anyone else getting annoyed with Bettman yet?

[hyperwhite]

when the lockout started i was fully on the owners side but Bettman's no compromise attitude is just gonna make this lockout last longer then it should. He keeps saying that a luxory tax wont work but he never says why. i'm starting to think that he shouldn't even be running the league.

btw, the NHLPA is presenting a new proposal next week but bettman will probably flat out reject it

[buh_buh]

Well the reason he's doing it now is so he won't look stupid like he did 10 years ago when he gave in.

[2002civic]

i dotn blame bettman i blame the players who cant settle for one less ferrari, but the owners did let it get out of hand, blame us for paying so much to watch the games to pay the players.. its a combination of everything

[Weapon_R]

players are at fault 110%. They don't get my sympathy at all.

[GC84ever]

Also bettman is representing the owners. so he's their front man and reflects the thought os the onwers, if I'm not mistaken.

[no_joke]

Originally posted by Weapon_R
players are at fault 110%. They don't get my sympathy at all.

I may have been (make that probably) brainwashed by the NHLPA propaganda but why is this? This was probably discussed a couple months ago but I just wanted to throw the question out there. The owners and GMs sign all the players and pay them. Didn't many owners mistreat or rather, failed to prosper from the current system? Is the current state of the NHL due to management making the wrong choices?

[sputnik]

I blame the players (and their greedy agents). Personally I hope we go without hockey for more than just one season, and I hope that the owners hold their ground. Ultimately supporting the owners is better for the fans because it will mean that small market teams will have a better chance of surviving and may lower ticket prices also.

The "quick" solution to all of this would be for the NHL to go bankrupt and shut down forcing a new league and players union to start from scratch.

[roopi]

I'm with the Owners and Bettman. Screw the players.

[Khyron]

Players -

Funny how multimillion dollar players are perfectly content playing for peanuts overseas. And for 80% of the players, the cap wouldn't affect them at all as it's just to ensure the top player salaries don't put their teams in the red.

Khyron

[hjr]

the owners are at fault for the situation we are in, but the player are at fault for not being willing to fix the situation.

then again, a little information is a dangerous thing. none of us really know whats going on in the meetings and whats on the table. all we can do is speculate.

[redline8500]

players need a reality check, r u kiddn me? 1.8 million average salary? bettman rocks...... goodenow is the guy that needs to b axed .... i bet if u took a vote ..... the players would b playing tomorrow. the owners need protection, albeit from themselves...but i want 2 b able to take my kids 2 a hockey game without a 2nd mortgage
so keep them greedy players locked out til they agree 2 a cap, or say goodbye 2 hockey in canada


to goodenow and players

yup...... play fer nuthin overseas, but i need 4 more houses here!!!! assholes, i hope the lockout goes for the year, ..... then sqash the NHL, and start the NAHL
hold yer ground betmann/owners
since when can you tell your boss whats gonna happen?

[Ajay]

I'm with the owners on this one all the way. Granted both sides need to compromise a little in order for their to be a hockey season this year but I hope the owners end up coming out on top.

For the outrageous salaries the players receive they can definetly take a pay cut. I hope we see hockey this season.

[civicrider]

yeah im for the owners, not only is 1.8 million way too much but with a salary cap hockey will be more competetive because the teams with less money wont have to worry about the rich teams buying up all the top players.

[SI-vic]

You cant really blame the players fully for this
If I was working and made 1.6million and was being cut down to 1.2 million I'd kinda be choked too
money is money
also they are fighting for the future, so that players in the future can have what they had, rich contracts. (so they say) Players in the past Strike did it for the current players so now the current players are now doing it (demanding a no salary cap) for the future players.

With that said, the players ARE getting greedy. They forgot about the sport and the game itself. Sure the owners are at fault for offering these HUGE contracts, but they've admitted to their fault and repeatedly said, "we have to fix this now or there will be no NHL in the future".
So the players really need to think, whats better, a pay-cut or no NHL at all.
hmmmmmmm?
Or whats better, playing for 40,000usd over seas or a guarenteed minimum 600,000usd salary - maximum 1.3millionusd salary in an ELITE league - the NHL??

