Sidney Crosby and the great NHL players’ sacrifice

[doniceage]

Sidney Crosby was put before the media after Donald Fehr's grim CBA negotiation update on Thursday because Sidney Crosby is symbolic of a great many things.

He's the biggest hockey star in the world, front and center for his union, which isn't exactly commonplace when it comes to sports labor disputes. It's also a position many never believed Crosby would be in earlier in his career — perhaps expecting him to be above it all or disinterested in the process — and yet there he was.

He's a reminder that, in some cases, the name on the back can be more valuable to fans than the logo on the front — essential when the owners are acting like they're herding cattle in dealing with the labor force.


http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...3869--nhl.html

[mooneyes]

I have always been for the players until I heard they want 57% of All revenues...yes the stars fill the seats, but the owners being owners are responsible for all "overhead" costs, which if you have known anyone or owned your own business can be endless...I can only imagine what they are for the NHL. Officials salaries, administration, assistant coaches/scouts, trainers, chartered flights, escalating fuel costs, hockey sticks, tape and on and on...
On the other hand, fans don't buy NHL logo items, they buy Ovy and Crosby jerseys etc...Just go 50/50 and call it a deal!!!

On a side note, wish your avatar came with video, would love to know who and what Scotty is yelling at/about, the ref? Roy?,cheering on his goalie!!??

[Olivertoxxin]

Mr. Buttman is wasting the good years of players like, Lundqvist, Crosby, Ovechkin, and so on.

[Nucks4cup]

Mr. Buttman is wasting the good years of players like, Lundqvist, Crosby, Ovechkin, and so on.

Bettman is a puppet for the owners. He does what they tell him to do. blame the greedy ™™™ players and owners before the commish.

[jon555]

Bettman answers to the owners yes but Bettman is able to issue a lock out if he wants even if the owners don't want to. That is the one thing that he does not need the owners permission to do. However I do agree that the owners and players need to stop worrying about who needs the extra million dollars and just get back to playing. I think the biggest issue with Bettman is that he is unable to accept that hockey just doesn't work in some markets like Phoenix and that as long as they have a team in those types of markets its going to hurt the game rather than help it.

[HOCKEY68]

I don't feel sympathy for both greedy sides!

[Sportfreund]

Bettman is a puppet for the owners. He does what they tell him to do. blame the greedy ™™™ players and owners before the commish.

This is being said to the point of being an urban myth. Yes Bettman works for the owners but the president works for the citizens however does he really do what you want? No....think of the owners as senators who must approve what Bettman does but they aren't leading things, Bettman is. Bettman is the one who's doing the actual negotiations, going back on numbers, presenting things back to the owners with what they should be doing, and dealing with the other side (same can be said for Fehr being the negotiator and not the players). My point here is that although Bettman does have to take into account the feedback from 30 owners, he still has a lot of power and can decide what is or what isn't acceptable to him. A different commissioner might have lead to a solution or taken a less harsh stance not leading to hockey being lost. The players have even less power than the owners this time since there's no executive committee of players tbh like last time with Linden and they each get a vote but it's a more diluted pool than owners (700 votes vs 30). They're basically told by Fehr what to say and if they should accept or not, Fehr has even more control than Bettman because Bettman is dealing with businessmen, Fehr is the businessman leading the players. Bob Goodenow was fired by the players last time for taking too harsh of a stance against the salary cap and not getting things solves, owners have not decided to take that stance with Bettman but might this time if it goes the distance.

I have always been for the players until I heard they want 57% of All revenues...yes the stars fill the seats, but the owners being owners are responsible for all "overhead" costs, which if you have known anyone or owned your own business can be endless...I can only imagine what they are for the NHL. Officials salaries, administration, assistant coaches/scouts, trainers, chartered flights, escalating fuel costs, hockey sticks, tape and on and on...

Players have said they're willing to accept a roll back if it solves the solution. They don't feel they should be making all the sacrifices though since the NHL is not conceding anything based on the previous lockout, it's just taking things away (it wants players to have less contract rights like no arbitration etc). I don't think it's about them refusing to take a cut back as much as it is about them refusing to take it without good reason. The reason they refuse is because the NHL's plan is not good nor is the solution since it'll just lead to the exact situation in the next CBA (and also it's human nature that you won't give something up for a bad reason). Imo, the NHL's plan if it doesn't involve revenue sharing and cutting other costs such as the ones you mentioned above, is not a good solution. For example, there's a cap on player salaries but not GM or coach salaries. If part of the reason to make player salaries is "parity" then shouldn't there be parity by having a maximum a club can spend on their scouting department so that rich teams don't have waaaaaaay more scouts than poorer ones? Once the NHL shows a willingness to conduct revenue sharing or do something about money losing teams while cutting its own costs then players will probably accept a cut back of some sort, it's just unfair to expect them to be the only ones cutting salary.

