Strachan-A hard cap will make winning harder

Status
Not open for further replies.

ScottyBowman

Registered User
Mar 10, 2003
2,361
0
Detroit
Visit site
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/Sports/2005/01/15/899208-sun.html

"IT'S NOT hard to understand why the National Hockey League's owners want to impose a hard salary cap. Why wouldn't they? It would not only protect them from their own stupidity, a commodity which has been more than abundant in recent years, it would protect them from the stupidity of their so-called partners.

But there are also a significant number of fans who also say they think a hard cap would be beneficial to the game. Their reasoning is nowhere near as easy to understand.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

grego

Registered User
Jan 12, 2005
2,390
97
Saskatchewan
If injuries are a factor, then why not work into a CBA that in the event of injuries those players won't be counted against the Salary Cap of a team if they go over. Meaning that if your starting goalie is hurt, you can replace him with someone that has an equal contract. At least till the other person gets healthy.

Overall I am pro cap, because it will make the game more competitive and reward teams like Edmonton that have all the youth on the team. When the players finally get to develop they can actually keep some of these players rather then trading they aways for next to nothing.
 

Lanny MacDonald*

Guest
Things change. People adapt. I'd forgo the excitement of the trade deadline (the most over hyped load of BS in hockey next to the entry draft) in favor of knowing that my team has a chance of being competitive each year and that good management will be the key to success. Uncle Al fails to acknowledge that the game will change and that teams will be forced to adapt. The teams that have been in this position for years have an unfair advantage. The BIG spenders will have to learn how to work in the NHL all over again. Oh the irony! Pay back is goona be a biatch!!!
 

djhn579

Registered User
Mar 11, 2003
1,747
0
Tonawanda, NY
ScottyBowman said:
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/Sports/2005/01/15/899208-sun.html

For starters, a hard cap turns fans into accountants. Trade fantasies are a part of hockey, but once the cap is in place, a fan couldn't just say, "I think it would be a good deal to trade Player X for Player Y."

He would have to say, "If we moved Player X, and made some cap room, then we could maybe also send Player Z to another team which also has some room under the cap and then maybe we'd be able to get Player Y -- but only for two years because after that, some of our younger players would have had their salary increases kick in and we wouldn't be able to fit him under the cap any more."

I don't know where he's been the last few years, but I have seen an awful lot of trade proposals on here that do just that.

"We should trade this player for these other two players..."

With the responce back "This team can't take on any more salary, you would have to give us this player and take these two so the salaries even out..."

This has been the reality for many teams for quite some time.
 

Peter10

Registered User
Dec 7, 2003
4,193
5,042
Germany
That is why i m in favor of a soft cap or a hard cap with loop-holes.
A loop-hole could be that you are allowed to go over the cap but with a heavey penalty, in terms of money paid to a fund that will be distributed too poorer teams (see my own proposal :) ). With that you would still have the chance add a guy if an injury to one of your import players occurs but you also would have to pay for it. So the GM has to do some brainwork, is it worth the gamble? My proposal is based on having a $38m payroll with a hard cap of $45m, that make $7m to work with but also some extra money to paid to a fund if you go over the $38m. It would be also possible to go over $45m but you would eventually end up paying more than $15m for any player that leads you over the $45m mark.

I guess the thing is that you somehow have to allow teams going over the cap if its worth gamble but also pay for it. If a team really wants it all they have got to bleed. ;)
 

Lard_Lad

Registered User
May 12, 2003
6,678
0
Kelowna
Visit site
djhn579 said:
I don't know where he's been the last few years, but I have seen an awful lot of trade proposals on here that do just that.

"We should trade this player for these other two players..."

With the responce back "This team can't take on any more salary, you would have to give us this player and take these two so the salaries even out..."

This has been the reality for many teams for quite some time.

You're misreading it. What that passage actually means is "Brooks and Garrioch and I will need to get out a calculator and figure out the cap implications before making up phony trade rumours, so we'll have to start putting some effort into our columns."
 

Coelah

Registered User
Feb 12, 2003
26
0
Visit site
Congratulations Al! You just described what every small market team in the NHL has been going through for the past 8 years. You just reminded the majority of NHL owners why they are doing this.

Guess ole Al doesn't like the prospect that the Leafs will have to actually be successful at drafting and training prospects, instead of buying players.
 

Hockey_Nut99

Guest
What a Pejorative Slur Strachan is. Does he only watch rich teams? Edmonton has been pretty much playing under their own cap (or following a budget). If Edmonton wants someone, they consider all their options and sometimes trade away someone else.
 

