Glimmer of Hope

[Beukeboom Fan]

Our opinions differ. There will always be a market for hockey, regardless if it's now or in 5 years. In 5 years, if it's a relaunch, maybe they can only do so with a $15M salary cap, maybe $10M. The salaries would have to adjust to the demand. That's why the players have more to lose by sitting; they get the bulk of the income, so the more it shrinks, the less they get. The owners aren't making money, so whether they lose $1M in a $30M operation or $1M in a $60M operation doesn't change anything to them.

Great post! By not playing hockey, NHL owners in total are losing less money than they did last year. (It should be noted that that is not true for all NHL franchises, but should be true for the NHL in total if you believe the Leavitt report).

I believe that the owners are going to do whatever they have to do to get a hard salary cap. If that's the case, the longer the lockout lasts the more damage is done to the fanbase, and the smaller the revenue pot will be to split. It would surprise me a bit to see a 10-20% decrease in attendance accross the league after the NHL starts back up. That's going to directly impact the total revenue "pie" to split between the owners & players.

 

[gary69]

By the way the NBA admitts that a cap system without non guarenteed contracts doesn't work, why do you think that they are trying to scale back contract lenghnth by more than half in the new CBA, because they too want non guarenteed contracts in the long run.

What kills me about this whole arguement is the fact that the NLRB has stated in it's ruling against MLB that hard caps are illegal in the US. As a matter of fact 4 of the 6 proposals from the NHL have already been ruled as illegal so why put them on the table in the first place?

Like Taranis asked before, please provide us with a proof or link, where NLRB has ruled that 4 of 6 NHL proposals are in fact illegal? If you can't, maybe a labor law specialist lawyer (I believe Tom Benjamin is a one?) can enlighten us? I find it hard to believe that the lawyer Bettman with all legal his aides would put forward a proposal they would know or strongly suspect to be illegal?

As for the subject matter itself, I'm inclined to believe that guaranteed contracts under a hard cap won't work hockeywise, at least if you care about the quality of the hockey and don't want league wide mediocre teams.

 

[gary69]

Guaranteed contracts can and do work in salary cap situations. Sports in various parts of the world can and do use such systems quite successfully.

What, were? I honestly don't know about it. Around the world? Of course, I don't know every sports league there is around the world, but I don't think there are at least in Europe any major sports leagues with salary caps, let alone that they would somehow work. In soccer, which is probably the no1 sport in quite a few countries, there certainly aren't salary caps "around the world".

Outside soccer, maybe in Japan there might be some financially meaningful sports league with a salary cap, but other than that I can't even imagine that there's one outside North America, which is usually referred to as the only place with artificial CBAs in sports and not free markets as the rest of the world.

Please corret/inform me, if I'm wrong, so I can with the rest of us here get to familiarize us with these sports leagues elsewhere?

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

Like Taranis asked before, please provide us with a proof or link, where NLRB has ruled that 4 of 6 NHL proposals are in fact illegal? If you can't, maybe a labor law specialist lawyer (I believe Tom Benjamin is a one?) can enlighten us? I find it hard to believe that the lawyer Bettman with all legal his aides would put forward a proposal they would know or strongly suspect to be illegal?

None of the proposals are illegal as long as the union agrees. All of them are illegal under anti-trust law if the union does not agree and decertifies.

The NHL can legally impose a CBA if they reach an impasse after negotiating in good faith. As of right now, the NHL could not possibly get the NLRB to agree there is an impasse. They have to have a specific CBA on the table with all the clauses and all the issues covered. They have not yet made an offer the NLRB would allow them to implement. They have not - under any definition - negotiated in good faith.

Assuming neither side is willing to blink, and assuming the NHLPA is nowhere near deciding to decertify, the next move to advance the process is up to the owners. Sooner or later they have to table a real proposal, a single contract offer. They have to negotiate that contract to an impasse.

Nothing can happen legally until then.

I'm not a lawyer.

