where the balance point between those extremes is placed.

The players would prefer a balance over the extreme because they too recognize fans don't want to see a different lineup every night, because they realize teams have to practice together and because they want teams to invest in player development. They also have an interest in competitive balance and jobs. For these reasons players in all sports are willing to negotiate away from their extreme position. But every offer on the player side will come down to "Are we collectively better off under this balance between the extremes or would we be collectively better off with complete free agency?"

That is the player's trump card in the dispute. They don't need a collective agreement. The owners do.

Tom

 

[degroat*]

...except that even if there was 'complete free agency' teams would require contracts to play for their teams thus eliminating this alleged advantage that you speak of.

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

...except that even if there was 'complete free agency' teams would require contracts to play for their teams thus eliminating this alleged advantage that you speak of.

What on earth are you talking about? I would imagine teams would insist on contracts in a wide open system. So what? The players will have already exercised their advantage.

Whenever a player contract expired, the player would be able to field offers from 30 teams. Owners would not be allowed to make any agreements among themselves to limit player salaries or player movement.

Tom

 

[Malefic74]

What kills me is that players who are screaming blue murder that they can't live if the league average salary fropped from $1.8 to $1.3 million are over there doing just fine on salaries of $450,000.

The only players I still have any respect for are the ones who are just continuing with their summer workouts and staying in shape on their own. They are the only ones who have shown some degree of respect to other players in other leagues. Young guys who are still developing I have no problem with those guys going to the minor leagues, but 4 or 5 year veterans have no business down there.

And for those canadian folks who are having problems following how NHLers are in fact stealing jobs; imagine for a minute the NFL was locked out and all your favorite home-grown CFL heroes were suddenly forced out of their jobs because soulless mercenaries from the NFL came into the CFL to stay in shape while Tagliabue and Upshaw sorted everything out. They don't care whatsoever about the team they play for, they don't care at all whether they win of lose. They have to stay in game shape so that when they go back to the NFL they can earn the real money. And if you don't think CFL teams would fall over themselves to change THEIR import rule to allow it you are beyond naive. Meanwhile good canadian guys who played football because they loved it and were just good enough to scratch out a living on it are working as salesmen and are left feeling betrayed by players who should understand this.

 

[jcorb58]

I agree with puck_you . How many players would sign in europe if they were tied to their contracts for the whole year regardless of what happens with the negotiations back home. I wonder how these spoiled prima donnas would feel if scabs took their jobs. Ive not missed the NHL and I have watched it faithfully for over 35 years.

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

What kills me is that players who are screaming blue murder that they can't live if the league average salary fropped from $1.8 to $1.3 million are over there doing just fine on salaries of $450,000.

What does this have to do with anything? Do you really think the players care whether the idea of giving the bird to the owners and playing for far less in Europe "kills" you or not? The NHLPA is delighted about the exodus to Europe. Look at their website. Want to play fantasy league hockey based on the players in Europe?

1) European hockey has never been this good and the fans are eating it up. The IIHF is loving the lockout. They can hardly wait for the season to be cancelled. They hope it goes on forever. The longer it goes on, the stronger and richer will be the European leagues.

2) Oil billionaires in Russia have decided it would be fun to have Stanley Cup quality teams in their super league. They don't care whether they lose money. They probably won't go away when the lockout ends.

Will Atlanta ever get Kovalchuk back? If he can get $3 million in Russia, what will the Thrashers have to pay him? Even if they win the auction for him, what impact will his contract have in arbitration? Or consider Ovechkin. Topping the entry level salary for him - or for any other top prospect - is chump change for anyone selling millions of barrels of oil a day of $50 a barrel oil. And Russia is selling as much oil as Saudi Arabia these days.

The NHL is only the best hockey league in the world if they have the best players.

3) Speaking of poor Atlanta, how do you think they feel about Dany Heatley? Heatley is insured against career ending injury, but the Thrashers don't get anything. He's an enormously valuable asset who was hurt making money for Europeans instead of making money for Atlanta.

Tom

 

[thinkwild]

Doesnt Anshutz own teams in Europe? Maybe this a secret expansion plan by the owners to build up Europe enough to be NHL ready. Then by allowing some of the best players to play elsewhere for more, they can lower salary costs and its not their fault. And more expansion fees. My conspiracy theory of the day

 

[thinkwild]

And how is Shelaghs husband doing today?

 

[bling]

And how is Shelaghs husband doing today?

Oddly enough Corey was named to be the starting goalie for Team Canada's entry in the Duetschland Cup Tournament taking place this week in Germany.

Here is the line-up for Team Canada...ever heard of any of these guys?

Corey Hirsch, Jean-Francois Labbe, Andy Delmore, Dan Laperrière, Micki Dupont, Jamie Heward, Shane Peacock, Jame Pollock, Derrick Walser, Domenic Pittis, Jeff Shantz, Eric Landry, Rob Zamuner, Dale McTavish, Ryan Gardner, Eric Lecompte, Stacy Roest, Yves Sarault, Jesse Belanger, Scott King, Randy Robitaille

 

[thinkwild]

Taking the job of a patriotic Canadian who just wanted to play for his country?

 

[Malefic74]

Oddly enough Corey was named to be the starting goalie for Team Canada's entry in the Duetschland Cup Tournament taking place this week in Germany.

Here is the line-up for Team Canada...ever heard of any of these guys?

Corey Hirsch, Jean-Francois Labbe, Andy Delmore, Dan Laperrière, Micki Dupont, Jamie Heward, Shane Peacock, Jame Pollock, Derrick Walser, Domenic Pittis, Jeff Shantz, Eric Landry, Rob Zamuner, Dale McTavish, Ryan Gardner, Eric Lecompte, Stacy Roest, Yves Sarault, Jesse Belanger, Scott King, Randy Robitaille

Actually yes. I played bantam hockey with Shane Peacock. Nice to know he made it somewhere.

 

[Go Flames Go*]

Linden should be fired as the head of the NHLP hes does nothing but make wrong comments about everything. What a poor human being.