Ziggy Stardust

Master Debater
Jul 25, 2002
63,047
34,005
Parts Unknown
Strachan is just bitter that his Leafs won't be able to spend foolishly like they proved they could this past summer.
Imagine an NHL where teams like the Rangers can't outbid themselves for guys like Lefebrve, Gusarov, Quintal, Kasparaitis, Kamensky, etc. Tsk, tsk. Don't the fans want to see their local teams being outpriced for #3-5 dmen and role players? Don't the fans want to pay for overpriced tickets to watch an NHL player earning $3+M score 1 to 3 goals a season (see Kasparaitis).
Strachan is a fool, along with all the others supporting the status quo.
I think Strachan's article title was edited. It was originally:

A hard cap will make winning harder... for the Maple Leafs

by AL STRACHAN, TORONTO SUN
 
Last edited:

nyr7andcounting

Registered User
Feb 24, 2004
1,919
0
Peter10 said:
That is why i m in favor of a soft cap or a hard cap with loop-holes.
A loop-hole could be that you are allowed to go over the cap but with a heavey penalty, in terms of money paid to a fund that will be distributed too poorer teams (see my own proposal :) ). With that you would still have the chance add a guy if an injury to one of your import players occurs but you also would have to pay for it. So the GM has to do some brainwork, is it worth the gamble? My proposal is based on having a $38m payroll with a hard cap of $45m, that make $7m to work with but also some extra money to paid to a fund if you go over the $38m. It would be also possible to go over $45m but you would eventually end up paying more than $15m for any player that leads you over the $45m mark.

I guess the thing is that you somehow have to allow teams going over the cap if its worth gamble but also pay for it. If a team really wants it all they have got to bleed. ;)

My proposal is very much the same. Good idea The last CBA caused too many problems but instituting a hard cap right away would cause just as many problems. I just don't think that hockey is one of the sports where players are interchangeable, and that's what a cap forces them to be. Chemistry is a very important part of hockey. Going straight to a hard cap is not right, the league needs something in the middle. Either a luxury tax, a higher hard cap or both.

Also, I am not supporting this article because it's the work of an average HF poster rather than a guy who is getting paid to do that, but he does have a point as far as trading players. Don't you hate in the NBA whenever a trade is made, teams swap meaningless players just for the sake of keeping the cap numbers even in the trade? Now in basketball, if the Raptors have to absorb some salary from the Nets when they trade Vince Carter, they can take on Mourning and another veteran and it won't matter much because they won't play anyway. All they have to do is have Mourning sit on their bench for half a season. But in hockey, it would be hard for teams to "absorb" money in trades because everyone on the roster plays. I would hate if the NHL got into a situation where every trade, half the players were included just for cap reasons.
 

Winger98

Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
22,756
4,571
Cleveland
The Iconoclast said:
Things change. People adapt. I'd forgo the excitement of the trade deadline (the most over hyped load of BS in hockey next to the entry draft) in favor of knowing that my team has a chance of being competitive each year and that good management will be the key to success. Uncle Al fails to acknowledge that the game will change and that teams will be forced to adapt. The teams that have been in this position for years have an unfair advantage. The BIG spenders will have to learn how to work in the NHL all over again. Oh the irony! Pay back is goona be a biatch!!!

in the spirit of so many who have brought up baseball as proof that a luxury tax system won't work, what about the Twins and A's, two small market teams in a league where the money scales are tilted even more ridiculously than in hockey, competing year in and year out? They could arguably be the exception, but it could also be argued that it's the fault of other small market teams for employing incompetant management. Maybe the small market teams in the NHL are more to blame for having incompetant people in their management than being unable to compete against larger market teams because they don't have the $$$ to waste.

With that said, I know I'm exagerating your post and I don't really support that position entirely myself. What I really have is a question:

You mention good management as the key to success, but what exactly do you mean by that?

My problem is that I see two outcomes of whatever CBA is made. one is a cba that has greater allowability for teams to grow their own talant andkeep that talant over a long period of time. The second is that it will lead to an equally chaotic scenario where roster turnover becomes the norm for every team and teams are built more year to year than for the long haul.

While any system will probably afford room for a middle ground, it will most likely (inevitably, imo) favor one path of success over another. It will lean. Personally, I wouldn't mind if teams were forced to rely more on building from within rather than building through free agency, and one of my biggest fears is that whatever system is put into place will lend itself to more roster turnover. that's the direction I would like it to lean, but what direction are you (and whoever else) hoping to see it fall?
 

Hockey_Nut99

Guest
Winger98 said:
in the spirit of so many who have brought up baseball as proof that a luxury tax system won't work, what about the Twins and A's, two small market teams in a league where the money scales are tilted even more ridiculously than in hockey, competing year in and year out? They could arguably be the exception, but it could also be argued that it's the fault of other small market teams for employing incompetant management. Maybe the small market teams in the NHL are more to blame for having incompetant people in their management than being unable to compete against larger market teams because they don't have the $$$ to waste.