Mr. Buttman is wasting the good years of players like, Lundqvist, Crosby, Ovechkin, and so on.

Crosby didn't miss any NHL hockey during the last lockout but yeah Lundqvist, Datsyuk, Iggy, Gaborik, Kovalchuk, etc are all stars who missed hockey during the last lockout as well and these guys have lost at 100-170 pts probably on their career totals if this thing goes the whole yr.

[RGM81]

The ultimate "great sacrifice" that is being asked of the players to make comes in the form of millions of dollars. Consider the latest offer sent by the NHL, which essentially breaks down to a 17% rollback of player salaries - it's much better than the 24% that came from the initial offer, but still, can you blame the players' perspective that they don't want to accept any rollback?

Sid just signed a 12-year, $104.4M deal this year. The rollback proposed by the owners would reduce that to $86.6M, a difference of nearly $18 million.
**As Sid's AAV is $8.7M, that's more than two seasons that he would be essentially playing "for free" vis-a-vis the contract that he signed.

Carey Price just signed a 6-year, $39M deal a couple months ago. The rollback proposed by the owners would reduce that to $32.4M, a difference of $6.6 million.
**As Carey's AAV is $6.5, that's a bit more than a full season that he would be essentially playing "for free" vis-a-vis the contract that he signed.

That's just two examples, I am sure that there are a few hundred more out there. Lots of guys signed big contracts this summer, and the owners are basically telling them, "Jinx! I had my fingers crossed behind my back!"

[Sportfreund]

^ That point and also, why are people so anti-union? It's not like players are getting paid from your tax dollars like teachers unions, many of them are actually not millionaires and I'd rather side with the group which is more honest and worked rather than inherited wealth in most cases and is likely to spend it back on the game therefore I'd be taking the players position anyway instead of the mostly billionaire owners who have other things to make $ from. It's not like any of those guys rely on hockey for their $ (that includes corporations like Robbers/Bell who make fare more $ ripping off Canadians than they would on the Leafs). It's bizarre to me, it's the same as middle class people who support the tea party when it comes to economics.

I will however say that the "strategies" which the PA is using are BS and not helping though for this you have to blame the decision maker aka Fehr rather than any actual player like I said in the earlier post because he's not just a "spokesperson."

[30ranfordfan]

The system doesn't work, at least not very well, as it stands right now. Half the teams in the league are losing money. The owners need to find a better way to share the pie - and (at least) limit the number of teams that are losers.

It's easy to say that the NHL should move the teams that can't make in their markets, but the truth is..... there would be no where to put them. Even if you were to move teams out of Phoenix, Columbus, and Miami.... and bring them to Quebec City, Hamilton, and another Toronto team....You'd still have (roughly) a dozen teams in the red (not to mention AT LEAST 6 Canadian Clubs that would join them, if the Canadian dollar returned to its value from the 1990s).

I suppose you could contract Tampa, Dallas, Colorado, Nashville, The Islanders, etc.... and get rid of more red ink, but both the owners and the players lose then.

The teams that are profitable, I'm sure, would also like to be making more.

Bettman, no doubt, is leading the charge from the owners side - but he only serves that role as long as the owners think he's doing a good job. Obviously he's done that (a good job) in the owners mind, otherwise they'd have turffed him long ago.

The players, I get it. They are the ones we pay to see, and they want to maximize their earning potential. They should want to do that. They'd be crazy not to.... and I don't blame them at all for not accepting what the owners have proposed.

The system needs changing, but I do fear that the owners are only looking for a short term fix.... and not the overhaul it needs. IMO - The best way to do it would be to drop the 'hard cap' in favour of a 'soft cap' while also slashing the cap floor. Allow the higher revenue teams to spend more, with financial penalties (a luxury tax) and take that money, poor it into revenue sharing, allowing the Torontos, the Philadelphias, etc, to take on a bigger chunk of the total salaries - while sending more money to the teams that need it.

As for the 'waste' of good years out of players.... really the potential waste of a season..... the owners don't have much of a choice. Yes, they could have worked to find an agreement that;s more to the player's liking.... but failing an agreement, there is no choice but a lockout. If they agreed to play games until an agreement could be made - they lose all of their leverage. Instead of lockout in September, we'd be talked about a player's strike around game 75 of the regular season.