TSN Insiders Jan. 31

[dawgbone]

But hockey does not have a huge network TV deal either.

Yes the average hockey player in europe makes 150,000 in Russia, Slovakia and Czech Republic that money is tax free, and the player pays no stipend.

Now look at a salary and expences in the NHL. Salary 250,000. Pay taxes, agent, stipend, added living expences. So by the time you take all these things off, there paycheque will be about the same or less than playing in europe. So is it worth toiling in the NHL with the promise you might get a raise, or stay at home close to your family?

I would like to think you actually thought about what you were posting, before you posted it... apparantly, I was dead-wrong.

The only problem with your lovely little story is this.

Top players (with the exception of a few cases in the Russian elite league... AK Bars-Kazan being one of them), won't be the ones making $250k in the NHL.

And the top players are the ones making $150-200K in Europe.

Do you see the problem with your theory?

 

[Lil' Jimmy Norton*]

Because it links salaries to revenues which is inherently a stupid system. Nothing is idiot proof. Nothing changes the fact that some owners behave idiotically. When that happens, somebody has to pay a price. The question is who?

Mike Milbury and Charles Wang should have to bear the burden of the rest of Alexei Yashin's contract. The Rangers should have to pay Holik and Jagr. Under the Gary Bettman designed hockey league, the Yashin mistake comes out of the player's pockets. When someone acts like an idiot in 2008, the money will come out of the player share. It doesn't matter how idiotically the owners behave to the benefit of one player, the rest of the players collectively pay the price for it.

It won't matter to the owners if Brad Richards makes $50 million or $30 million in his career. If he is a good enough negotiator to get ther larger number, some other player won't get as much. I think it leads to selfishness on and off the field. (Anybody else see it in football and basketball?) It puts an "I" in team, particularly bad teams. If a teammate scores a big deal, less for the guy who rides shotgun.

If the injury rate continues to rise exponentially, player salaries must fall because, after all, the player share of salaries is fixed and if it takes more players to present the product, somebody has to get less. The Gary Bettman designed hockey league takes all the risk involved in contract negotiations and shifts it from the owners to the players.

Is that fair? When everyone admits that the owners are idiots? Somehow there is an assumption that "cost certainty" will convert idiots into guys who will never dish out a bad contract. They will be just as dumb. The difference is in who pays for their stupidity.



They can publicly demand a vote - their media poodles already are - and the players will tell them to bleep off. The season is gone. The players have nothing left to lose this season. The next step is to do everything they can to inflict economic damage on the owners. Turnabout is fair play, right?

Tom

Nothing left to lose.....????? Here's a total of just the clowns on the NHLPA Panel have lost in salary that they will NEVER get back !!!
Pronger 10M
Alfraidsson 5M
Irbe (Is he even in the NHL anymore?) 2.7M
Linden 2M
Guerin 8.8M
Damphousse 4M

Total 32.5 Million US dollars GONE FOR EVER !!! FOR WHO AND FOR WHAT ????
When they are finished playing hockey and they look back at their legacy it will be staring them right in their face !! It was all for nothing.......Their greed will be their legacy.

 

[Greschner4]

The union leadership will do anything Bob Goodenow tells them to do (just like players like Smolinski will do whatever Linden tells him to do -- independent thought is hardly a strong suit here). After the financial windfalls they've received in their careers, Goodenow could tell them to play in evening gowns next season and they'd say, "Yes, Coach, er, Mr. Goodenow" and hop the boards in a sequined, strapless number.

Goodenow's got them all completely brainwashed. All you need to know is that he's got them losing money hand over fist to stop a salary cap when the players in two very successful leagues have agreed to salary caps.

Oh, and it's going to fail and there's going to be a cap anyway. Nice work, Bob.

The 24% rollback gambit was really clever, too. Did you ever stop to think, though, that the owners could just kill the season and get a 100% rollback on 04-05 salaries? 05-06 salaries too, if they wanted it? I might have.

Another brilliant move by the union's fearless leader was having his membership go to Europe to play for peanuts ... proving beyond any doubt to both the owners and the public that his membership would be willing to play hockey for a lot less than they're currently making. What a genius!

 

[ladybugblue]

Not if there paycheque drops to 250,000 they can't, at least not here in Vancouver.

I can't believe you are saying this...it is so wrong. My cousin moved to Vancouver (Burnaby) to be exact a few years back and I will tell you he and his wife are making less than $250,000 a year and they are more than fine. They bought a townhouse and yes it is expensive but who is to say that the players won't move to another team in another city that is less expensive...how about say Edmonton, Columbus...there are a lot of other citys with less expensive cost of living and I don't think the players are worried about affording homes. On another note I live in one of the most expensive areas of the United States and I don't make a whole lot of money but it is managable (can't afford a house) but you can live and rent forever. These are issues for specific players, then they should speak to their reps. I don't think the cost of living in Vancouver is what the negioating team is worried about.

