And Then Everyone Dared Disturb the Sound of Silence (CBA & Lockout) XXIII ‎

[KINGS17]

The fact that owners are trying to clawback contracts (some of them being signed only days prior the the owners' lockout) is one of the major issues the players have with the league. It shows how dishonest and underhanded the owners are and the lack of good faith they show when dealing with players. The players stand for the principles of honesty and integrity, and are disgusted when they see what these owners try to do to them. People like to talk about replacement players, maybe instead it is time for replacement owners...

It's more like it is time to hand out some dunce caps. The owners provide the infrastructure for the league. Without the owners there is no NHL.

The players are replaceable. How do I know? Every year new ones show up and some of the ones that were in the league the year before are not there anymore.

This work stoppage has damaged the players participating in it for more than it ever will the owners. Fehr should look at the people that he is representing and start asking himself if he is acting in their best interest. His clients are losing millions of dollars that they will never see again.

 

[ottawah]

Talks would go alot better if the NHL finally realized that linkage is a non starter.
Until the league comes to this understanding there will be no hockey.

Talks would go alot better if the NHLPA finally realized that delinkage is a non starter.
Until the players comes to this understanding there will be no hockey.

 

[ottawah]

Well, it is hard to do your job when you are forbidden from showing up at your workplace. The players want to play, the owners are the ones preventing hockey.

The players share 50% of the blame. They can sign a deal today that gives them the highest percentage revenues of the 4 major sports, yet they refuse to. So you cannot say they just want to play. They want to play, but only on their terms, exactly like the owners.

 

[Wretched Oil]

No, quite the opposite. The regular public is generally pro-Fehr, and pro-players. They have done a pretty good job in the PR war as far as the regular folk go. I think its obvious that a much higher percentage of HFBoards poster are pro-owners than in the "real" world.

Why do you think this?

I'm wondering if the "regular public" opinion changes when you cross the border.

 

[ottawah]

Yeah, but if you had a contract promising you that rate of pay for years to come, and you had to listen to your boss brag about how much better than expected the company is doing,wouldn't you feel like you are getting screwed? Esspecially, if YOU are the product. How long you can hold out for is another story.

The players, since the last CBA, NEVER had a contract that promised a rate of pay.

 

[ottawah]

I'm still not clear on how the owners are trying to "claw back" their contracts. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me.

Just to be clear, I see them trying to reduce the total amount for all contracts combined, but I'm not clear on how any of their proposals impact individual contracts any differently than the last cba.

Clawback is a scary word used by pro players to to explain escrow, a concept they happily agreed to last time around .....

 

[Stuck in Socal]

Fehr's memo to me made it sound like while the league moved the process a bit forward, there is still a lot of work to do.

All you can really hope is that the talks don't break off and they keep at it for like 2 more weeks.

Otherwise, it would be pointless.

 

[haveandare]

He does not want to lose the season at all, he never wanted a lockout. He thought the league would gracefully work on and complete a new CBA with the players during the summer and there would be no interuptions going in to September. He and the players only want what is best for the league and especially its fans.

Why on earth would any professional go into this situation thinking that things would play out that way?

Further, why would Fehr go into this situation hoping to delink salaries, thereby completely changing the system, and expect that he wouldn't meet any resistance doing so? He said no to negotiating last year and all of the offseason and he expected to convince the league to completely change they way that they do business, change it in a way that strongly favors the players, over a month or two? I would argue that he didn't expect that at all. He had to know that there would be a lockout if he was going to go for delinkage in such a short window of time.

 

[sixgunsdad]

Well, it is hard to do your job when you are forbidden from showing up at your workplace. The players want to play, the owners are the ones preventing hockey.

Not really a true statement. No CBA in place is what is preventing Hockey. Who's to blame? Take your pick. To allow the players to play without a new CBA means the old CBA dictates which the league said some time ago they would not do.

 

[Fehr Time*]

I'm still not clear on how the owners are trying to "claw back" their contracts. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me.