Tom

 

[dawgbone]

Wouldn't the fact that in 4 years they haven't been able to agree in principle to at least an outline of a CBA account for an impasse?

I mean, the union made the comment that the owners tried 4 years ago to get a salary cap. And the players have refused to negotiate anything that resembles a salary cap.

Wouldn't aruging for 4 years over a structure for a new CBA count as an impasse?

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

Wouldn't the fact that in 4 years they haven't been able to agree in principle to at least an outline of a CBA account for an impasse?

No. They have to negotiate an actual contract. Something that can be implemented. The existing CBA is about 200 pages long. A lot of it is boilerplate, but the owners still have to table a specific proposal that can be implemented. They haven't. Time has nothing to do with it. Losses have nothing to do with it. The only question is whether the NHL bargained in good faith. They haven't bargained anything yet.

Daly has acknowledged this. The only thing the NHL has tabled is six "concepts". They have not tabled a CBA that outlines the rules for free agency, arbitration, amateur draft, waivers, whatever cap they are demanding, how it will work and how the league can transition to the new system. Before an impasse is declared, the NHL must table a complete CBA and at least attempt to get agreement on it. They have not done so. In other words, as far as the NLRB is concerned, there haven't been any negotiations.

In a recent interview Daly said at some point the league had the option of making a specific proposal, negotiating that to impasse and then unilaterally implementing.

They must first table the specific proposal - a complete CBA that can be implemented. Then they have to negotiate that CBA to the satisfaction of the NLRB. Then - and only then - can they unilaterally implement. I don't think they can do that before next season, and even then, the NLRB may reject their claim of impasse.

The NHL cannot advance their position without getting specific.

Tom

 

[dawgbone]

Fair enough...

Though if the NHL's true goal was to have an impasse declared, they would have already tabled an offer...

I would assume.

 

[me2]

What, were? I honestly don't know about it. Around the world? Of course, I don't know every sports league there is around the world, but I don't think there are at least in Europe any major sports leagues with salary caps, let alone that they would somehow work. In soccer, which is probably the no1 sport in quite a few countries, there certainly aren't salary caps "around the world".

Outside soccer, maybe in Japan there might be some financially meaningful sports league with a salary cap, but other than that I can't even imagine that there's one outside North America, which is usually referred to as the only place with artificial CBAs in sports and not free markets as the rest of the world.

Some Euroleagues in soccer might move to salary caps in the near future.

Please corret/inform me, if I'm wrong, so I can with the rest of us here get to familiarize us with these sports leagues elsewhere?

Of the top of my head (I had a look a few month back)

Rugby League in Australia/NZ has a hard cap and unlimited UFA status. Runs quite successfully. The hard cap was introduced after teams went into spending frenzies and massive debt trying to out do each other (ala hockey in the 90s-00s). Proof the sports are not run as businesses (desire to win overrides common business sense). Roughly 10m people support a 15-16 team comp successfully (salary cap at about $3m).

British Rugby League (super league) operate a similar cap with unlimited UFA status. "salary cap is set at a limit of £1.8m or 50% of the club’s income, whichever is lower."

British Rugby Union have a salary cap.

The other major football code in Australia, Australian Rules Football, also has a hard cap and a draft. It runs without many problems problems. One team just won 3 straight cups and made it the Grand Final on a 4th (but lost despite being favourites). I think it also have about 10m population and has about 15-16 teams and $6m salary caps)

Its when you start getting Larry Bird exemptions and massive payscales like the NBA. If the NHL wants a cap they need to keep it as simple and foolproof as possible because some owner will try and exploit a hole which then has nasty consequences later on.

Incidentally, most of the leagues about are quite stable in terms of player movement (many of the elite core of players stay with their teams) and this is despite UFA status for all in RL & RU.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Salary_cap

 

[degroat*]

Great post! By not playing hockey, NHL owners in total are losing less money than they did last year. (It should be noted that that is not true for all NHL franchises, but should be true for the NHL in total if you believe the Leavitt report).

