Wetcoaster said:
Read the links - obviously the players are trying to determine if the owners are really telling the truth - we already know the URO's filed with the league and upon which the Levitt fairy tale was based are not accurate. This was clear when the Team president of the Flyers missed his cue from Chairman Ed Snider who was crying poor and that the Flyers were one of the teams losing money and a reporter got to the team president for a comment before he could square his story with Snider. He admitted that the there were two sets of figures and the internal ones showed that the Fyers were profitable while the URO's would show a loss. he then referred to the internal books as being more accurate. OOOOPS.
Hilarious, the NHL talks about losing $300 million then admits that they have taken $300 million and put it in a war chest to help them fight the NHLPA.
Does anyone but me not see the irony and basic disconnect here.
I have the feeling that if an owner were to have such discrepancies in his reporting practices (NHL team plus other holdings), one or two government agencies would be very interested. And it would be fairly public knowledge.
But the problem currently is figuring out what revenues and expenses come soley from the operation of an NHL team. That's made very, very difficult given that most or all owners have multiple businesses and many teams have multiple owners. And many other roadblocks that crop up when trying to determine the finances of large corporations. Trying to sort through all that takes an inordinate amount of time, believe me. I'm not surprised the two sides are stuck if they really are trying to go about it this way. There are better and more efficients ways of using your time to negotiate this deal. I'm kinda ticked that they've choosen such a difficult basis, since the chances are pretty good that little agreement can come from this no matter how much time you take. Especially when other options were available.
Still, most of what they say is still posturing. They're both scared to lose all or part of a season. Both sides know better than us what's at stake for this league, so they are scared. Even great PR spins after an eventual agreement can't undo the damage to a large extent. I'd venture to say less damage would be done by a less-than-optimum CBA for either side. It's the game of chicken that is labor negotiations.