Ted Hoffman
The other Rick Zombo
- Dec 15, 2002
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You have to pick an end date that's somewhere on the calendar. The only real options are some date between the end of the League Year [June 30] and before the real start of training camp [September 15]. But let's say it did end June 30.How dumb is it that the cba expires in September rather than June 30? You could conceivably go into the offseason not knowing what the rules regarding the cap will be for the following season.
-- Virtually the entire FA market [RFA and UFA] is sitting without a contract.
-- RFAs who were eligible for arbitration might not be able to make that election.
-- Entry-level players outside perhaps the top-2 picks in the immediately preceding draft are about 99.99% certain not to be able to sign contracts.
And that doesn't get into all kinds of other stuff that affects teams, players and the league that I haven't thought of. [I'm quite positive it's not a short list.] Just using the 2012-13 season, if the CBA had ended June 30, 2012 and the agreement been reached on the same date in January, 2013 it would have left 7 days [following approval by both the NHL and NHLPA] for dealing with all of the unsigned players [including any arbitration filings and hearings] and getting guys into the right places for a one-week training camp before the season started and all the administrative work needed by teams, the NHL, and the NHLPA to handle that. That's a hell of a lot to ask in a really short period of time.
The point about how rules could change is valid. That's why transition rules exist, to smooth between "what was" and "what now is." Then, the question is how to make that transition as seamless and painless as possible for everyone.
Is September 15 the right date? I don't know how you make it somewhere in July, and I can't see it being any earlier than say August 15. Maybe it could be September 1, to give a little space between CBA expiry and training camp opening instead of having the two be virtually the same date or camp opening precede CBA expiry. But that's a longer discussion with other considerations, and I don't have the time to go through all of that.