With that said, I know I'm exagerating your post and I don't really support that position entirely myself. What I really have is a question:

You mention good management as the key to success, but what exactly do you mean by that?

My problem is that I see two outcomes of whatever CBA is made. one is a cba that has greater allowability for teams to grow their own talant andkeep that talant over a long period of time. The second is that it will lead to an equally chaotic scenario where roster turnover becomes the norm for every team and teams are built more year to year than for the long haul.

While any system will probably afford room for a middle ground, it will most likely (inevitably, imo) favor one path of success over another. It will lean. Personally, I wouldn't mind if teams were forced to rely more on building from within rather than building through free agency, and one of my biggest fears is that whatever system is put into place will lend itself to more roster turnover. that's the direction I would like it to lean, but what direction are you (and whoever else) hoping to see it fall?

Do the oakland A's ever keep star players? Or do teams like the Yankees just take them away once they are developed?
 

Go Flames Go*

Guest
He needs 2 be fired soon, hes biased comments are really ticking me off, this guy is just a idiot.

Anyone see him latley looks like he is dying or something.
 

me2

Go ahead foot
Jun 28, 2002
37,903
5,595
Make my day.
Go Flames Go said:
He needs 2 be fired soon, hes biased comments are really ticking me off, this guy is just a idiot.

Anyone see him latley looks like he is dying or something.

Stress from watching the NHLPA losing the fight.
 

PecaFan

Registered User
Nov 16, 2002
9,243
520
Ottawa (Go 'Nucks)
Hockey_Nut99 said:
Do the oakland A's ever keep star players? Or do teams like the Yankees just take them away once they are developed?

I love when folks hold out the A's as some sort of success story. :shakehead Hello? They haven't won a damn thing for *sixteen years*. No World Series, not even a single pennant. Oh gosh, they made the playoffs *four* whole times in the past twelve years, isn't that simply amazing?

Once again, Strachan shows himself for the idiot he is. "Why, with a cap, a team would have to consider the financial side of a deal when making a trade!" OH MY GOD!!

Welcome to the freakin' NHL that the rest of us live in, Al. :banghead:
 

Cloned

Begging for Bega
Aug 25, 2003
78,959
64,168
I'm amazed he didn't name the San Francisco 49ers as a prime example of how a cap can limit the ability to get better quickly. That would at least make his article more than just about guesses and hypotheticals.
 

GirardIsStupid

Registered User
Dec 15, 2002
4,518
377
Visit site
The Iconoclast said:
The BIG spenders will have to learn how to work in the NHL all over again. Oh the irony! Pay back is goona be a biatch!!!

Oh the mislead! A salary cap of 40 mill will allow big markets to rake in all the cash while it'll allow the small market teams to get by. Then you must also consider that bonuses could still be handed out (largely by the big spenders who'll be jolly happy to dish out the extra dough) because hardly any money will go towards helping the small market teams.

As a fan of the Avs, I have no problem with a 40 mill cap with regards to my team's ability to ice a competitive team year after year. I would be much more concerned if the playing field was levelled with an economic partnership amongst all of the owners.

By the way, many of the mid to large markets do have the best managements: Colorado, Philly, NJ, Detroit to name a few. Why is that the case...they got mo money!
 

arnie

Registered User
Dec 20, 2004
520
0
Coelah said:
Congratulations Al! You just described what every small market team in the NHL has been going through for the past 8 years. You just reminded the majority of NHL owners why they are doing this.

Guess ole Al doesn't like the prospect that the Leafs will have to actually be successful at drafting and training prospects, instead of buying players.

Congrats. You have just explained everything there is to know about Strachan, Brooks and the like. They don't want an even playing field, but they havn't got the guts to come out and say it directly.
 

arnie

Registered User
Dec 20, 2004
520
0
jericholic19 said:
Oh the mislead! A salary cap of 40 mill will allow big markets to rake in all the cash while it'll allow the small market teams to get by. Then you must also consider that bonuses could still be handed out (largely by the big spenders who'll be jolly happy to dish out the extra dough) because hardly any money will go towards helping the small market teams.
QUOTE]

Forget it it. Bonuses will be included in the cap. They NHL has learned from the the "Joe Thornton loophole."
 

Winger98

Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
22,756
4,571
Cleveland
Hockey_Nut99 said:
Do the oakland A's ever keep star players? Or do teams like the Yankees just take them away once they are developed?

But does that matter as long as they remain a consistantly competitive team? Sure, their roster changes, but they can still be counted on to be a team "in the hunt" when October rolls around.

It goes back to my real question: What exactly do people want with the next CBA? Do they want a league where everyone is simply "competitive" or do they want a league where it may be a bit harder to be a competitive team, but organizations that build themselves up right can reap the rewards?