Just to be clear, I see them trying to reduce the total amount for all contracts combined, but I'm not clear on how any of their proposals impact individual contracts any differently than the last cba.

The owners original proposal called for a 24% rollback off the top. Later proposals calld for no formal rollback, but would have still essentially clawed back significant salary via a very high escrow rate.

 

[Hutz]

H

Clawback is a scary word used by pro players to to explain escrow, a concept they happily agreed to last time around .....

Yeah, that's how I understand it at the moment, too, but I keep hearing the term so Id like someone in that camp to explain to me why its clawback. Maybe something I'm not seeing...

 

[Renbarg]

Why do you think this?

I'm wondering if the "regular public" opinion changes when you cross the border.

http://updatednews.ca/2012/11/09/poll-finds-canadian-hockey-fans-blame-owners-for-lockout/

Plus, the majority of the writers in both Canada and the US are pro-players. When a regular Joe just reads Larry Brooks on a Sunday for his lockout news he will have a heavy pro-player slant.

 

[KINGS17]

Fehr's memo to me made it sound like while the league moved the process a bit forward, there is still a lot of work to do.

All you can really hope is that the talks don't break off and they keep at it for like 2 more weeks.

Otherwise, it would be pointless.

Fehr's entire involvement is beginning to look pointless.

 

[Hutz]

The owners original proposal called for a 24% rollback off the top. Later proposals calld for no formal rollback, but would have still essentially clawed back significant salary via a very high escrow rate.

Is the escrow rate not the same as before? Cap is lower but less is paid in salary as a result... escrow payments should be the same if growth is constant, no?

 

[WayneSid9987]

Fehr's entire involvement is beginning to look pointless.

That remains to be seen.
He's either the hero for the PA or removed from his position within 2 years.

 

[LadyStanley]

I wish Forbes or someone would do a "update" on their view of how much Franchise values have diminished over the past 6 months (if at all) - putting the potential impact in business terms would make the owners realize the time bomb they're playing with here.

Annual (estimated) values, revenues, profits/losses for NHL comes out in November. So, "any day" now.

I'm still not clear on how the owners are trying to "claw back" their contracts. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me.

Just to be clear, I see them trying to reduce the total amount for all contracts combined, but I'm not clear on how any of their proposals impact individual contracts any differently than the last cba.

2005 CBA included 24% "rollback" (aka "clawback") of existing contracts.

The first NHL proposal (back in July) included another 24% rollback/clawback on existing contracts to allow for "immediate" ability of 50-50 divide on HRR.

Let's say player x signed a $5m/year deal that is scheduled to expire in 2015. Under the July proposal, he'd be looking at a gross salary of $4.75m/year instead -- for the life of contract.


Players seem to want to find a way of "making whole" (the entire "57%") based on current contracts, while (eventually) getting to 50-50 split of HRR. (And they hate escrow; takes ~10% of their salaries off the top and maybe they get some back, depending on actual HRR.)

 

[KINGS17]

That remains to be seen.
He's either the hero for the PA or removed from his position within 2 years.

If the season is cancelled he could be removed much sooner.

The players are getting set up to lose a lot of money.

 

[Fehr Time*]

Is the escrow rate not the same as before? Cap is lower but less is paid in salary as a result... escrow payments should be the same if growth is constant, no?

Unless growth would be out of this world for the first couple years of the new CBA as proposed by the owners then escrow rates would not be anywhere close to what they averaged over the last CBA. Escrow rates would likely be in the 13% range or higher over the course of the first couple years if the players share dropped immediately from 57% to 50% in yr 1.

 

[Positive]

He's probably a close second to Bettman who gets a rousing ovation wherever he goes. I doubt very much that the league has more support than the players this time around. Neither Bettman nor Fehr should take any pride in the way they have handled this, IMO.

When Bettman was in Winnipeg shortly after the team acquisition, he got a smattering of applause (which he seemed rather shocked at).

