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chriss_co

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Tom_Benjamin said:
The best 500 players are better off turfing 10 teams and 250 members than accepting 30 teams with a $31 million cap.

Tom

I think that would be extremely selfish for those players who would sacrifice their fellow union members for an extra million dollars.

I also have a feeling that that is not what the union wants either. I think the league as well as the union is committed to keeping 30 teams. I think the difference in idealogy is that the league wants 30 competitive and financially healthy teams while the NHLPA just wants 30 teams and doesn't care how the bottom feeders handle life as long as they continue with the paycheques.
 

me2

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Tom_Benjamin said:
The best 500 players are better off turfing 10 teams and 250 members than accepting 30 teams with a $31 million cap.
Tom

And its thinking like that that the owners are counting on. Once those 250 believe the union doesn't give a flying f*** about them and only cares about the stars, then thats 250 players that cross the picket line and cut the legs out from under the union.
 

chriss_co

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me2 said:
And its thinking like that that the owners are counting on. Once those 250 believe the union doesn't give a flying f*** about them and only cares about the stars, then thats 250 players that cross the picket line and cut the legs out from under the union.

Its too bad that this will take a year of no NHL for those players to realize when the majority of fans already see this as the end result. (and are waiting for it to happen)
 

Tom_Benjamin

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me2 said:
And its thinking like that that the owners are counting on. Once those 250 believe the union doesn't give a flying f*** about them and only cares about the stars, then thats 250 players that cross the picket line and cut the legs out from under the union.

Yoohoo! Reality check!

What picket line? What legs? What union? If the union decertifies, there is no lockout. There is no CBA. There is no entry draft. There is no salary cap. The 500 players who vote to decertify will be the players who know they will be working in a 20 team league. The 250 worst players in the league are the ones who care about the number of teams that survive.

In other words, the best players in the league can force contraction. Perhaps only the richest 20 markets survive. Given a wide open system, salaries for those 500 players will skyrocket. Instead of taking a pay cut to an average of $1.3 million, the players will choose 250 fewer jobs and an average salary of $2.5 million.

A bluff? Let's see the owners call it with $1 billion in franchises at stake.

Tom
 

gary69

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Sep 22, 2004
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Tom_Benjamin said:
Yoohoo! Reality check!

What picket line? What legs? What union? If the union decertifies, there is no lockout. There is no CBA. There is no entry draft. There is no salary cap. The 500 players who vote to decertify will be the players who know they will be working in a 20 team league. The 250 worst players in the league are the ones who care about the number of teams that survive.

In other words, the best players in the league can force contraction. Perhaps only the richest 20 markets survive. Given a wide open system, salaries for those 500 players will skyrocket. Instead of taking a pay cut to an average of $1.3 million, the players will choose 250 fewer jobs and an average salary of $2.5 million.

A bluff? Let's see the owners call it with $1 billion in franchises at stake.

Tom

You're so right, what I think some people fail to understand that NHLPA is not a democracy, the best 10 players + up and coming youngsters in each team actually call all the shots and the fringe players know that.

The best players can say that they will try to get the best deal for the rest of the guys as well, but if that's not going to happen without them taking huge paycuts, forget it.

There won't be any economically viable league without the star players, and also in a real market place the transfer fees for players already under contract to another team (at least for the europlayers) would increase substancially, european teams would give the most promising youngsters (15-17yrs) 8 to 10 year contracts, which NHL teams would have to buy out for a full value + maybe even some profit.

NHL owners need NHLPA much much more than the (top 500) players do!
 

chriss_co

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gary69 said:
You're so right, what I think some people fail to understand that NHLPA is not a democracy, the best 10 players + up and coming youngsters in each team actually call all the shots and the fringe players know that.

If it isn't a democracy then why ask all the players to vote when they decide on a new deal? Just let those 10 players call the shots. I highly doubt that up and coming youngsters have leverage over the vets... And last time I checked the PA representatives from around the league aren't exactly the highest paid players. Eg. Trevor Linden... Bob Boughner... etc

gary69 said:
The best players can say that they will try to get the best deal for the rest of the guys as well, but if that's not going to happen without them taking huge paycuts, forget it.

There won't be any economically viable league without the star players, and also in a real market place the transfer fees for players already under contract to another team (at least for the europlayers) would increase substancially, european teams would give the most promising youngsters (15-17yrs) 8 to 10 year contracts, which NHL teams would have to buy out for a full value + maybe even some profit.

NHL owners need NHLPA much much more than the (top 500) players do!

You make the assumption that the league gets the majority of their prospects from Europe, which is not the case at all. And only Russia asks for outrageous transfer fees. The Finns and Swedes and others don't do what Russia does.