I believe that the owners are going to do whatever they have to do to get a hard salary cap. If that's the case, the longer the lockout lasts the more damage is done to the fanbase, and the smaller the revenue pot will be to split. It would surprise me a bit to see a 10-20% decrease in attendance accross the league after the NHL starts back up. That's going to directly impact the total revenue "pie" to split between the owners & players.

Not that the same would happen this time, but the last lockout did no result in a decrease in attendance.

 

[djhn579]

Fair enough...

Though if the NHL's true goal was to have an impasse declared, they would have already tabled an offer...

I would assume.

Just wanted to research this idea a bit more since it keeps coming up...

Here is a case where a company bargained to impasse in less than a month and a half. The NLRB initially found that the employer improperly imposed it's last best offer due to the length of the negotiations and the unions willingness to have more meetings. On appeal, it was overturned.

Assesing the NLRB as "improperly motivated by it's intuitive belief that, upon further bargaining, each side would have made additional concessions..." the Court declares this approach an "...impermissible... intervention by the Board in the parties substantive negotiations" in direct contravention of the bargaining statute...

http://www.fishmangroup.com/pub_art/pdf/bti.pdf


It appears that both sides don't have to agree that there is an impasse, and that the length of the negotiations don't matter too much.

They probably do have to have a fully implmentable CBA on the table as thier final offer. I could only find information that the employer could only unilaterally implement proposals that were covered in it's final offer.

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

They probably do have to have a fully implmentable CBA on the table as thier final offer. I could only find information that the employer could only unilaterally implement proposals that were covered in it's final offer.

Correct. They have to have negotiated to a final offer and the players haven't seen a first offer yet. The owners haven't put anything on the table because there is no point to getting an impasse declared now.

All the impasse does is convert a lockout to a strike against the implemented CBA. The advantage to the owners in impasse is that they can attempt to break the strike using replacement players. Bettman thinks - correctly in my opinion - that the only way he can get his salary cap is if he breaks a strike.

The owners don't want an impasse now because they can't get replacement players now, anyway, and even if they could they don't want to be presenting a Stanley Cup to a team captained by Lonnie Bohonos this June. Their only chance to break a strike is coming out of training camp. That's when they want an impasse. That's when they try to break the strike because the games early in the season have lower attendance anyway, and they can have 70 players in camp. Breaking a strike before then isn't practical. The idea is that by next Christmas all the stars and everybody is back and happy in the brand new Gary Bettman designed NHL.

So they are waiting until next September. They are wasting the year to convert the lockout to a strike they can hope to break. Good plan, eh?

I still hold out hope that the owners will decide to lift the lockout for the second half of the season. They can make a big toodoo about doing it to show good faith while they lay in a specific CBA and gear up to get their impasse next September.

They can get to where they want to be next September without tanking the season. So why tank the season?

Tom

 

[gary69]

Some Euroleagues in soccer might move to salary caps in the near future.




Of the top of my head (I had a look a few month back)

Rugby League in Australia/NZ has a hard cap and unlimited UFA status. Runs quite successfully. The hard cap was introduced after teams went into spending frenzies and massive debt trying to out do each other (ala hockey in the 90s-00s). Proof the sports are not run as businesses (desire to win overrides common business sense). Roughly 10m people support a 15-16 team comp successfully (salary cap at about $3m).

British Rugby League (super league) operate a similar cap with unlimited UFA status. "salary cap is set at a limit of £1.8m or 50% of the club’s income, whichever is lower."

British Rugby Union have a salary cap.

The other major football code in Australia, Australian Rules Football, also has a hard cap and a draft. It runs without many problems problems. One team just won 3 straight cups and made it the Grand Final on a 4th (but lost despite being favourites). I think it also have about 10m population and has about 15-16 teams and $6m salary caps)

Its when you start getting Larry Bird exemptions and massive payscales like the NBA. If the NHL wants a cap they need to keep it as simple and foolproof as possible because some owner will try and exploit a hole which then has nasty consequences later on.

