Guythatnooneknows Has Opinions

By now, you've probably all heard, whether you follow hockey or not. The 2004-2005 NHL season has been cancelled due to conflicts in the contract between the Player's Union and The Team Owner's. Now, had you asked me a week ago, I would have conceded that in fact it was entirely the Player's Unions' fault. I know, shock and awe, Guy goes against a union. But if you ask me today, I believe it was in fact more or less the owner's fault. Now, don't get me wrong, by and large, there is a lot of blame to be placed all around, but let me give you a few examples of what The Player's Union attempted to do to make things right and get that contract figured out. Actualy, here is a timeline of events and i'll post my take on them as I post them.

Cast of Characters

Gary Bettman: Commissioner, NHL
Bob Goodenow: Executive Director, NHL Player's Association
Bill Daly: Exec, VP and Chief Legal Officer, NHL
Ted Saskin: Senior Director, NHL Player's Association
NHL Player's Association: Trevor Linden (former NHL star)
NHL Player's Association: Daniel Alfredsson, Bob Boughner, Vincent Damphousse, Bill Guerin, Arturs Irbe, Trent Klatt

Ok, Timeline.

Sept. 15th:
Bettman announces the league's 30 teams will lock out players at midnight, when the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires.
Oct. 19th:
The NHL advised teams that home games may be canceled in order to release building dates on a 45-day rolling basis, a change from the pervious allowance of 30 days.
Nov. 2nd:
The NHL Player's Association held a meeting in Toronto with 70-80 players, including the 30 team representatives, to update players and answer questions, not to formulate a new proposal
Nov. 3rd:
NHL cancels 2005 All-Star Game.
Nov. 17th
NHLPA meets with agents in Chicago
Nov. 18th
NHL Central Scouting confirms that the draft will not be held until a new Collective Bargaining Agreement is in place.
Dec. 2nd
The NHL accepted the NHLPA's invitation to meet in Toronto the week of Dec. 6. It will be the first formal bargaining session since Sept. 9.
Dec. 9th.
The NHLPA presented the NHL with a new proposal that included a 24 percent rollback on current contracts. The NHL plans to submit a counter porposal on Dec. 14.
Dec. 14th.
The NHLPA rejected the NHL's counter-proposal, which included a weighted salary rollback and a salary cap.
Jan. 6th.
NHL cancels board of governors meeting scheduled for Jan 14 in New York due to a lack of progress in negotiations.
Jan. 19th-20th.
Three representatives from each side meet informally at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Wednesday without Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow. The sides met again Thursday in Toronto. Both sides report no progress.
Jan 26-27th
The sides meet again informally Wednesday in Toronto, with New Jersey Devils president/GM Lou Lamoriello joining the league's representative. The talks resume Thursday evening in New York. Both sides report no progress.
Feb. 2nd
Sides meet informally Wednesday in Newark, N.J. NHL presents another salary-cap offer. NHLPA rejects it, but requests the sides meet again on Feb. 3 with Bettman and Goodenow in attendance.
Feb. 3rd
Sides meet for almost nine hours in New York. Neither side comments on the proceedings, but they plan to meet Friday.
Feb. 4th
Sides meet again for four hours. The NHLPA reports "no probress" was made, while the NHL calls the talks "constructive."
Feb. 9th
The NHLPA rejected the NHL's offer during a secret meeting in Toronto. The league tells the NHLPA that a deal must be reached in principle by the weekend in order for games to be played this season.
Feb 10th
After a four-hour session, in consultation with mediators, the sides reported no progress and no plans for another meeting.
Feb 13th
Sides meet with federal mediator in Washington, D.C. No progress is reported.
Feb 14th
At a secluded meeting in Niagara Falls, N.Y., NHLPA agrees to a salary cap once the league agreed to move off its demand of linking salaries to revenues. The NHL offers a $40 million cap. The NHLPA counters with an offer of $52 million.
Feb 15th
Bettman issues a non-negotiable "final offer" of $42.5 million and sets an 11 a.m. ET Wednesday deadline for the NHLPA to accept. The NHLPA counters with an offer of $49 million, which the NHL rejects.
Feb 16th
Five months after the lockout began, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman cancels the season.

*****

Damn!! Get all that? Now, many sports writers over the last few days have been saying the that Owner's of all 30 NHL teams are out to destroy the player's Union and the proof is in the pudding. For example, on Dec 9th all players in the NHL offered to rollback there contracts by 24%. That means a player making $2 million a year would now make $1.52 million per year. Now, the average NHL players salary is $1.8 million, take 24% off of that and thats $432,000 per player. Multiply that by the total number of players allowed to suit up for a game and per team your savings is probably close to $20 million per team.

This is where the Owner's get greedy. Instead of accepting a 24% rollback from all NHL players, which by the way is a HUGE step for players, they decide that they want a hard salary cap instead. Now, if your not familiar with a salary cap, it's when the Collective Bargaining Agreement sets a number for teams in which the player's salaries cannot exceed that number. For example, if the salary cap is $40 million, the players on that team are not allowed to make more then that number. Now, the players at first did not want a salary cap at all. Then as of Febuary 15th the Player's Union gave in once again and sacrificed on another argueing point and gave in to a salary cap at $49 million instead of the offer made by the NHL at $42.5 million.

Now, do the math again. Per team that's only a $6.5 million dollar difference. 30 teams in the NHL that's a savings of $195 million dollars total. Now, if you take the figureings from before you'll notice that the NHL would save more money if they took the 24% rollback then if they went for the salary cap. But they didn't, they got greedy and demanded that the NHLPA give in to all there demands, and now there is no hockey season period. And by the way, that's a lose of nearly $225 million dollars in revenue for each and every 30 teams of the NHL.

*******

Aside from the numbers game and where blame falls, I'll miss hockey this year. Many prominent sportswriters are declaring this hockey's apocalypse. Some large cynics saying that this could be the NHL's demise. When I hear things like that I think of the impact that hockey as had on me. Two events clearly stand out in my head.

Firstly, the year that Ray Borque finally won his Stanley Cup. It was going to be his last year as he was retiring whether they won or not. The Colorado Avalanche was his team and he was playing the New Jersey Devils for the Stanley Cup. Down 3 games to 2 in a best of seven they had game 6 at New Jersey which they won and then went on to win game 7 at home. This was also the year I spent almost every Tuesday Thursday and weekend night at the Sciba's watching nearly every playoff game at their place. It was a great time.

Secondly, and more recently was the Stanley Cup series between the New Jersey Devils and the Anahiam Mighty Ducks. Game 5 of these playoffs saw Paul Kariya get leveled on center ice and was actually knocked unconscious. For thirty plus seconds he lay on the ice, then boom, you saw his mask get all foggy as he came too.



He left the ice and was out the remainder of the 2nd period only to come back in the 3rd period and score the game winning goal. That's fuckin heart man. Everytime I see highlights of that I get goosebumps and the hairs on the back of my head stand up. Hockey is one of those sports that's all about heart to me. No other sport do you see the team commrodary that you do in hockey. From the playoff beards to the fights on the ice, its fuckin intense.



I'm going to miss you NHL, even if it would have been an abbreviated season. Hockey freakin owns, and I hope it comes back without replacement players in September 2005.