apuszczalowski

I still love how everyone just blames Bettman for all this, like this is all happening just because of him, the hatred people have for this guy has no bounds. He could come up with a cure for Aids during this lockout and people will still hate him with a passion. Bettman and the Owners are as much to blame in this situation as Fehr and the NHLPA, both sides are arguing over how to split up a HUGE some of money and no one wants to negotiate or compromise. The problem is, that until enough people from one side get to a breaking point (most likely the players) there won't be any serious negotiations. The players all seem united now to sit back and wait for the owners to crack, but thats just the top tier guys in the league you hear saying that, guys that are making the majority of the cash, and who right now have the options of running to Russia to play. Theres alot more guys in that union who don't have that option, making closer to the league minimum that are going to get frustrated quickly and be happy taking what tehy can get while guys like Ovechkin continue to want to hold out longer because they are still making money playing in the KHL No matter which side "wins", and what they decide on, if the season does not start on time, the league is going to suffer and lose alot of fans. People are getting tired of losing parts of or all of a season while these guys argue over money, and to lose any part of another season is going to do some irrepairable damage. Alot of fans will still come back, but there are many that won't. The most frustrating part about this is that neither side appears to care about the league as a whole, and about getting a deal done. They already lost the pre-season, and they are getting closer to losing parts fo teh regular season, yet they cant get together more then 2 days in a row and more then a couple hours at a time. They have only exchanged a couple of proposals this entire time. They have not shown any urgency to get this done, and I think thats what makes this worse. I have said it before in the past and I really believe that the way to resolve all of these labour negotiations is to have both sides give their best proposals to a neutral mediator who will then review the proposals, and the financial state of the league and its teams, and come up with an agreement thats fair to both sides. Problem solved The biggest arguements seem to be that the owners should be willing to give up more then half the revenue/profits to the players because "They make the owners money", yet the owners are the ones investing their own money into providing the players a place to make large sums of money to play a game. How many other businesses or industries pay their employees more then 50% of their revenues/profits? Those employees are out there making the owners money, and those owners are investing their money to provide those employees a job. The problem these days is that athletes are being paid so much money, to play a game that makes them feel like they are doing something so vital and important to everyone in the world that they deserve it all, when if you look at it, the importance of their work to the world is at the same level or just below Walmart Greeter.............

Does he?Cause up until this last offseason I wouldn't think anyone would say that Lindy got a physical roster Just because he asked for it or wants it, doesn't mean Darcy gives it to him

Drive the Zamboni? I would do that for free...... As for playing Hockey, I know many Canadians and Americans, young and old that pay to play in hockey leagues

The Owners/Moderators of this board have decided to lock their players/posters out of the NHL thread on this board! When is our next poster union meeting? I may have to go post on the KHL board or some board in Switzerland now! yeah, but then they may ask for "talent sharing" ...................

How often does this really happen though?How many Career ending injuries happened this season? (And I'm not talking about injuries to players at the end of their career and they decided to retire)

That would also result in employees losing jobs if a regular business shut down the unprofitable ones

Is this risk really that much higher in comparison to many other jobs? How many police officers/firemen die each year on the job, How many Hockey players die each year while working? How many police officers/firemen get hurt or suffer injuries that have long term effects ont heir health each year compared to Hockey players? Replace police officers/firemen with people in the Construction industry, working in Mines, Factories, etc. and see what the numbers are If the players are worried about risking their health, no ones forcing them to do such a dangerous job, they can always take one of the safer jobs listed above :rolleyes: And players have put a money value on their health, its whatever the minimum salary in the nhl is currently at...... But does that mean the previous owner didn't lose anything?

???? Ferrells Bush II was just as good as Carveys Bush, They even had Ferell do a one man show as Bush II Darell Hammonds Clinton was also pretty good Armison did a much better Blind Governor then his Obama, which i don't think anyone has really been able to do well I think the reason why they don't do much Obama is because he really hasn't said or done much that they could mock. Bush, Romney, Bidon, Palin, etc, they seem to have had something that could be mocked weekly, it seems like they are writing the material for these shows for them. I always thought the day Bushs term finished, and Palin/McCain lost was a sad day for the Comedy world because they had comedic gold falling into their laps with them.