Incidentally, most of the leagues about are quite stable in terms of player movement (many of the elite core of players stay with their teams) and this is despite UFA status for all in RL & RU.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Salary_cap

Thanks, don't know or care much about rugby, but I'll take your word for it.

It was interesting to know that UK has salary a capped league in sports, since EU commission usually is very strict on competition policy, cartels, restraints of trade etc. But apparently they haven't ruled one way or other regarding salary caps yet and neither have UK courts. And since nobody involded in the rugby in Britain has filed a complaint, there doesn't seem to be any urgency on this.

Furthermore, EU courts tend to be more tolerant with small-scale industries (like UK rugby) restricted to domestic markets and not really involving Europe-wide implications. But for example draft procedures would most likely be ruled illegal in the European Union if anybody tried to implement them.

As for soccer teams considering salary caps, that would certainly merit an EU ruling on the issue, since it would have implications on so many countries. But I doubt it is even necessary, since finding a formula to work for so many countries with different income and living standards, is probably too much to ask for. And in that news article link (from the year 2002) the soccer team representatives stated it would be a gentleman's agreement at the best, without anything legally binding.

 

[fan mao rong]

I think people on here should explore the concept of what is required in Collective Bargaining as to mandatory and optional items. All that is required to bargain are mandatory items such as terms and conditions of employment and the like. Neither side has to bargain on anything else. So all that extraneous stuff is not necessary to debate so it, yes, can not be implemented. I think alot of the current CBA is not a mandatory subject for bargaining so not agreeing or debating it is of no consequence. Another thing is that one or the other side may keep insisting on an item and it is not necessarily bargaining in bad faith. I think I'll look into that MLB thing.

 

[me2]

As for soccer teams considering salary caps, that would certainly merit an EU ruling on the issue, since it would have implications on so many countries. But I doubt it is even necessary, since finding a formula to work for so many countries with different income and living standards, is probably too much to ask for. And in that news article link (from the year 2002) the soccer team representatives stated it would be a gentleman's agreement at the best, without anything legally binding.

Recent story in England.

Their report recommends that lower division clubs should experiment with a salary cap system. If successful over a period of time, it could be adopted by the Premier League. The report, however, notes the idea of a salary cap was "fiercely rejected" by the player's union, the Professional Footballers Association.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Soccer/2004/02/11/344097-cp.html



US soccer apparently has a cap.

http://worldsoccer.about.com/cs/theposts/a/mls_04_intro_2.htm




Australian soccer has a $1.5m cap with one exempt player.

"The A-League, which kicks off next August, has imposed a AUS$1.5 million salary cap on each club, but the eight participants will be allowed one `marquee' player exempt from the cap."

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/sport_story_skin/456411?format=html

 

[thinkwild]

Recent story in England.

Their report recommends that lower division clubs should experiment with a salary cap system. If successful over a period of time, it could be adopted by the Premier League. The report, however, notes the idea of a salary cap was "fiercely rejected" by the player's union, the Professional Footballers Association.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Soccer/2004/02/11/344097-cp.html

I thought the rest of the response was the more interesting part of the link:

"We understand the reasons behind the PFA's stance," the report said. "We also accept that a wage-capping system is far from a perfect answer to the problem of insolvency and the unscrupulous will always find ways around it."

We accept its far from perfect. Indeed. Especially when wielded by the unscrupulous as they suggest. An adjective the owners wear like a glove.

"Football is richer today than ever before, but more clubs than ever" are going under financially, Alan Keen, a Labour MP who chaired the group, said Wednesday

Football is richer than ever before, but more clubs are becoming insolvent. Think about this. It seems so obvious to me that this isnt a salary cap problem, its a revenue sharing problem, especially coming from a group of owners putting forth one league wide revenue and loss figure as if the NHL is a single entity and wants a partnership between the entire entity and the players.