 

[Greschner4]

Because it links salaries to revenues which is inherently a stupid system. Nothing is idiot proof. Nothing changes the fact that some owners behave idiotically. When that happens, somebody has to pay a price. The question is who?

Mike Milbury and Charles Wang should have to bear the burden of the rest of Alexei Yashin's contract. The Rangers should have to pay Holik and Jagr. Under the Gary Bettman designed hockey league, the Yashin mistake comes out of the player's pockets. When someone acts like an idiot in 2008, the money will come out of the player share. It doesn't matter how idiotically the owners behave to the benefit of one player, the rest of the players collectively pay the price for it.

It won't matter to the owners if Brad Richards makes $50 million or $30 million in his career. If he is a good enough negotiator to get ther larger number, some other player won't get as much. I think it leads to selfishness on and off the field. (Anybody else see it in football and basketball?) It puts an "I" in team, particularly bad teams. If a teammate scores a big deal, less for the guy who rides shotgun.

If the injury rate continues to rise exponentially, player salaries must fall because, after all, the player share of salaries is fixed and if it takes more players to present the product, somebody has to get less. The Gary Bettman designed hockey league takes all the risk involved in contract negotiations and shifts it from the owners to the players.

Is that fair? When everyone admits that the owners are idiots? Somehow there is an assumption that "cost certainty" will convert idiots into guys who will never dish out a bad contract. They will be just as dumb. The difference is in who pays for their stupidity.



They can publicly demand a vote - their media poodles already are - and the players will tell them to bleep off. The season is gone. The players have nothing left to lose this season. The next step is to do everything they can to inflict economic damage on the owners. Turnabout is fair play, right?

Tom

Seeing a loafer like Yashin pulling in ten times or more what a hard-working Islander makes is a lot worse for team unity than having salaries closer together as they would be under a cap.

 

[Lil' Jimmy Norton*]

Goodenow's got them all completely brainwashed. All you need to know is that he's got them losing money hand over fist to stop a salary cap when the players in two very successful leagues have agreed to salary caps.

Oh, and it's going to fail and there's going to be a cap anyway. Nice work, Bob.

The 24% rollback gambit was really clever, too. Did you ever stop to think, though, that the owners could just kill the season and get a 100% rollback on 04-05 salaries? 05-06 salaries too, if they wanted it? I might have.

Another brilliant move by the union's fearless leader was having his membership go to Europe to play for peanuts ... proving beyond any doubt to both the owners and the public that his membership would be willing to play hockey for a lot less than they're currently making. What a genius!

No doubt that Goodenow is a genius !!! ya go ahead boys go over to europe and risk your career for pocket money. Goodenow is so out of touch its sickening and how they could have that hump as their front man boggles the mind !!

A good friend of mine played in France a number of years ago for 1 year and he said it was the worst experience of his life. They gave him a rat infested apartment, a car that was the size of a walnut that would never start, they practiced 7 days a week and he was paid 150k US. The food was horrid and the people were just ignorant and against him even being there. The players on his own team were so jealous of him that they would purposely not pass to him, yet he was the best player in the whole league.....!!! Ya go to europe NHLPA and have fun !!!

 

[Egil]

Because it links salaries to revenues which is inherently a stupid system. Nothing is idiot proof. Nothing changes the fact that some owners behave idiotically. When that happens, somebody has to pay a price. The question is who?

Mike Milbury and Charles Wang should have to bear the burden of the rest of Alexei Yashin's contract. The Rangers should have to pay Holik and Jagr. Under the Gary Bettman designed hockey league, the Yashin mistake comes out of the player's pockets. When someone acts like an idiot in 2008, the money will come out of the player share. It doesn't matter how idiotically the owners behave to the benefit of one player, the rest of the players collectively pay the price for it.

And Ottawa should have had to pay what a stupid arbitrator awarded for Bonk, until he was 31, even if he started floating around like a fairy? And the Ducks, should have been forced to lose Paul Karyia because of a SHORT term deal signed 5 years earlier? You seem to want to punish the owners for poor decisions, but not the players for poor play when a new contract comes around.

You can explain why the current deal works supperbly (you claim all the time, I would put it at more around 90% of the time). The PA, for all their bluster, has NOT tried to fix the problems with the current deal. They have offered no deflators for a players salary when a RFA (their arbitration of 1 per year, 2 every 3 years, 1 timer per player max) is a JOKE, as is the QO change to 100%. The PA, I THINK, could have made a creative non-cost certainty offer and gotten somewhere, instead, they have said no -cap, the only thing we have on the table is a bribe (24% rollback) and a few cosmetic changes.

