i dont know whats dumber

[hawksfan50]

I don't think it was the deadline that made the players cave

I think it was Roenick and the other players putting pressure on Goodenow

I don't think the players were ready in Jan. to accept a cap so Goodenow would have let the season slip away....

the owners up the offer to 42 million on Feb 2nd...that got the players saying we can live with a payroll range of 32-42 million as long as their is no linkage

I don't think that would have happened in Jan.

Come off it--if Goodeough had dropped his stupid "philosophical " line in the sand against ANY CAP,and just negotiated the numbers as they now are,we could have started the season on time last Fall and played all 82 games..His delay caused this mess from the PA's side,and he hoodwinked them because he has delusions ogf grandeur--they will can him after this farce of bargaining "in good faith" ...

 

[AM]

err... that would be WWII

Though it pains me to say, I have to slightly disagree. Damn, I hate sticking up, even slightly, for that buffoon Goodenhow. However, you can not always judge entirely negotiations by the results. However strange that sounds. You sometimes have to test the other side to see how solid they are in their position first. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. However, in this case, I give only slight modification to outright derision for him, I think that even a three year old could see once the owners granted the basic veto power to only eight teams the resolve of the owners. I am not sure after a period of time what the players thought would happen, the writing was pretty well on the wall. However do you cave immediately? Perhaps not, but you certainly do not hold from the Cap concept for so long.

If I were handling the negotiations I would have tested the owners in other ways such as seeing that the Cap was likely to happen, but once accepted I would bet that the owners might fracture on other issues that the union will never get now. Sort of like the Germans in WWI went around the maginot line, the strength of France, go around the Cap, and hit the owners where they are not united. Now that opportunity is far more lost than it would have been five months ago.

I think he invested too much political capital on avoiding the cap. EG How do you get 700 guys to sit tight and lose 1 billion dollars?

You give each of them a lotto ticket with the correct numbers on it and a date and say.... just stay the course and you'll win it all.

Now what happens when you say..... just joking......

 

[me2]

i fail to see how the test was worth 1 billion dollars.

That depends, if the players had offered a $52m cap in September (though Decemeber would have been more likely), the NHL would have held out for a $32m-36m linked cap. Then we wait some more, end up in January and the players sign a $40m cap.

Now, they have forced the NHL up to $40m, and are probably hoping they'll get to $45m or $46m by the end of it. That's about $150m/y. Over 6 years they get most of that billion back (well probably not if you work out lost value of that money).

Maybe, just maybe, if they had discussed it before the season this deal might have been done in December. The players opening bid could have been a $60m hardcap back in August, then just maybe they meet around $45m by September and we have a season. But that is more longshot than probability.

The owners are left to deal with the damaged NHL revenues alone since they are now unlinked. The player lose $1B. The fans ****ed off. If the lockout causes one or two teams to folds it gets worse for everyone. Kind of short sighted.


Goodenow's should have held out but he should also have known when to fold. Bettman has been playing him like a fiddle, Bettman beat him in the PR war, Bettman wouldn't give him a deadline and just kept stringing him along, teasing the players with a mirage of a season.Its his job to read the players mood and read the oppositions resolve. Goodenow should have worked this after December, that's his job.

The "no linkage" part of the deal is just a face saving exercise at this stage. They could have gotten the no linkage part in any deal at any stage. Heck, the NHL would have jumped on the no linkage back when they knew what their revenues were. Right now the players probably want no linkage as much for the fact that so much damage has been done and they don't want to hurt by that.