Yet when it comes to revenue sharing, they arent one entity but individuals. The owners are so hypocritical. Like Oakland Raiders suing the NFL over its attempt to prevent him from moving his team as restraint of trade. But does the same apply for the players? No them getting free agency is capped. Why dont we cap the profits owners who move their teams can make as incentive not to move. A homegrown franchise revenues cap if you will.

Why not have a real market for teams? Why does the NHL get to say who can and cant play in the league. IF a team like Winnipeg puts up the money has the investors and an arena and their own team, why should you be allowed to prevent them from starting a team and competing in the marketplace? Isnt that restraint of trade? Isnt that anti-market?

"We have concluded that the financial divide in football between the haves and have-nots must be tackled urgently. However, it is not just good enough to throw money at lower divisions without reforms to ensure they are run better in future."

Reforms are worthless until the underlying cause - management incompetence - is addressed. Too many people want to just let them off the hook. Forget about balme. Oh create a system where no matter how incompetent they are it works. This is ridiculous. Why should they then be allowed to have such franchise values and profits then?

"For far too long, the standards of corporate governance within football have been far too lax," the report said. "It is completely unacceptable."

The report said 34 Football League clubs went into financial administration in the past 11 seasons, including 12 in the last 18 months.

"This is a shameful record," the report said. "An underlying cause of football's current financial problems is poor financial management as directors let clubs spend more than they can earn in an attempt to bring success to a club."

A shameful record! Financial administration being one of those fancy british terms for insolvency. Hence the thought, lets try and save them from themselves. But clearly incompetence cannot be saved. It must be weeded out and removed. The value of a franchise is an assesment of management competence. To hide and cover their incompetence, they want the entire problem solved by capping player salaries to a level where financial management guarantees no matter what their competence level, the franchise values rise because the revenue streams have been guaranteed to cover their decision making errors. Shameful!

An interesting conclusion they came to

The politicians strongly supported the idea of deducting points from clubs that go into financial administration, as well as assessing the capability of those who run soccer clubs.

it recommended all clubs should have their budgets approved two seasons in advance before being allowed to compete

Budgets approved 2 years in advance? Would that work? Or is that a cap? Deducting points for losing money though is an interesting idea. It would give owners the incentive they need not to lose money without relying on: well i'd love to spend but the cap prevents me. Now they can say, well id love to spend, but you arent buying enough tickets to raise the money for it. IF I spend it costs us points in the standings. It also gives him an incentive to stop whining about losing money that most of them dont really care about anyway. And it gives them cost certainty.

 

[me2]

Football is richer than ever before, but more clubs are becoming insolvent. Think about this. It seems so obvious to me that this isnt a salary cap problem, its a revenue sharing problem, especially coming from a group of owners putting forth one league wide revenue and loss figure as if the NHL is a single entity and wants a partnership between the entire entity and the players.

They might be taken to mean football has more revenue than ever before but salaries has escalated at a much faster rate than revenue leaving many clubs broke or in debt. I think that is the point he was raising, hence the idea of tieing teams salaries to revenues through penalties for poor management. Something the NHL should do if it can't get the NHLPA to buckle. If at first you don't succeed sneak it in the back way.

Why not have a real market for teams? Why does the NHL get to say who can and cant play in the league. IF a team like Winnipeg puts up the money has the investors and an arena and their own team, why should you be allowed to prevent them from starting a team and competing in the marketplace? Isnt that restraint of trade? Isnt that anti-market?

No it isn't. The NHL is not stopping Winnipeg from creating an elite level hockey team. Winnipeg are free build the team and to compete with the NHL if they don't get accepted. The NHL has no god given monopoly. They can restart the WHA or start some new elite level comp of it own with like minded people in Portland, Q, Los Vegas.

Reforms are worthless until the underlying cause - management incompetence - is addressed. Too many people want to just let them off the hook.

Who is going to punish Illitch for losing $13m? Thats more than many of the financially weak clubs lost. Yet the weak clubs are the ones that need punishing for business incompetence? Business sense does not nescessarily apply to pro-sports when you have owners that don't care about the business side of things.