I'm on the owners side as well but.... I'm not gonna hop on the bash-the-players bandwagon.

[no_joke]

Here's something from another website. It raises some interesting points about which teams are losing money:

But it is about blame. If we assume the NHL losses are real, we have to know a lot more to decide how to fix the problem. We are buying a pig in a poke otherwise. The most important thing to know is who is losing all the money? Why?

According to the reports, six teams lost 75% of the $224 million the NHL claims to have lost last season. Is it fair to blame the CBA for the $100 million lost by the Rangers, Capitals, or the Blues? To me that is the market sending the message it should send. Spending big bucks on a loser is suicide. Cut it out.

(And I like that message to the fans. Even the Rangers have to go through the pain of a rebuild. They should have started years ago.)

Another three teams piled up losses of about $65 million. That was the Islanders, Carolina and Florida. Again it was the markets speaking. The Isles need a rink and neither the Hurricane or Panthers sold any tickets. Pittsburgh would probably be in this group on the revenue side, but their payroll was so low they didn't lose any money to speak of. That's another rink problem.

If the concern is finacial how do you fix the problem with a CBA? The league can't really expect the players to have sympathy for Leonsis Dolan or Bill Laurie. Those guys made their bed. And it sure isn't fair to the players to set a payroll limit so low that the handful of teams that can't generate any revenues still make money.

How does a salary cap fix anything? It doesn't fix a real problem. It transfers our money from the players to the owners. That's fair ball - what every labour dispute boils down to - but the problems with this CBA as advanced by the owners are all bogus. Look at them closely and they all fall apart.

[Khyron]

Originally posted by no_joke
According to the reports, six teams lost 75% of the $224 million the NHL claims to have lost last season. Is it fair to blame the CBA for the $100 million lost by the Rangers, Capitals, or the Blues? To me that is the market sending the message it should send. Spending big bucks on a loser is suicide...

The articles I've read put it in easier terms. The Flames franchise makes 0 profit until 1st game of the 2nd round. How is that even a remotely sane business practice? Even with all the money made in the last Stanley cup run, the profits only wiped out the red ink from the last 4 years - but there's 6 years before that left to go!

If the players don't make the playoffs, why should they get paid the same as when they do? Why should the owners take a loss year after year and hope they get lucky and make the finals?

Do you think all the Canadian teams migrating south was because the owners were bored? It's cause they were making NO MONEY.

Khyron

[PGTze]

Betmans just an anoying little bastard in general, I dunno why

But I back him and the owners on this whole thing, the players want to be paid like baseball/basketball/football players, but the truth is most americans don't give a rats ass about hockey, which mean not as much revenue as the other big three sports.

People always talk about the 'Big 4' sports, but in reality it's the big three, and then hockey a little behind. For that reason the NHL players cannot be paid the same as other pro althetes. They can be paid pretty close, but they will have to do away with the rediculous contracts like Jagr's and stop giving plugs like Tie Domi a couple million dollars year. Otherwise no person in their right mind would want to own an NHL team knowing they are more than likely going to lose money. The NHL cannot survive without some sort of a salary cap, the players must realize this, or there with be no NHL one day.

[hyperwhite]

i just had an idea today. they could have a 30 million lux tax and 40 million hard cap at the same time. could work the rich teams could still spend more but poor teams wont suffer as much and the lux tax would go to them to balance everything out

[PGTze]

Originally posted by hyperwhite
i just had an idea today. they could have a 30 million lux tax and 40 million hard cap at the same time. could work the rich teams could still spend more but poor teams wont suffer as much and the lux tax would go to them to balance everything out

Yeah that's a good idea on paper, but it's never going to happen unfortunatly. It's a good way to keep teams from going under, but it would still leave the smaller market teams at the bottom of the standings. They might be able to settle on like a 5 mil lux tax, but that's about it I would think.