TSN reports proposal was made today (2.9.05) by the NHL and PA rejected .

[LordHelmet]

As shown in other posts, the triggers are already met.

So Betteman is basically saying:

"Ok, we'll try your proposal.. But if the sun comes up in the morning, we use our proposal.."

Yeah, that's REALLY reasonable. What a compromise. I'm really glad an incredibly smart man like him is running this league...

This has to be embarassing for him. He looks like a complete idiot proposing triggers that are already pulled.

 

[oil slick]

As shown in other posts, the triggers are already met.

So Betteman is basically saying:

"Ok, we'll try your proposal.. But if the sun comes up in the morning, we use our proposal.."

Yeah, that's REALLY reasonable. What a compromise. I'm really glad an incredibly smart man like him is running this league...

This has to be embarassing for him. He looks like a complete idiot proposing triggers that are already pulled.

You are right, but at the very least, it appears to be the first time in this whole process where I think the parties could negotiate. THey certainly couldn't while both sides were being ornary and just saying "cap" or "no-cap", and neither side was willing to budge.

So let me ask you, if there was one trigger, say that salaries does not exceed 56%, would you think this would be OK?

 

[X0ssbar]

As shown in other posts, the triggers are already met.

So Betteman is basically saying:

"Ok, we'll try your proposal.. But if the sun comes up in the morning, we use our proposal.."

Yeah, that's REALLY reasonable. What a compromise. I'm really glad an incredibly smart man like him is running this league...

This has to be embarassing for him. He looks like a complete idiot proposing triggers that are already pulled.

The triggers can be negotiated.

The NHL and NHLPA will not negotiate against themselves. The idea is to take an extreme position and then play "give and take" until an agreement is met.

Right now only the "framework" of a deal is important. In this case, the framework that is on the table is a hybrid luxury tax system that can be "triggered" into some form of a salary capped system if the luxury tax system fails to meet certain criteria. The tirggers, cap and luxury tax would still need to be flushed out (i.e. negotiated). But the key is for the NHLPA to buy into the framework before any negotation points can be addressed.

 

[FrozenPond]

The owners can’t survive under the current system and the players know it. But we are dealing with a bunch of hockey players here. They’ll take some abuse but they aren’t going to kiss arse. Somehow we need a resolution that allows both sides to keep their heads held high.

It’s an absolute joke for Bettman to try to dupe anyone into believing that this offer was a legitimate attempt at compromise. He must think we’re all a bunch of morons. And it’s kind of embarrassing to see and hear people actually trying to defend this trigger BS.

I had hoped that this stupid lockout might have a silver lining, that the NHL we get on the other side might be better than the one we had going in. It seems apparent that this is not going to happen. I no longer believe that Bettman has the game’s best interests at heart; he is completely disingenuous, completely untrustworthy. There is no way that this guy has what it takes to “fix†the game. We are doomed.

 

[kingsfan]

Please see my previous post.

You'd have to be an idiot to believe that this was an offer made with the intentions of ever allowing the players system to work. All this offer was made to do was to force the 24% rollback, and then as soon as the owners went to sign the free agents they'd simply have to sign them as they did the past few years, and *bang* in comes their cap, just like they wanted.

And you'd have to be an idiot to say that without a shred of proof. As well, if the owners 'have' to sign players like they did in the past, who says the players 'have' to sign those contracts as well? What's to stop them from asking for a few less dollars so that the owners don't have the excuse to implement the cap?

 

[kingsfan]

Well it depends on how the NHL defines "proven not to work". Nobody here knows what they mean by that so people shouldn't pretend they do.

Like I said, Bettman is offering deals he knows will not and cannot be accepted by the PA. There's no question about. This was not a legitmate proposal- it was a PR stunt.

Under this proposal, a player with a $1,000,000 salary would get paid about $80,000 this year. And then may end up with a cap anyway in a year or two. Like I said- that's ridiculous.

So, first you say we don;t know enough details about the offer to make a quality judgement, then you say Bettman's making offers that cannot be accepted. Do you even know one thing about the offer other than it includes the players offer of Dec.9 and the Owners offer of I think Feb.2? I doubt it. Take your own medicine and wait till you know what's up before saying it's unacceptable. Or, at the very least, stop saying others can't.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

And of course, then we would essentially back to square one again. We would have another lockout, and personally, I think if the league is willing to go all the way to get cost-certainty, they might as well do it now, since its come this far.

kerrly is 100% right! This whole situation sucks for everybody, so why would you want to relive this anytime soon? Hopefully, the next CBA will be for at LEAST six years and by then maybe things will have calmed down and the league will have started a growth spurt once again.

It's better to go the distance now, rather than re-open the CBA a year or two from now. And for what? A 25-game regular season and playoffs in July? No thanks.

 

[thinkwild]

As shown in other posts, the triggers are already met.