A shameful record! Financial administration being one of those fancy british terms for insolvency. Hence the thought, lets try and save them from themselves.

I think you might want to dig a little deeper into the way British soccer is organised to understand why some of these things happen. Particularly the relegation/promotion structure.

Budgets approved 2 years in advance? Would that work? Or is that a cap? And it gives them cost certainty.

It is cost certainty and its not something the NHLPA could object to despite how much they might want to because it is cost certainty. If all else fails, bring it in.

 

[gary69]

Recent story in England.

Their report recommends that lower division clubs should experiment with a salary cap system. If successful over a period of time, it could be adopted by the Premier League. The report, however, notes the idea of a salary cap was "fiercely rejected" by the player's union, the Professional Footballers Association.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Soccer/2004/02/11/344097-cp.html



US soccer apparently has a cap.

http://worldsoccer.about.com/cs/theposts/a/mls_04_intro_2.htm




Australian soccer has a $1.5m cap with one exempt player.

"The A-League, which kicks off next August, has imposed a AUS$1.5 million salary cap on each club, but the eight participants will be allowed one `marquee' player exempt from the cap."

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/sport_story_skin/456411?format=html

You sure did find some interesting articles while doing your research. Despite obvious carefully thought issues on these reports, I wouldn't take anything those politicians say as the only truth, they probably have some hidden personal agenda as well (appealing to voters, whose local teams are in financial trouble etc.)

I think thinkwild already tackled most of the issues with your articles, but here's a one interesting quote I found regarding salary caps in Europe:

http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/index?news_item_id=155971&region=global

More than anything, these issues draw attention to the role and applicability of salary caps in sport. Aside from any legal issues – and there are plenty of lawyers straining at the leash in anticipation of making a challenge – all the evidence is that they simply don’t work where there is an international labour market. In principle a salary cap is an equaliser, a means of establishing and maintaining competitive balance by ensuring that clubs have the same ability to attract and retain players.

Now that may be fine in the United States and Australia where players in the NFL or AFL simply have nowhere else to go. But in the liberal sporting free markets of Europe a salary cap may be necessary for a limited period to help establish a sport gather the strength of appeal to have commercial clout, but beyond that they are redundant.

 

[me2]

You sure did find some interesting articles while doing your research. Despite obvious carefully thought issues on these reports, I wouldn't take anything those politicians say as the only truth, they probably have some hidden personal agenda as well (appealing to voters, whose local teams are in financial trouble etc.)

I think thinkwild already tackled most of the issues with your articles, but here's a one interesting quote I found regarding salary caps in Europe:

NHL would be closer aligned to the AFL/NFL than Euro-soccer. If they don't play in the NHL they take a massive step down to some minor league like the AHL or SEL. In Eurosoccer, there are big leagues in many countries, in hockey there is only one big league.

 

[Bicycle Repairman]

All in an effort to maintain the "market value" system that the PA is constantly harping on about. Of course what the NHLPA, vanlady, Bicycle Repairman and Tom B won't acknowlege is that a true "market value" would mean that no contract was guaranteed and that NHL teams could reduce salaries by dumping non-performers.

Sorry, but you've pegged me wrong. I've only advocated the wish for a fair, negotiated settlement. At this point, Im leaning towards mediation.

 

[gary69]

NHL would be closer aligned to the AFL/NFL than Euro-soccer. If they don't play in the NHL they take a massive step down to some minor league like the AHL or SEL. In Eurosoccer, there are big leagues in many countries, in hockey there is only one big league.

Agreed that NHL is closer to the NFL/AFL than Euro-soccer, but since I'm more in favour of a true free-market system also in pro sports and they don't exist in America in major leagues, the examples have to be found elsewhere.