It won't matter to the owners if Brad Richards makes $50 million or $30 million in his career. If he is a good enough negotiator to get ther larger number, some other player won't get as much. I think it leads to selfishness on and off the field. (Anybody else see it in football and basketball?) It puts an "I" in team, particularly bad teams. If a teammate scores a big deal, less for the guy who rides shotgun.

If the injury rate continues to rise exponentially, player salaries must fall because, after all, the player share of salaries is fixed and if it takes more players to present the product, somebody has to get less. The Gary Bettman designed hockey league takes all the risk involved in contract negotiations and shifts it from the owners to the players.

Is that fair? When everyone admits that the owners are idiots? Somehow there is an assumption that "cost certainty" will convert idiots into guys who will never dish out a bad contract. They will be just as dumb. The difference is in who pays for their stupidity.

Under ANY system, the league will have a finite amount of money, and a finite amount of money they are going to give to the players. Their is no system that will provide a money tree to pay for all this. Cap or no Cap, their is a finite amount of money available for the players. Finally, by putting in profit sharing, the league has moved considerably off of cost certainty (as any money profit-shared wille exceed the cap amount).

They can publicly demand a vote - their media poodles already are - and the players will tell them to bleep off. The season is gone. The players have nothing left to lose this season. The next step is to do everything they can to inflict economic damage on the owners. Turnabout is fair play, right?

Tom

Yes, they can publicly demand a vote, and no, the NHLPA executive doesn't need to heed that request. But based on what they are rumoured to be presenting, the PA is about to get hammered in this dispute like never before, and the pressure will build.

As a final note, Glen Healy (he who has been trashed in this thread) had a DIFFERENT spin on this last NHL proposal than anything before this. And that is why I believe their is hope.

 

[fan mao rong]

Actually, as long as the is operating in the real world, not the fantasy pro NHL'er world where Teddy Roosevelt never existed, the NHL does have an obligation to open the books. Labor law says if an employer is claiming an inability to pay, they have to prove it.

Who said they are claiming inability to pay? Like I said before, They do not claim inability to pay. The claim is, something like, The discrepancy in payrolls creates competitive imbalance and the moving of better players to other teams, makes it hard to market lower revenue teams. The baseball owners made the same argument, it was disputed, and they did not have to open their books for the Clinton era NLRB.. Businesses have to open their books, ONLY, when claiming inability to pay. It may be a moot point, though, because I have seen stories that the NHL's current offer will be offering auditing by a 3rd party accounting entity.

 

[hockeytown9321]

the players struck in 94'

No, they didn't.

 

[hockeytown9321]

The claim is, something like, The discrepancy in payrolls creates competitive imbalance and the moving of better players to other teams, makes it hard to market lower revenue teams.

Sure, thats the public claim. I'd like to see them go to court and try that one. The NRLB will take one look at who's been in the Stanley Cup finals the last 10 years and laugh.

 

[Scoogs]

The players went on Strike in '92. Got locked out in '94.

 

[fan mao rong]

Sure, thats the public claim. I'd like to see them go to court and try that one. The NRLB will take one look at who's been in the Stanley Cup finals the last 10 years and laugh.

If you read what I put on the post, and in that MLB decision I put on the link to a couple of times before, MLB owners made just that claim in 1994, and it was upheld. You believe what the Poseurs on here claim, they endlessly repeat the same story ad nauseum, the Big Lie technique, the non-inquiring minds on here, have accepted it all as facts. It is Lies, half-truths, lacking in the -rest-of -the -story, and innuendo..

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

And Ottawa should have had to pay what a stupid arbitrator awarded for Bonk, until he was 31, even if he started floating around like a fairy?

What does this have to do with the reason the players reject linkage? Nothing.

And the Ducks, should have been forced to lose Paul Karyia because of a SHORT term deal signed 5 years earlier? You seem to want to punish the owners for poor decisions, but not the players for poor play when a new contract comes around.

What does this have to do with the reason the players reject linkage? Nothing.

You can explain why the current deal works supperbly (you claim all the time, I would put it at more around 90% of the time).

What does this have to do with the reason the players reject linkage? Nothing.

The PA, for all their bluster, has NOT tried to fix the problems with the current deal. They have offered no deflators for a players salary when a RFA (their arbitration of 1 per year, 2 every 3 years, 1 timer per player max) is a JOKE, as is the QO change to 100%. The PA, I THINK, could have made a creative non-cost certainty offer and gotten somewhere, instead, they have said no -cap, the only thing we have on the table is a bribe (24% rollback) and a few cosmetic changes.

What does this have to do with the reason the players reject linkage? Nothing.

