McKenzie: I dont see any hope

[WhalerBoy]

http://tsn.ca/columnists/bob_mckenzie.asp?id=115101


I usually dont put too much into what the media hordes say, but Bob McK. I trust. This has me really scratching my head. I just dont know what to say. How wide is the gap? Am I the only one who figures $195mill is nothing compared to how much each side loses with no season this year, forget about the losses of next year and the long term harm to the league? Just call it 44-46, and END IT!

Oh Bob, your killing me.

This is now no win for me. Either Bob has lost my complete and total trust of anything he says, or I have lost my final hope for NHL this year. DAMN!

Click to read more...

 

[Tuggy]

Reading Bob's article certainly took me down a peg

 

[Ol' Dirty Chinaman*]

Heh, really McKenzie ?

http://www3.telus.net/odc/_eatpoo/masterofobvious.jpg

oh well, the nhl is done for a long time. life goes on, we still have pickup and stuff like the ahl.

just have fun with it. the correspondence between them is gonna have me laughing for ages !

 

[kenabnrmal]

Bob has been very much a pessimist through this whole thing, and has admitted that he "really doesn't know" whats going to happen. He doesn't see room for hope, but he also couldn't see the players or owners moving off their positions of no-cap or linkage, and we all know what happened there. I trust Bob absolutely as well, but I really think he's playing it safe. I wouldn't take it too much to heart. At the end of the day, there is simply too much to lose by not making a deal tomorrow.

 

[caliamad]

i think u also need to consider that the NHLPA still wants a 2x exception to the tax that could put a team at 53.5 twice during the the next 6 years.

I think Gary wants cost certainty and believes at 49 million, it would exceed 75% of revenues and owners would lose money.

Goodenow responds that when have all 30 teams ever been at 49 million and basically is saying gary wants too much of a guarantee... good thing the average salary will be significantly less than 49 million...

i think they are both done, but if I was a player, i'd go with the NHL's plan. 42.5 + 2.2 benefits sounds pretty fair to me...

 

[no13matssundin]

I dont know why people arent getting this?

The 42.5 Mil cap is it. The owners have nothing to lose by cancelling the season. In fact, they have more to gain by doing so: implementing their own CBA with a smaller hard cap w/o interefernce from the PA.

I know people in here dont like to hear that, but those are the facts. Either the PA takes the deal, or the PA's players will be crossing a line sometime next year playing under a hard cap of about 10 Million dollars less in size.

Its lose lose for the players. Win win for the owners.

Thats why im convinced Gary gonna cancel the season if they dont take the 42.5 Deal by 11am. This isnt about negotiating a 45 or 46 Mil $ cap. Its about the owners having all the leverage now. The players are the ones who need to fold in order to save what little money they can make this year, and save being put under a lower hard cap next year.

 

[mudcrutch79]

If Bob's saying what he's saying based on what his sources are saying, I put a lot more weight on it. If it's based on his own opinion...I'm not as convinced. Not inteded as a shot at Bob, but I don't know that the business side of the game and negotiations is his greatest area of strength.

While it's hard to predict what will happen down the road, I'm sure that the Harvard Law School, business schools and journalism schools will take what's happened over the past year between the NHL and the NHLPA, and I guarantee that there will be case studies and books written about this very bizarre process.

This is a good paragraph though. Kind of like WWI.

 

[MarkZackKarl]

gross

Drama Queens.

 

[Jeffrey]

Where's Bob when you need him !

 

[p.l.f.]

who's bob mckenzie
you mean the guy on sctv ?

 

[OilerNut*]

who's bob mckenzie
you mean the guy on sctv ?

:lol

 

[Icey]

I dont know why people arent getting this?

The 42.5 Mil cap is it. The owners have nothing to lose by cancelling the season. In fact, they have more to gain by doing so: implementing their own CBA with a smaller hard cap w/o interefernce from the PA.

I know people in here dont like to hear that, but those are the facts. Either the PA takes the deal, or the PA's players will be crossing a line sometime next year playing under a hard cap of about 10 Million dollars less in size.

Its lose lose for the players. Win win for the owners.

Thats why im convinced Gary gonna cancel the season if they dont take the 42.5 Deal by 11am. This isnt about negotiating a 45 or 46 Mil $ cap. Its about the owners having all the leverage now. The players are the ones who need to fold in order to save what little money they can make this year, and save being put under a lower hard cap next year.

Kind of but not really. If they try and break the union and file for impasse and get replacement players, they need to use their last FINAL offer and that is why he called it their FINAL offer.

Its not win win for the owner since it costs a team $6-8M to run an IDLE team.

 

[SENSible1*]

Kind of but not really. If they try and break the union and file for impasse and get replacement players, they need to use their last FINAL offer and that is why he called it their FINAL offer.

Its not win win for the owner since it costs a team $6-8M to run an IDLE team.

Actually, the owners made that "final offer" for this season and you should take note of two things.

1) There is no salary floor.

2) There is nothing to stop them from putting forward a new complete CBA once the season is cancelled.

 

[chiavsfan]

$6-8M to run an IDLE team

The teams that are losing more than that to begin with, have nothing to lose. And the Owners that make money off their teams have other sources of revenue, and are usually billionares to begin with. I think the players still are worse off

 

[Benji Frank]

who's bob mckenzie
you mean the guy on sctv ?

that one was doug.......