Someones hitched a ride on the Players Propaganda Train..........................

And so do the players when they sign their contracts, they know about the Escrow payments and that the total amount in their contract may not be the total amount they receive in their bank accounts at the end of the month. The point is the Owners take the risk of using actual cash and assetts of their own and risk it on owning a franchise. If the franchise loses money, its their actual money they put into the franchise that is lost. The players on the other hand are not putting any of their own cash/assetts into the team, and the only thing they may lose is a percentage of an amount they agreed to sign for. No matter what happens to their escrow payment, they always come out of the season with more money then they went into it. Their loss is in potential pay, owners loss is in actual money Show me an example of a player who finished the season in the red, actually owing a team money............

Exactly, they aren't proposing to throw it out and change the system, just make some changes to hopefully work out some of the kinks/holes that became apparent in it

If they want to continue to play a game for a living making more in a few year career tehn many will see in a lifetime (at a time where unemployment rates for normal people is at one of its highest), Yeah Or elese the league can contract the losing teams or allow them to go bankrupt, meaning less employment opportunities for players. Not saying I agree with the owners fully either, but it is their money they are investing so these players can have work playing a game for a living. It doesn't look good on their end when they cry poor after signing these players to long term, high $ deals, but those aren't all their faults, the players are demanding these deals and if they want to continue to make profits, they need to ice a competitive team with big name players. I can guarantee the Owner of the Preds didn't want to match that deal for Suter this offseason, but seeing as how the outcome of letting him go would probably have him losing Millions and fans who lost the teams Star player

Why would you side with the Players? And I agree with Labatt. I don't have a problem with the players and owners arguing over the CBA and money, I have a problem with the little urgency that both sides seem to have in this situation and that neither side seems to really care about missing games (they just blame the other side for them missing games). Its even worse that they are using the fans to fight against each other by making videos to try and get us on their side

Did he? Were the Sabres not interested or not going to make the offer they did until his agent called and asked them to make a huge offer to his client? Did his agent even have to lift a finger for Buffalo to make him that deal? i think its the 15th

In that case your also then wasting 3 years of Crosby in his prime to have a few seasons later on of an older Crosby with additional FAs The current system doesn't work cause teams can circumvent it by throwing in years later on that will allow them to lower the cap The other proposed way may allow for teams to circumvent the cap in the hopes that the player is still in their prime and will allow them to win in a few years with more FAs (I see this less likely) They need a balance, like making the cap hit actual dollars, but not allowing a reduction of more then a certain percent each year. Or they could make it where if they keep it the same as it is now, if a player is traded, (say for cap reasons to a team looking for the increase in cap to reach the floor), the team the player is traded to takes the cap hit for what is owed on the remainder of the deal in cash, and the former team is left with the remaining cap hit (Say Crosby signs a 15, 15, 1, 1 deal, giving the pens a cap hit of 8 mil a season and in year 3 they deal him away to the Panthers so they can reach the cap floor, the Pens would still have 2 years at 7 mil cap hit on their cap, and the Panthers would only have a cap hit of 1 mil for the next 2 years) I think the point to doing something like that is to eliminate the 10 year deals where the last few everyone knows are just in there to lower the cap hit early on and for a future salary dump on a team looking to get to the floor without spending the money.

I would also have to say no Financially, sure they are in a better place, but money doesn't buy you championships. Just ask teams like the Rangers and Flyers. The last few championship teams weren't built through spending money on FAs, alot of the teams were built through drafting with a couple of additions through trades. The team is not much better then it was back then, still struggling to get to the playoffs, and question marks/holes outside of the goaltending position. @Eleven - If your going to still say that Quinn was making the moves instead of Regier, then its also relevant to say that TP is making the moves instead of Regier. Darcy still can't convince FAs to come here with big money, and needs TP to fly out and beg players to come here to Hockey heaven...........