Under ANY system, the league will have a finite amount of money, and a finite amount of money they are going to give to the players. Their is no system that will provide a money tree to pay for all this. Cap or no Cap, their is a finite amount of money available for the players.

This is true, but it is clearly a management responsibility. If the $2 million a year GM can't figure this out, why pay him more than $10 an hour?

Yes, they can publicly demand a vote, and no, the NHLPA executive doesn't need to heed that request. But based on what they are rumoured to be presenting, the PA is about to get hammered in this dispute like never before, and the pressure will build.

I can hear the players yawning. What can the owner apologists say that hasn't already been said about them a million times? Ooh, they are really scared of being called greedy. Public opinion counts for dick.

Tom

 

[Luc Labelle]

Public opinion counts for dick.

I guess then if the public that supports the revenues to ultimately contribute to the player's salaries has the opinion that they are so disgusted with the attitude of said players that they will not pay to see them or buy their merchandise will not count for dick

I guess the NHLPA thinks a 55% drop in merchandise revenues counts for dick.

 

[Sammy*]

Sure, thats the public claim. I'd like to see them go to court and try that one. The NRLB will take one look at who's been in the Stanley Cup finals the last 10 years and laugh.

Or maybe the NRLB will take one look at who's won the Stanley Cup, made the final 4 & who missed the playoffs all in the last 10 years and cry.

 

[Egil]

Tom, you of course missed my point.

The players don't want linkage, they want the current system. The players havn't made a reasonable atempt to fix the current system, such that the problems I outlined no longer occur, instead they made very cosmetic changes to the current system. So where is the proposal from the players that TRULY tries to fix the current system?

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

Tom, you of course missed my point.

The players don't want linkage, they want the current system. The players havn't made a reasonable atempt to fix the current system, such that the problems I outlined no longer occur, instead they made very cosmetic changes to the current system. So where is the proposal from the players that TRULY tries to fix the current system?

Well, excuse me. I thought the discussion - and the question you asked - was why the players reject linkage. That has nothing to do with what the players have or have not offered.

The owners won't negotiate fixing the current system. The players have offered a rollback, and they have offered to negotiate - and they have made concessions - on every single complaint the owners have made about the old system.

Where is ANY proposal from the owners? At least the players have submitted a CBA proposal that could be signed, sealed and played under. It is February 1st, and the owners still have not made a comprehensive proposal. Why? Apparently because they are waiting for the players to agree to linkage.

Since it is February 1st and linkage would require negotiation around a definition of revenues, reporting requirements, initial audits, plus a host of other contentious issues, the season is done even if the NHL tables a real proposal, and even if the NHLPA surrenders. The NHLPA had to surrender in December to save the season under the owner system because there are several weeks - if not months - of auditing and acrimonious negotiations to be done.

There is only one issue in this dispute. There has always only been one issue. The calendar says there can still be some semblance of a season if the owners cave on it. The logistics are now impossible if the players cave. They still may give it up, but linkage can't happen until next season at the earliest.

Unless the owners give it up, the players will break off all talks until next September. I'm surprised they haven't done it yet.

Tom

 

[Cully9]

I can hear the players yawning. What can the owner apologists say that hasn't already been said about them a million times? Ooh, they are really scared of being called greedy. Public opinion counts for dick.

Tom

If public opinion counts for dick, why do NHLPA voices show up on radio and TV talk shows? Why do they "correct" any quotes that do not go along with the party line? You think it's an accident that the PA uses the redundant term "owners' lockout" (as though someone else is capable of a lockout) That's not done in an effort to change public perceptions? Dream on. Just because the PA is pathetic at it, doesn't mean they don't curry public opinion.

 

[Isles72]

If this is the deal that's on the table. Then the players would be absolutely insane not to take this deal.

It has so many "tools" as goodnow liked to say about their last garbage proposal on december 9th.

The profit sharing is a creative amazing idea. 50 50.. how can players COMPLAIN ABOUT THAT?!?! This deal has everything in it that can fix the league and keep the players happy.

The players ARE NOT GOING to get a better deal than this.

It's either take this deal or get destroyed.

It's up to you players. Take it and save face. Or be obliterated.

apparently the league hasnt made a profit in 10+ years (just going by what the tsn insiders were saying)so I'm not so sure this unique proposal is worth anything

 

[SENSible1*]

apparently the league hasnt made a profit in 10+ years (just going by what the tsn insiders were saying)so I'm not so sure this unique proposal is worth anything

PA apologists are constantly claiming that the new CBA would give the owners "profit certainty", stating they want to idiot proof the system so that any team can make money. The NHL is saying that if this claim is correct, the PA gets to share all profits over what a single NHL 2nd liner gets to take home.