I feel most Winnipeggers are ambivalent about Bettman now. We hated his guts for a long time, but many of us can now look back and realize losing the team the first time was inevitable... regardless of who was commissioner. The dollar was awful, the arena was a mess, and nobody wanted to own a team here.

I mean as kids you can't reason why an owner wouldn't be willing to absorb losses, or why players won't play for less (or free!), etc. But we all grew up a little since then and realize that's just the way the cookie crumbled. It was what it was, and it is what it is.

 

[Crease]

I don't understand why escrow is a topic of such contention around here. It's just a portion of the players paycheck withheld until the end of the season to ensure that IF total money paid to the players exceeds the promised percent of HRR there exists a pool of money that the owners can retrieve the difference from. It's effectively the same thing as income tax. You get a refund (or pay more) at the end of the year based on what you actually owe.

 

[Hutz]

Annual (estimated) values, revenues, profits/losses for NHL comes out in November. So, "any day" now.



2005 CBA included 24% "rollback" (aka "clawback") of existing contracts.

The first NHL proposal (back in July) included another 24% rollback/clawback on existing contracts to allow for "immediate" ability of 50-50 divide on HRR.

Let's say player x signed a $5m/year deal that is scheduled to expire in 2015. Under the July proposal, he'd be looking at a gross salary of $4.75m/year instead -- for the life of contract.


Players seem to want to find a way of "making whole" (the entire "57%") based on current contracts, while (eventually) getting to 50-50 split of HRR. (And they hate escrow; takes ~10% of their salaries off the top and maybe they get some back, depending on actual HRR.)

Well, I understand how the rollbacks could be called clawbacks, but as I understand that's been off the table for months now. Its the escrow as clawback that confuses me as it was simply a part of the salary agreement in the cba.

So, basically when people talk about owner clawbacks they are indeed talking about eliminating escrow. That's what I thought and I understand why they'd want to do that, but it seems a little disingenuous to me refering to a portion of the agreement as some sinister secret that the owners have sprung up on people. We want to eliminate escrow... just say it, nothing wrong with that.

 

[Krishna]

Unless growth would be out of this world for the first couple years of the new CBA as proposed by the owners then escrow rates would not be anywhere close to what they averaged over the last CBA. Escrow rates would likely be in the 13% range or higher over the course of the first couple years if the players share dropped immediately from 57% to 50% in yr 1.

Wouldn't it be 28 percent? I believe the current escrow rate is 15% and then the 13% added on that to make everything even

 

[JAX]

Fehr's entire involvement is beginning to look pointless.

That's what I've been saying for a while and don't expect anymore then a half a season at best.

 

[Fehr Time*]

Not really a true statement. No CBA in place is what is preventing Hockey. Who's to blame? Take your pick. To allow the players to play without a new CBA means the old CBA dictates which the league said some time ago they would not do.

The league could have agreed to play under the previous CBA this year if they wanted to, they had the choice. Being consumed by the fires of their own greed and their complete lack of respect for the fans they instead decided to lock out. The players have no control as to whether the owners lock the players out or not so they are not responsible in any way for what is happening now.

 

[Wretched Oil]

http://updatednews.ca/2012/11/09/poll-finds-canadian-hockey-fans-blame-owners-for-lockout/

Plus, the majority of the writers in both Canada and the US are pro-players. When a regular Joe just reads Larry Brooks on a Sunday for his lockout news he will have a heavy pro-player slant.

Ahh yes, the writers do indeed have a player slant, as it's hard to get the public to relate to a bunch of billionaires.

55% of fans blame the owners (36% of polled people), 26% of people polled blame the players.

Seems odd they leave out how many hockey fans place blame on the players, as it seems they only have the percentage of regular people, not hockey fans.

This is out of 1500 Canadians. I can't come up with anything resembling a fact using this information other than:

There's a chance more Canadians blame the owners than blame the players, but not by much.