WC Handy said:
I can't read?
You specifically said "whoever thinks they wanted a season is a fool".
You can't even read something you wrote.
say what you will, the owners estimated it would take this long to get a linkage deal so they knew the season would be lost. They put the "warchest" together etc...they knew it was gone, had no intent on plaiying unless they got linkage which was impossible to do in a half season and they knew that. The NHL owners were near positive the season would be lost if they were to get a linkage deal. It's common sense, there's no getting around it.
It's impossible to get a union as powerful as the NHLPA to go from a free market to a link between salaries and revenues in 5 months so IMO they knew in order to achieve this type of deal which would make there business a guaranteed profit, that a full season would have to be lost and maybe longer. IMO They knew this would happen because the process just takes that long. Whoever expects a powerful union to roll over and die and accept a horrible deal in a few weeks is nuts, especially with there other options to keep making some money available.
I don't buy into the argument that they were ready to play on Feb 16 with a hard cap. IMO, the NHL knew the PA would never accept a deal without other ramifications goig there way. When they met a day after cancellation, the news appeared to me as though the NHL refused to talk about rev sharing etc. I think they planned it out so that $42.5 M looked nice to the media, but beneath it all was horrible revenue sharing and nothing else the players wanted. I don't think the NHL expected there to be a deal then. All the press conference and list of rule changes, I just don't buy into it. I honestly say Goodenow is smart for waiitng it out because a linkage deal with revenue sharing and other things the players want is be better then $42.5M and nothing else for his players. $42.5M looks nice because most of North America looks at a simple number as the deal. As we all know much more goes into what the average salary will be in the next few years. A $30M cap for instance with other things to escalate salaries is better then a $40M with none of those things.
The owners are not out for the good of the game, there out to achieve this linkage deal. Gary is paid to make the owners maximum profits and losing a year and scaring the game still achieves them linkage whcih guarantees profits IMO. It's all about the money as the Mod says. It really is. Sports now sucks because of it. I would really wish the BOG or someone would just wake up and realize lawyers should be banned from the NHL as headpieces.