Nor would I doubt that would happen without a PA since its the league that negotiates these deals with the IIHF and the CHL etc.
 

gary69

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Sep 22, 2004
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chriss_co said:
If it isn't a democracy then why ask all the players to vote when they decide on a new deal? Just let those 10 players call the shots. I highly doubt that up and coming youngsters have leverage over the vets... And last time I checked the PA representatives from around the league aren't exactly the highest paid players. Eg. Trevor Linden... Bob Boughner... etc



You make the assumption that the league gets the majority of their prospects from Europe, which is not the case at all. And only Russia asks for outrageous transfer fees. The Finns and Swedes and others don't do what Russia does.

Nor would I doubt that would happen without a PA since its the league that negotiates these deals with the IIHF and the CHL etc.

Well, it's one thing who are chosen as figureheads and and completely another thing who puts words in their mouth...

I said AT LEAST EUROPLAYERS...for your information, Finnish and Swedish clubs have complained about the current agreement between NHL and IIHF for years now and they are far from happy with it, and if Russia opts out from a new agreement I doubt there will be any agreement between NHL and IIHF at all.

But even that is all academic if there's no NHLPA at all, then I think all euro clubs will negotiate individually with NHL clubs for each individual players...I doubt that best euro players will be cheap.
 

me2

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Tom_Benjamin said:
Yoohoo! Reality check!

What picket line? What legs? What union? If the union decertifies, there is no lockout. There is no CBA. There is no entry draft. There is no salary cap.

You keep thinking the union will decertify. I'd like to read Goodenow's views on that (and doig himself out of a job). Got any links.

Let them, I'm sure the NHL/owners would like to deal with a new friendlier union. Perhaps the 250 weakest players sign up straight away, then make up a new union since its their jobs that are on the line. A new union then a new CBA, then go after the better players.

For all we know the NHL might introduce a fixed wage based on experience and performance bonuses. The same sort of deal factory workers get only 30-60 times the amounts. You'd have to think that would make the weakest 250 happy.

The 500 players who vote to decertify will be the players who know they will be working in a 20 team league.

The bottom 200 of that 500 might want to rethink their position.

You seem to think contraction will make them richer. May I ask how? The teams revenue streams are pretty much set. They might getTV rights distributed from the dead teams but that is only a few million each. Also if 10 teams go you'd be looking at a 3 round, 8 team playoffs, thats about 1/2 the number of playoff games easily cancelling out any TV gains (8+4+2+1 series becomes 4+2+1 series).

Most of those 500 players would find themselves pushed down a few spots in the pecking order, and therefore paid less. 2nd and 3rd liners could end up as 4th liners and their salaries would go down accordingly. The more good players you shove on a team the more they have to share the pie. Contracting 10 teams isn't going to make that pie noticably bigger.

Creating a massive surplus of talent is not a smart way to drive up prices. Ask any farmer what happens when there is a surplus of perishable fruit and vegetables. It doesn't take long before they are cutting each other throats to get any money they can. The bottom 100-200 of those 500 players would be competing with 250 players prepared to sign anything just to get a job. Not good for their bargaining power.


The 250 worst players in the league are the ones who care about the number of teams that survive.

And they'll be the first to sign up for what they can get setting a cheap base rate for the owners to use against the remaining players. Those 250 will be ones putting pressure on the ones above them, who will put pressure on the ones above them.


In other words, the best players in the league can force contraction.

How? You yourself have pointed out 250 players who'd sign for peanuts. Long term its bad for the weak teams because they are non-competitive but they'd survive short term on $10m payrolls.

Even if they do it might not make them better off.

Perhaps only the richest 20 markets survive. Given a wide open system, salaries for those 500 players will skyrocket.

We already have unlimited spending on teams payrolls. Plenty of teams are losing money. They might even cut back to profitable levels. No guarantee at all they will increase payrolls under a all-UFA system.


Instead of taking a pay cut to an average of $1.3 million, the players will choose 250 fewer jobs and an average salary of $2.5 million.

Average wage would go up because it must if you remove the lowest payrolls. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the top 20 teams had average salaries around $2.2m now. Even if it does reach $2.5m (no guarantee it won't come down slightly after the excess of the last CBA) many players may be worse off because the money will be spread across more talented players than before. Players that were top 2 liners suddenly become 3rd/4th liners. Its good news for underpaid young stars, bad news for older players and fringe dwellers.

Teams like NYR, TO, Detroit and Philly might get into bidding wars over the top 20-40 players. After they blown their budgets on these players they force the bottom 200 or so of the 500 still employed into minimal wages. Its not like these guys will have much choice because the the top guys will have all of the money and if they don't like the minimal wages there are 250 more unemployed players who want their jobs.


A bluff? Let's see the owners call it with $1 billion in franchises at stake.

Tom

I doubt very much whether Philly management cares if Florida, Anaheim, Nashville or Calgary go under. If they do go under its more star players for their team and they'll only have to pay the same money they pay now. Why would they complain about that?
 
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