signaliinoise said:
And this would explain the utter dominance of the Rangers and Wings of the last decade?
Not necessarily, but it would explain the lack of big-name skill players throughout the league. But for the record, the Red Wings have been pretty dominating in the last 10 years, and the Rangers cup run was helped a great deal by FA acquisitions and up until the late 90s were a very strong team. Just look at how the Colorado Avalanche evolved, when they first relocated from Quebec they iced a very defensive team (Ricci, Yelle, Keane, C. Lemieux, Leschysyn, Foote, etc.) and with FA acquisitions (and trading some of their big name vets) became more and more skill-oriented. The Avs really personify the movement of the top six or so teams gobbling up the skill players on the open market towards the mid-to-late 90s.
signaliinoise said:
It doesn't even *suggest* a strong attendance. Didn't the Lightning effectively give playoff tickets away last year? Nothing guarantees strong attendance, but for my money the best bet is to fix the game itself. A real, honest-to-Bob crackdown on obstruction is the first step. Reversing the old decision not to aggressively market the games stars is another (if I recall correctly, this was a Bettman carryover from the NBA, where he'd felt that the stars were overshadowing the game -- sheer nonsense from where I sit).
I agree completely about the game needing to be fixed. But that's a whole seperate issue. What was I arguing was a linkage system can help the game overall, but there's obvious limits to what a CBA can do.
signaliinoise said:
I am suspicious of this in the extreme. Every indication I've seen is that the NHL wants to change the independant contractor model into a serf model. Capping earnings, clamping down on entry-level contracts, the very nature of restricted free agency -- these don't imply much partnership. Their inability to control their own checkbooks shows, if anything, that they can't be trusted to partner with anyone. I haven't seen them offer to cap their own profits.
If the PA appeared the least bit interested in the NHL's attempts to dangle a true partnership model out there, I am pretty sure the NHL would have put a legitimate partnership CBA proposal on the table by now. But with the PA's posture of not wanting to have anything to do with a partnership model, the league is forced to setup a CBA that keeps the independent contractor model in check.
It doesn't make much sense for the NHL to invite the PA into their house and then beat them over the head once they're inside. But the PA wont accept the NHL's invitation, instead the PA prefers to break-in and take what they feel is theirs -- and up until now, the NHL has been an accomplice. Now we're seeing the NHL forced to install some security systems in their house because the players are walking away with too much.
Not a great analogy, but you get the idea.
signaliinoise said:
If they really want partnership, and they really want to control costs, I say make UFA a given directly after the entry-level contract. The rise in supply of available, young, talented free agents would cause costs to plummet, and the players would be able to have some sense of self-determination before they are leaving the prime years of their careers.
I don't know about the entry-level contract being the UFA cut-off point, but lowering the UFA age is definately something both sides should agree on as long as there is some sort of a cap.
If you make the UFA age the expiry of the entry-level contract -- you're going to see some real long entry-level contracts.