I do agree that some markets may never be big successes, but many are too quick to want to get rid of those markets without really looking at while they struggle and fail all while forgeting that there are northern teams that struggle too. A team like Phoenix has had issues with poor planning when they built their arena, signing a horrible lease for the team, and issues with ownership that keep fans away and make it harder to make money. Then throw in the inability to put a quality product on the ice and theres nothing to draw fans in. Had Phoenix won the Crosby/Ovechkin sweepstakes, things may have been a bit different because of the draw of getting such a dynamic player. If a new owner is not willing to invest some money into the product on the ice and they go back to being a dormat, then the moving trucks will be on their way in a couple of seasons. If some money is spent and the team gets better, it can create a buzz and start attracting some more fans in. Everyones always on the southern teams for not making money and struggling financially, yet the devils owner right now is struggling financially and begging for investors to help cover bills. The Sabres and Penguins all had to be saved from Bankruptcy, and the Islanders are looking to move because they are struggling in one of the worst arenas in the league right now.

If the league wants to expand and compete with the big boy leagues for TV and sponsorship deals, it needs those teams that everyone wants gone. It will be real tough to get a lucrative TV deal for a sport that only allows teams north of the Mason/Dixon. The point to pushing the game in the southern markets is to try and expand the game, bring more fans into the league. Its not easily done and takes some lean times sometimes to do it. Hockey wasn't exactly thriving in LA prior to Gretzky making it a name, now there are kids playing the game coming from California

Sure, they could IF those owners actually wanted to leave and form their own league, which would require them to try and sign a lucrative TV deal in Canada (Might be tough if the CBC has a contract with the NHL and if theres wording in it that would allow them to have a deal with another league. It would also involve them having to find players that would want to sign on to play in this league. But the biggest would be that those owners would have to disagree with the rest of the owners and want to just keep playing, and if that was the case, there wouldn't be talk of a lockout because they would have agreed to a new CBA already. This isn't Gary Bettman vs Fehr and the NHLPA, Its the Owners (with Gary Bettman as their negotiator/mouthpiece basically) vs the NHLPA (with Fehr as their negotiator/mouthpiece). Gary Bettman and Fehr are listening to what the owners and players want and are using that to negotiate the new deal. They work for their party/side

I would still rather wait 5 hours to get looked at in an emergency room for a non life threatening issue then to walk out of the hospital with a bill that I have to figure out some way to pay.The Canadian system isn't perfect and needs work, but I would take it any day over the US system. Seemd like one of the biggest issues most have is wait times, which can be solved by more healthcare practioners, which seem to be in short demand because they leave to the US for more money.

Those were part of Thursdays trip, Friday was to include the Hospital visit, a Talk at Brock University, and visiting a St. Catharines Hockey school/program with Cody Hodgson IIRC

Well why haven't all of your "Job Creators" receiving their large tax breaks creating more jobs then????

Good old catridge gamesEveryone remembers being a kid and just blowing into the cartridge and system to fix the game and get it working again An experience our children won't be able to experience anymore......

Only problem with your idea is that it works great in theory, but not in the real world. In todays politics, most of the 8 years will just be the current party trying to clean up what teh other party put in place and it would just be a cycle of going back and forth from one extreme to the other The biggest problem is that you need more then just 2 serious parties/sides to chose from to give people alternatives then just one extreme to the other. The other problem, and it seems to be the biggest, is that you need the politicians to put aside their parties when they step into office and do whats right for the country, not whats right for their party and supporters/financial backers first. Neither party is going to get your country back on track if they can't get everyone working together for whats best for everyone. The current state of the country is not a time for either side to act like children and worry about their own interests first. They need to get things fixed together, before they can get back to giving their supporters/financial backers any perks.........

I here they just left the Pie and told the restaurant tehy would be back in a future sometime to decide how to cut it.......... So no one else knows how their date went? Did they pickup their own tabs? Did Daly pay for Fehr or did Fehr pay for Daly? Was it a romantic restaurant? Did they go out afterwards for a carrage ride? Or back to one of their places?