 

[Donnie D]

that one was doug.......

There were 2 McKenzies - Doug (played by Dave Thomas, as the Beaver) and Bob (Played by Rick Moranis).

 

[HotToddy]

The media nad the lockout.

Never have so many been so wrong about something so simple.

 

[BobMckenzie]

Where's Bob when you need him !

Doing 13 straight hours of live television.





As for the questions whether I really know anything or I'm just guessing the same as you, well, put it this way. Until Bettman cancelled the season officially, there was always a chance something could have changed, the same sort of chance you have of winning the lottery (twice) and you have to allow for that possiblity remote as it may be, but anyone with any contacts at all would know to play up the pessimism angle this morning and play it up big. I mean, if both sides are telling you flat out they're not talking, you can dream up conspiracy theories about the media being used etc., but you would be surprised how often people involved actually tell us the truth. From Goodenow's second letter of Monday night to the 1 p.m. deadline, the season never had a chance.

I would say I know half as much as I think and twice as much as I let on.

 

[officeglen]

If you haven't passed out yet from exhaustion/heat stroke Bob, was the NHL serious with the delinked proposal and if so didn't it represent some chance of getting a deal done before the NHLPA replied as they did?

 

[jcab2000]

Doing 13 straight hours of live television.





As for the questions whether I really know anything or I'm just guessing the same as you, well, put it this way. Until Bettman cancelled the season officially, there was always a chance something could have changed, the same sort of chance you have of winning the lottery (twice) and you have to allow for that possiblity remote as it may be, but anyone with any contacts at all would know to play up the pessimism angle this morning and play it up big. I mean, if both sides are telling you flat out they're not talking, you can dream up conspiracy theories about the media being used etc., but you would be surprised how often people involved actually tell us the truth. From Goodenow's second letter of Monday night to the 1 p.m. deadline, the season never had a chance.

I would say I know half as much as I think and twice as much as I let on.

Hey Bob, thanks for your tireless reporting. Is anyone going to call out Goodenow for his ridiuculous backhanded "cap" offer which would in two years be so high that even the Rangers wouldn't think about getting near it? Using 05-06 as a revenue base year (when revenues will be at their lowest) and increasing from there? It's almost a given that the cap is over $60 million including the 10% exception in 07-08 even if revenues are $600 million less than they were last year!

That wasn't an olive branch he extended, it was a flaming bag of dog sh*t.

 

[BobMckenzie]

If you haven't passed out yet from exhaustion/heat stroke Bob, was the NHL serious with the delinked proposal and if so didn't it represent some chance of getting a deal done before the NHLPA replied as they did?

Yeah, it looked like a play at the plate early Monday night but by the time midnight rolled around, odds were heavily favoured against there being a season. They were getting driven closer together, but only to a point and then the NHL ultimatum, and the players' response to it, drove a wedge in the process and with each passing minute the two sides got more and more polarized. Players who were sagging and questioning the PA suddenly hopped back on the Bob bandwagon, owners who were watching Bettman up the ante tapdanced on him to make sure this wasn't going to be the 1994 folderoo all over again. It was a going to take a rabbit out of the hat after that and when they didn't talk at all overnight or the morning, it was done like dinner by the 11 a.m. deadline. Funny thing is a lot of players, even after 11 a.m., even after 12 noon, even as Gary was walking to the hotel for the announcement, were convinced something was going to happen. Fantasy, man.

 

[WhalerBoy]

As I told a friend early this morning.

"If a deal gets done, then Im gonna lose faith in Bob McKenzie as an expert, a true insider. If a deal doesnt get done, then he was right, and I lose hockey!". I was in a lose-lose situation!

Like I said, I trust him more than anyone, and all along he said there was no hope. He was right, I was dead wrong. Thanks for being on for 13hrs Bob, I still am most impressed with your ability to keep your composure and stay still while the bull is thrown all around you.

(although now eklund+others say the season may still be a go!!! UGH)

 

[leafaholix*]

Bob, what do you think is going to happen with the draft?

Well, as you said... we don't know what's going to happen in the future because this has never happened. But, I heard Gary said there would be hockey in the fall... and he said they'd have to have a draft before the season started.

This really sucks.

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

Doing 13 straight hours of live television.





As for the questions whether I really know anything or I'm just guessing the same as you, well, put it this way. Until Bettman cancelled the season officially, there was always a chance something could have changed, the same sort of chance you have of winning the lottery (twice) and you have to allow for that possiblity remote as it may be, but anyone with any contacts at all would know to play up the pessimism angle this morning and play it up big. I mean, if both sides are telling you flat out they're not talking, you can dream up conspiracy theories about the media being used etc., but you would be surprised how often people involved actually tell us the truth. From Goodenow's second letter of Monday night to the 1 p.m. deadline, the season never had a chance.

I would say I know half as much as I think and twice as much as I let on.

What......you mean Eklunds latest rumors are not true.....lol

 

[Oiler_Fan]

Funny thing is a lot of players, even after 11 a.m., even after 12 noon, even as Gary was walking to the hotel for the announcement, were convinced something was going to happen. Fantasy, man.

I believe you on that and I find it unbelievable at the same time. Wow! Like Bettman said (me paraphrasing), you have to respect it, but it's hard to understand...