So Betteman is basically saying:

"Ok, we'll try your proposal.. But if the sun comes up in the morning, we use our proposal.."

Yeah, that's REALLY reasonable. What a compromise. I'm really glad an incredibly smart man like him is running this league...

This has to be embarassing for him. He looks like a complete idiot proposing triggers that are already pulled.

Lol. It is a masterful PR slogan though isnt it? They rejected their own offer. And it has spread like wildfire, it really resonates. Amazing.

If the players offer doesnt end up achieving what the owners hardest line possible proposal calls for, the owners get their ridiculous fountain of caps installed and a new precedent set. Right.


The players have already accepted the concept of a rollback. Instead of the cap being implemented if "it doesnt work", how about they just do another market correcting rollback in 3 years, and then find further adjustments to the model based on the new evidence of how the changes worked?

At some point, if the owners keep spending this money, they cant claim its not the proper market value.

 

[Luongownage]

Well, so much for the PA 'gaurenteeing' that the December 9th proposal would work for the owners. Anyone else notice that Bettman seemed to take this gaurentee and put it to a test in this latest proposal? This is by far THE BEST proposal that has been on the table from either side, and I honestly believe that if the NHL is willing to negotiate on the trigger aspect, this is the proposal that will save the season. Too bad it came so late in this process.

Cancel the season, get all this BS out of the way and let us focus on the AHL and the upcoming World Championships.

 

[dawgbone]

WHAT?!?!?? The players don't pay themselves. The players are signed by the owners who give them this money. How hard is that to understand? The owners DO NOT HAVE TO PAY THEM WHAT THEY WANT! If a player says I'll play for 10 million a season, the owner doesn't have to sign him to it.

I'm picking on you because this is the point in time where I got ready to pull out my hair... I can't beleive none of you twits got the point of this comment:

Poor management has as much to do with players as it does owners

What he's saying (now stay with me...), is that when a player has a good year and gets a good contract, then proceeds to crap the bed afterwards, that is both the players and owners fault. The owner for paying the money, and the player for not living up to his end of the bargain. Ted Leonis was an idiot for paying Jagr $11 mil per season... except that Jagr (at the time) was the single most dominating offensive player in the league. Jagr is partly responsible for the fact that his production has not lived up to the contract he signed.

It's not a difficult concept... climb down off your soapboxes for a few minutes and pay attention.

 

[thinkwild]

What he's saying (now stay with me...), is that when a player has a good year and gets a good contract, then proceeds to crap the bed afterwards, that is both the players and owners fault. The owner for paying the money, and the player for not living up to his end of the bargain. Ted Leonis was an idiot for paying Jagr $11 mil per season... except that Jagr (at the time) was the single most dominating offensive player in the league. Jagr is partly responsible for the fact that his production has not lived up to the contract he signed.

Well if this truly the problem defined, then the solution would seem obviously to be let the owners take the players to arbitration. Very simple. No cap required. The kind of thing the players have already proposed.

 

[hillbillypriest]

If that was it, I would have been shock to see the PA refuse it.

You're right about that EXCEPT that's not WHAT IT WAS.

Another GREAT P.R. MOVE from Bettman who I admit is a KING from disguising the truth.

It's the DECEMBER 9th proposal masked into the February 2nd owners proposal.

On T.V by Sportsnet, the NHL put 4 CONDITIONS which is laughable to move from the PA's offer to the OWNERS offer.

#1 If more than 3 teams got more than a 42M$ payroll, it's now the OWNERS February 2nd proposals to become the CBA

#2 If more than 33% of the payroll separate the bottom 3 & the top 3 , it's now the OWNERS February 2nd proposals to become the CBA

#3 If the average payroll is more than 36,9M$, it's now the OWNERS February 2nd proposals to become the CBA

#4 I'll try remember what was on TV.


But again it's a PR move from Bettman to make the PA look bad.

It may be a PR move but, at least in my initial reading of the situation, it would seem to be a brilliant tactical move going into a legal review of an impasse declaration and ultimately in trying to get players to cross the picket lines if the impasse CBA is upheld by the NLRB.

Whatever the latest proposals motives, it just strikes me that it has to serve the NHL well in trying to prove good faith bargaining that the last proposal is the unions proposal, but with the kicker that we want to make sure it works. Seems like a pretty attractive notion. Don't exactly see how the NLRB could view that as being bad faith (they might, but it strikes me as a lot harder than if the NHL had just tried to impose their first response to the NHLPA's december proposal).

The second point is that if the impasse declaration is upheld, I would think that it would be somewhat easier for a typical player to justify defying the union. If a "crossing" player is going to be treated in his own contract negotiations exactly in the manner in which the union itself had proposed, what would be wrong with that. (I know the triggers make the proposal fundamentally different, I just wouldn't want to be the last "true believing" player that held out on principle).