What I have understood to be the biggest gripe with the last CBA is that not all teams could hold on to their players. This leads me to believe that people want some sort of roster stability, but over the course of this labor mess I have noticed that a lot of people have thrown around a phrase similar to, "where every team is competitive," which is quite a bit different from the ability to have roster stability (and to "develop" your team, basically). I'm fairly certain I've stated where I stand on this issue, but I'm not so sure I've heard many other people's opinions on it.
 

ScottyBowman

Registered User
Mar 10, 2003
2,361
0
Detroit
Visit site
The Iconoclast said:
Things change. People adapt. I'd forgo the excitement of the trade deadline (the most over hyped load of BS in hockey next to the entry draft) in favor of knowing that my team has a chance of being competitive each year and that good management will be the key to success. Uncle Al fails to acknowledge that the game will change and that teams will be forced to adapt. The teams that have been in this position for years have an unfair advantage. The BIG spenders will have to learn how to work in the NHL all over again. Oh the irony! Pay back is goona be a biatch!!!

I hope you realize that most of the big spenders like the Detroit/Colorado/St Louis have drafted or traded for the majority of the roster. The same small market teams that are mediocre right now will continue to be mediocre no matter what the new cba is.
 

Poignant Discussion*

I tell it like it is
Jul 18, 2003
8,421
5
Gatineau, QC
As a Leaf fan I hope there is a salary cap with NO revenue sharing. As the advertising and promotional prospects for players in Toronto are better than any other city (Montreal would be comparable) in Canada, Toronto will still have an advantage. Add to, it that the Canadian equalization thingy will surely be dropped under any hard cap, it will end up hurting the smaller market Canadian teams.

Then with the money saved the Leafs can boost thier scouting staff, add more money into the building (more equipment, personal trainers)

What will be funny is when the Calgary's and Edmonton's end up losing their stars under the hard cap because there is just not enough money in cities like Calgary and Edmonton to warrant signing a comparable contract there, as it would be to Toronto where they could double their salaries under endorsements. Then we will hear MORE whining about how not fair it is for them. And how if it doesn't change, bless their little hearts they will have to move because the big bad Toronto Maple Leafs or New York Rangers are stealing all of their players.

There will never be an equal playing field, under the old CBA with the right signings and the right corporate sponsership. All teams had a chance to be rich and wealthy.

Under a hard cap, smaller teams are going to be in FAR more trouble than they are in now. But you guys can dream how a hard cap will hurt the Toronto's, Dallas's, Detroit's and the New York's. Because frankly it won't, it will just make the division of have's and have not's even greater
 

Boilers*

Guest
NataSatan666 said:
As a Leaf fan I hope there is a salary cap with NO revenue sharing. As the advertising and promotional prospects for players in Toronto are better than any other city (Montreal would be comparable) in Canada, Toronto will still have an advantage. Add to, it that the Canadian equalization thingy will surely be dropped under any hard cap, it will end up hurting the smaller market Canadian teams.

Then with the money saved the Leafs can boost thier scouting staff, add more money into the building (more equipment, personal trainers)

What will be funny is when the Calgary's and Edmonton's end up losing their stars under the hard cap because there is just not enough money in cities like Calgary and Edmonton to warrant signing a comparable contract there, as it would be to Toronto where they could double their salaries under endorsements. Then we will hear MORE whining about how not fair it is for them. And how if it doesn't change, bless their little hearts they will have to move because the big bad Toronto Maple Leafs or New York Rangers are stealing all of their players.

There will never be an equal playing field, under the old CBA with the right signings and the right corporate sponsership. All teams had a chance to be rich and wealthy.

Under a hard cap, smaller teams are going to be in FAR more trouble than they are in now. But you guys can dream how a hard cap will hurt the Toronto's, Dallas's, Detroit's and the New York's. Because frankly it won't, it will just make the division of have's and have not's even greater

And we'll all be laffin' at the old Leafs for another 30+ years for having all the advantages and still not seeing a sniff of Lord Stanleys Cup. I think the attendance in TO is highly overated just because Leafsfans heads are larger doesn't mean the head count is larger, someone outta 'splain that to them.
 

Lanny MacDonald*

Guest
ScottyBowman said:
I hope you realize that most of the big spenders like the Detroit/Colorado/St Louis have drafted or traded for the majority of the roster. The same small market teams that are mediocre right now will continue to be mediocre no matter what the new cba is.

That is true in some regard. But many of those deals were made by smaller market teams that were forced to trade players away to teams that could afford the salary demands of the players in question. But don't allow a small fact like that play into your fantasy.

;)
 

Riddarn

1980-2011
Aug 2, 2003
9,164
0
If a hard cap means more teams will be able to compete - which makes it harder to win the cup - doesn't that make the cup even more desirable and wouldn't that be a good thing for the sport? :dunno:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->