Newsguyone said:
How so?
The owners last offer wasn't an offer.
There was nothing meaningful in it.
They had the audacity to take the players offer, spin the numbers around in a smarmy attempt to divide the union, and then add a salary cap.
You call that an offer?
Not that the PA's offer was an offer that was going to get this done. But it was a significant move, at least in terms of getting some movement.
Or do you have another reason why this is in the PA's court?
Not unlike the move of the NHLPA that put on a window dressing of 24% rollback to try an entice and divide the owners without addressing anything else in a significant manner? A proposal the NHL took back and crunched the numbers on. A kindness the union btw did not return on the NHL proposal.
The NHLPA proposal was nothing. It was the starting position offer from the players. An offer they would be over the moon if it was accepted. There were no real concessions that "hurt" the players in it. The framework was not what the owners want to see and to be frank when a business is hurting as the NHL is hurting it is ultimately the owners side who gets to choose the framework of the negotiation. There was movement on the part of the owners from the original outlines during the summer. They included the subject of a minimum cap that was quite high and actually over the maximum cap in the orignial outlines...it opens up a cap range for discussion. A maximum cap nearly 25% higher than mentioned in the summer. And they put down their starting position. Again it comes down to one thing and one thing only....tying salary thresholds to revenues or not doing so. When one side jumps that hurdle the rest falls into place. It took three months of a work stoppage for both sides to put down the opening positions. Neither side has budged all that much from their rhetoric of 6 months ago in those positions as both sides are still sticking to the framework they want to see. The thing is I firmly believe the NHLPA thought the league was bluffing and I don't think they are. The owners are committed and even if a few are getting antsy there is no way 24 of them are (I'd say there aren't even 5).
The end is that the side that is most right gets to decide that framework and the unons inability to answer and clarify some basic questions leads me to believe they aren't the ones taking this seriously and they are playing the weak hand. (1) using the Levitt numbers in their proposal they hoped would get accepted and thereby having them in writing as legit yet not accepting them, (2) the inability to even discredit the numbers or the Levitt report, (3) no matter what source they all agree the league is bleeding and that the bleeding must be stopped yet the proposal does not seriously address the issues everyone elese can see as needing addressed, (4) the lack of any sort of explanation as to why tying salaries to revenues is a bad thing (and trust has nothing to do with it given an independent auditor would be making the evaluation taking 'trust' COMPLETELY out of the equation), (5) why 50+% or more of revenues is such a bad thing, (6) if the owners are hiding all this money somehow why they wouldn't negotiate a $45 mil cap expressed as x% (given the league has offered about $38 mil as a formal opening....with give and take it would get to $45 mil or perhaps higher if a joint tax/cap system is used). After all the only place the cap is going is up when the auditor looks at things and finds all this hidden money. Or is it simply because if there is any hidden money it isn't going to amount to anything but a nominal difference? (7) why losing $1.2 billion in salary is better than guaranteeing $1 billion or so in salary as could have been negotiated in a hard cap; and (8) why negotiating a trigger such that as revenues increase so do salaries is such a bad thing.
The NHL has answered the questions as to why they think this is the best way to go about things and why they don't feel the other systems will work. Whether you agree or not they have spelled out there position and provided reasons why. I've yet to see any sort of answers from the NHLPA on these things other than "we won't accept it". "The NFLPA hates their cap". "caps lead to mediocrity".