Whatever you may think about the NHL's position or tactics, they do seem to be way better organized for the fight, and in particular, have a much better handle on the end game than they did last time around.

In any event, even if the collective bargaing process stops, things will still be very interesting as this dispute winds its way through the labour tribunals and courts...

HBP

 

[LordHelmet]

It may be a PR move but, at least in my initial reading of the situation, it would seem to be a brilliant tactical move going into a legal review of an impasse declaration and ultimately in trying to get players to cross the picket lines if the impasse CBA is upheld by the NLRB.

That's what I immediately thought of - and I agree that it would count as a point in the league's favor should an impasse be attempted... Then I read what the triggers were and that they were already pulled. As much hoopla as this is getting around the league, it's still just as much of a joke as the rest of GB's crap..

Again.. The PA's offer of a tax/soft cap represents a compromise - a change in position - from their true desire for salary control mechanisms. They've moved from their original position, GB apparently won't move from his..

 

[thinkwild]

Whatever the latest proposals motives, it just strikes me that it has to serve the NHL well in trying to prove good faith bargaining that the last proposal is the unions proposal, but with the kicker that we want to make sure it works. Seems like a pretty attractive notion. Don't exactly see how the NLRB could view that as being bad faith (they might, but it strikes me as a lot harder than if the NHL had just tried to impose their first response to the NHLPA's december proposal).

Its a good point about the process and the importance of the technicalities of good faith being powerful here.

But if by making sure "it works" is defined as meeting the targets of the linkage that has led them to impasse, surely thats not good faith. Yes, i know, process, but still, seems wrong from a laymans perpective.

 

[GKJ]

Look at the triggers. That's why it sucked. It's that simple.

 

[hillbillypriest]

Its a good point about the process and the importance of the technicalities of good faith being powerful here.

But if by making sure "it works" is defined as meeting the targets of the linkage that has led them to impasse, surely thats not good faith. Yes, i know, process, but still, seems wrong from a laymans perpective.

Actually, I got a painful lesson on process from Benjamin. I spouted some theory about the NLRB considering the big picture and results of impasse being better than a prolonged stalemate ...yada yada. My recollection of Benjamin's response was that my musings were nonesense and that the NLRB would effectively look at good faith and nothing else.

After my dressing down, I took the unusual (for me) step of research on the NLRB website. What I took from that was two basic things: (1) that the NLRB basically only looks at whether there was good faith bargaining to determine whether an impasse declaration was allowed; and (2) that a particular side in the collective bargaing discussions does NOT have to make concessions to be judged to have acted in good faith. Given that the NHL has been consistent in communicating its bottom line (cost certainty) and that it made overtures to the NHLPA to open up the prior CBA before it expired and were told (paraphrasing here of course) to screw off, the NHL would seem to me to be pretty well positionned so long as the negotiations are proceeding with reasonable evidence of good faith efforts to try to resolve the dispute through negotiations. To me then, the NHL has made a masterstroke move. Even if the triggers are not acceptable, the fact that the NHLPA did not try to counter to try to fix the deficiency in the proposal should, in my books, count against them in trying to demonstrate that the NHLPA was trying to keep the process moving. So at this point, I see the NHL as occupying the impasse high ground for the moment. The other thing is that I don't think that today's NHL proposal is their final impasse worthy proposal, so the NHLPA will have to watch out in the event that the trigger provisions are softened in the last version.

In light of where we stand, I think the NHLPA is screwed at the moment. They're going to have to counter, because this can't be their last word.

HBP

 

[RangerBoy]

Look at the triggers. That's why it sucked. It's that simple.

The triggers were pathetic.One of the triggers needs to be triggered for the NHL February 9 proposal to kick in

That's the best offer Bettman has to make.No wonder this league is in the abyss

How many of the 4 triggers would be triggered

League-wide player compensation exceeding 55% of league-wide hockey revenues.

YES

The average of club payroll for highest three payroll clubs in the NHL would exceed more than 33% of the average of club payroll for the lowest three payroll clubs in the league.

YES

Any three clubs each having player compensation in excess of $42 million.

YES

League-wide average player compensation per club exceeding $36.5 million.

After a six month lockout,Bettman offers up this slop :lol

 

[tantalum]

The triggers were pathetic.One of the triggers needs to be triggered for the NHL February 9 proposal to kick in

That's the best offer Bettman has to make.No wonder this league is in the abyss

How many of the 4 triggers would be triggered

League-wide player compensation exceeding 55% of league-wide hockey revenues.

YES

The average of club payroll for highest three payroll clubs in the NHL would exceed more than 33% of the average of club payroll for the lowest three payroll clubs in the league.

YES

Any three clubs each having player compensation in excess of $42 million.

YES

League-wide average player compensation per club exceeding $36.5 million.