 

[vanlady]

I think people on here should explore the concept of what is required in Collective Bargaining as to mandatory and optional items. All that is required to bargain are mandatory items such as terms and conditions of employment and the like. Neither side has to bargain on anything else. So all that extraneous stuff is not necessary to debate so it, yes, can not be implemented. I think alot of the current CBA is not a mandatory subject for bargaining so not agreeing or debating it is of no consequence. Another thing is that one or the other side may keep insisting on an item and it is not necessarily bargaining in bad faith. I think I'll look into that MLB thing.

Here let me provide the link. First you are right there are mandatory and subjective clauses to bargaining for example in MLB the NLRB has already determined that free agency and arbitration are mandatory subjects of bargaining in pro sport. The employer has a obligation to negotiate on all mandatory subjects of bargaining. Right now the NHL does not even come close to meeting the 5 point test for impasse. The fact that they have NEVER countered any proposal from the NHLPA puts them in a bad faith situation right now. I have also attached something for you to read about bad faith bargaining in Canada, pay attention to 10 a) b) c) d)

http://www.tourolaw.edu/2ndCircuit/october95/95-6048.html
http://www.caut.ca/en/publications/bargaining/aug2002badfaithbargaining.pdf

Oh and remember it is also bad faith bargaining to cry poverty and not providing the proof to prove it. The NLRB does not recognize the URO's as an acceptable source of information for this defence, they have been very clear the NHL will have to provide the SCC or IRS audited books for the 30 clubs and associated businesses.

http://www.braunconsulting.com/bcg/newsletters/spring2001/bargain2.html

Garry Bettman is leading the NHL down the same path that MLB has already travelled and you know what MLB lost a year and has nothing to show for it.

 

[SuperUnknown]

Garry Bettman is leading the NHL down the same path that MLB has already travelled and you know what MLB lost a year and has nothing to show for it.

Hopefully, the owners are willing to wait as long as they don't get what they want, be it 2-3-5-10 years. MLB was stupid to accept the conditions they did accept and is probably the worst national sport right now. (at least imo...)

 

[vanlady]

Hopefully, the owners are willing to wait as long as they don't get what they want, be it 2-3-5-10 years. MLB was stupid to accept the conditions they did accept and is probably the worst national sport right now. (at least imo...)

OK let me explain what happens once the NLRB rule the impasse invalid, the old CBA is put back in place at full force. So exactly what do the owners have to gain??? As a matter of fact in MLB the owners made several counter proposals even has the President of the US try and mediate, those steps are not even on the radar with the NHL. By the way it 2 years after the impasse was ruled illegal before the MLB owners and players had a new CBA

 

[SuperUnknown]

OK let me explain what happens once the NLRB rule the impasse invalid, the old CBA is put back in place at full force. So exactly what do the owners have to gain??? As a matter of fact in MLB the owners made several counter proposals even has the President of the US try and mediate, those steps are not even on the radar with the NHL. By the way it 2 years after the impasse was ruled illegal before the MLB owners and players had a new CBA

Who cares about an impasse? What makes you think the owners will go that way? Also, the owners can still maintain a lock-out even after the NLRB rules whatever they want. The point being that if they're willing to wait, they'll eventually get what they want. Since they're losing less now than without a lockout and since no owner depends on his NHL franchise to make a living, it's not like they're in a hurry to come back into business. Just wait the time they need to and implement their cba, then look forward from there.

 

[vanlady]

Who cares about an impasse? What makes you think the owners will go that way? Also, the owners can still maintain a lock-out even after the NLRB rules whatever they want. The point being that if they're willing to wait, they'll eventually get what they want. Since they're losing less now than without a lockout and since no owner depends on his NHL franchise to make a living, it's not like they're in a hurry to come back into business. Just wait the time they need to and implement their cba, then look forward from there.

Again you fail to realize that the owners have a "duty" to bargain in good faith. They absolutely cannot sit with their thumbs up their butts and do nothing. This will get them into real trouble and quick. On this side of the border the NHL has even a slimmer time line without the labor ministers getting involved. Remember there are elections comming up and the federal government cannot afford to annoy the labor movement in the southern parts of Ontario. Oh and to implement their CBA as you put it requires impasse.