Newsguyone said:
The pro-players side continually ignores the fact that this is NEGOTIATION.
I keep hearing things like, well, if we the owners don't get exactly what they want, we're right back in the same situation. Irregardless of facts, or numbers. I hear this.
I continually here pro-owner people state that a $45 Million cap would kill the league. Yet they can never, when challenged, explain how that $2.5 million difference in the cap is going to ruin the league.
Now, because the players want assurances that salaries go up, you guys are crying "sky is falling"
I've got news for you, bud.
Just about every union in the world negotiates increases in contract, even if they settle for concessions in year 1.
Just about every union asks for 1.5 percent increases plus other COST OF LIVING (Inflationary) raises.
It's standard.
Is that what the NHLPA is asking? WHo knows?
But It's absurd to suggest that some kind of program to increase the cap would put the game "right where it was" Because it would take years and years and years to get the NHL back to $78 million payrolls.
These are points that can be negotiated.
If you want to protect the small market teams, then you find a way to tie the increase to the fortunes of the smaller market teams.
You can negotiate these things.
Wow, what a rather silly post.
Once again, since you conviniently ignore it every single time, if 2.5 million or 6.5 isn't such a big deal, why don't the players forfeit that value to the owners and sign the deal? Obviously, there is some significance there for both the owners and players to fight over. Your failure to grasp ahold of that is astounding.
Simply put, to answere your question that you pose every single time (and ignore every single time) 42.5 million is their breaking point. Its already been said that a few teams, including the Flames, would deal with loses with that figure, but it would be within bearable range. It's expected that with that figure, a 42.5 million cap, the Flames will stay at a 37-38 million payroll and lose about 6-7 million a year. Thats more then we should expect as fans.
Tell me Newsguyone, for some radical reason, you think 2.5 million is a small sum. If that isn't such a big deal to you, then why don't you fork over 2.5 million to the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers or Nashville Predators? Forget 2.5 million, would be even willing to fork over 20 bucks? I'll bet not.
Owners should not be expected to cope with the grand loses they've been dealing with now. We don't wipe our ass's with $20 bills, so we don't expect the owners to throw away money like that either. In some cases like Edmonton, many of their players make more then the owners do! Tell me one other business where the employee makes more then its employers do over a consistant basis? Please Newguyone, I'm dying to hear that one.
How big is a couple hundread thousand? Well to put things into prospective, Calgary Flames GM Darryl Sutter had to go to ownership and request to add another $275,000 to their budget to acquire Mikka Kiprusoff. Does that tell you how big of a deal $2.5 million is?
To furthur that point, yes I know not all teams will spend that number. However, what it will do is drive up the medium markets to hit the cap like a magnet. The scale wiill be small, but when 15-20 teams start to hit that cap target, it'll set the bar higher for teams like the Flames and Oilers to sign their players by. Thus, while the larger markets and those around the cap affect smaller teams by driving salaries up when the bar is raised. (Once again, this doesn't have to be on a grand scale, as showed above, how much setting the bar a little higher affects teams like the Flames in the Mikka Kiprusoff case.)
As for linkage... yes I understand almost every single job requires a pay raise as inflation increases. However, since you ignored this time and time again, why does the PA ONLY want it to benefit them?