After a six month lockout,Bettman offers up this slop :lol

Question. What should the triggers be? This is the same type of framework the NHLPA supposedly discussed in the hotchkiss meetings. Go with the players offer for a while and if it doesn't work switch to the owners. What were the triggers the PA had in mind?

To me it's rather obvious that any trigger in a hybrid system has to be based on the second part of the hybrid. Now I agree that the average payroll of $36.5 mil is a not valid unless it is actually a revenue percentage otherwise it doesn't make a lot of sense. Same with the $42 mil. However, the 55% of revenues is certainly decent trigger...well it would be if the PA negotiates that to be the 57-58% range they can probably get in a cap system, perhaps up to 60%. The other trigger isn't bad as well. The NHL with linkage/cost certainty wants to decrease the payroll gaps. It would have to be modified to include a salary floor that every team would have to meet or Minnesota and Nashville will just sit at $20 mil with some teams at $50 mil. As well a time period must be brought in...such that the triggers only kick in after the 2nd or 3rd year to give the players system time to work. But the safegurad has to be there that after that initial time period it can kick in at the end of any year. It can't just be that at the end of year 2 if the players system is "working" that's the one they go with. Because quite frankly the players will just spend two years lowballing themselves. To safeguard against the owners running up salaries? Well this is where the players have to put up or shut up IMO. They are touting that their system will be adequate so they shouldn't need any safeguards should they. INstead all they need to do is essentially guarantee their numbers.

The end result is this: The NHL has repeated the cost certainty stance and have now quite clearly said it is necessary but are willing to give the players system a go. However the triggers obviously have to reflect the cost certainty approach and the triggers are simply the major concerns of the NHL. Nothing wrong with the offer at all. It wasn't slop. The NHL gave the PA an opening to try their system and negotiate. This was an idea supposedly originally floated by the PA so they, quite frankly, have to negotiate off of it.

 

[StanTheMan]

The triggers were pathetic.One of the triggers needs to be triggered for the NHL February 9 proposal to kick in

That's the best offer Bettman has to make.No wonder this league is in the abyss

The triggers are negotiable. Yup, Bettman Said it was his best offer, but clearly it's not. If it were, the PA has already rejected it, thus the only thing left is to cancel the season.

This goes way back to September when Bettman was on the National. Responding to a question about the lack of negotiations, he said that this was a process, that is, everything in its time. The deal wasn't going to happen until both sides got to the point where it had to happen. What we've seen is all a part of negotiations, each side making statements, offering proposals or proposed ideas, to see what's possible without giving too much if anything away. With cancellation near, we're going to see which side is most loyal to its long proclaimed stance: cap/no cap.

 

[Motown Beatdown]

The triggers are negotiable. Yup, Bettman Said it was his best offer, but clearly it's not. If it were, the PA has already rejected it, thus the only thing left is to cancel the season.

I;m having a hard time understanding you. If the triggers were negotiable why wouldn't the NHLPA reject the offer? Especially since the triggers were a joke.

 

[Brewleaguer]

The triggers are negotiable. Yup, Bettman Said it was his best offer, but clearly it's not. If it were, the PA has already rejected it, thus the only thing left is to cancel the season.

No the next step is counter, which I think will happen.
You either have to except the agreement or reject it, you can't negotiate the offer without rejecting it first and then come back with something that is closer to the last offer.
The PA is not going to have the ball left in its court.

 

[Steve L*]

And you'd have to be an idiot to say that without a shred of proof. As well, if the owners 'have' to sign players like they did in the past, who says the players 'have' to sign those contracts as well? What's to stop them from asking for a few less dollars so that the owners don't have the excuse to implement the cap?

Their own greed, does anyone think a player will sign for less to help out his union colleagues and avoid a cap?

 

[Mothra]

If true, isn't that essentially an admission by the PA that their proposal wouldn't work?

Thats exactly how I saw it....

 

[dawgbone]

Well if this truly the problem defined, then the solution would seem obviously to be let the owners take the players to arbitration. Very simple. No cap required. The kind of thing the players have already proposed.

The difference being that

a). You can't take someone to arbitration who has a contract in place (i.e. Jagr... I specifically mentioned a guy in a long term contract, so that arbitration wasn't even a factor.... stupid me).

b). The PA proposed that a player can be taken to arb. only once in his career and a team can only take one player per season and 2 every 3 years. Make it full 2 way arbitration with equal rights both ways and you have a point... but the players didn't propose that.

 

[dawgbone]

I;m having a hard time understanding you. If the triggers were negotiable why wouldn't the NHLPA reject the offer?

Remember when the PA made their initial offer, and the owners took it, examined it and didn't reject it right away?

I think the PA could have done the same thing here. Looked it over and prepared a counter proposal. If the PA does not make an offer before the deadline, this is all on them now.