POLL: NHL Lockout

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I don't know if this belongs in the Alley or Whatnots; I'll put it in the Alley and take my chances.

Anyway, as many of you are aware, the National Hockey League owners have locked out the players over a collective bargaining dispute. In a nutshell, the owners want a salary cap, while the players don't. In-depth analysis here. The lockout could last for years.

So, whose side are you on? And why?

P.S. – I’ll resist commenting for now since it would likely degenerate into a “back in my day” rant.

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 14 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: NHL Lockout (14 votes.)

NHL Lockout (Choose 1)
* The owners are right; the players are greedy, self-centred scum. - 79% (11)
* The players are right; owners are lying, greedy bastards. - 7% (1)
* What is “hockey”? - 14% (2)

 

Seeing as there were no both option I opted for the players being the biggest a-holes. They are greedy whiney under achieving wussies with not an ounce of spirit in them. Especially the Swedish ones. They leave for NHL as hockey players and come back as entertainers. Bah! Humbug!

 

I agree with joacquin. What's the big loss of 2 million per year when you are already making 20 million per year?

However, what I don't understand is why the players can't be in the next Olympics because of this.

 

I intentionally decided not to put a "both" option because I figured people would generally be on one side or another; but that can be expanded on when posting comments.

 

Personally I think the owners are largely to blame for their current predicament - of course the players are going to try to get as much money as they can but the owners didn't have to sign the contracts.

The main problem here has been the larger market teams driving the market prices up trying to buy a winning team - which may be good for that club and its fans in the short run but in the long run has certainly proven harmful to everyone except the over-paid players.

Despite the fact that I largely blame the owners, I still side with them on this one. Player salaries are out of control and something needs to be done about it.

Personally, I don't see how it is any of the players business to have input of whether or not there is a salary cap. If the teams come to an agreement that none of them will sign a contract for more than a certain amount or spend more than a set total on player salaries that is their business.

The player's agreement should set out the basic conditions under which the players will play, the standard of facilities and medical personnel that must be made available, drafting and trading rules, and a league minimum salary but beyond that I don't feel that the players have any rights to tell the owners how to operate their businesses.

If a player is willing to play for what the team is willing to pay then fine, otherwise he can pack his bags and go play in a bar league for all I care.

 

However, on a different aspect, I would like to see the players give up soon. Almost all the Swedish players are coming back to Elitserien and Modo, for example, will have Peter Forsberg, Tommy Salo, Henrik and Daniel Sedin, and Markus Näslund.

Djurgården, OTOH, will have Daniel Alfredsson and Frölunda will have Nicklas Lidström. Both of these are within the IIRC stamp.

That will greatly unbalance the league, since both of last year's finalists, HV71(Best of them all) and Färjestad decided to play "pure" so they have a big disadvantage, as they are the only teams in the league that haven't any NHL pro's.(Again, IIRC)

 

JSBB, I think there might be some legal implications if the owners just impose a cap, in that it could effectively amount to price-fixing, which is illegal. I think there is similar reasoning to having restrictions on free agency and the draft set out in the agreement.

But maybe one of our lawyer members would be able to comment on that.

 

Sounds like the Swedish league will be quite interesting to watch this year then. I can only imagine how difficult a decision the teams have to face - personally I think I would bet on a long lock-out so loading up on NHLers makes sense but the potential disaster of suddenly losing a large number of your best players in January certainly would be cause for quite a few sleepless nights.

It seems that relatively few North American players have been making serious plans to play for other teams - I imagine that this is partly due to the NHL's farm team relationships with many of the North American non-NHL pro teams but it still seems like they are much less interested in playing if they will not be able to collect their huge NHL salaries.

Edit: As far as the legal implications I don't know if they would apply when you are basically talking about maximum salaries set for franchises belonging to the same organization. Personally, I think it should be considered more along the lines of head office setting a fixed budget and/or setting salary limitations on its various divisions. I don't see an NHL team's competition as being the other NHL teams but instead being other sports leagues, entertainment providers etc. However, I imagine both sides' lawyers would have their own arguments about this.

[ September 16, 2004, 21:12: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

It is both of their faults, but mostly the players. The owners are guilty of over-expanding the league, putting francises in places where it is difficult to maintain interest in hockey over long periods of time. Granted, I'm an American, so I guess I'm one of about 20 people left in the U.S. who actually watch hockey as more than a casual viewer.

But back to the players. They players need only to look at the other three sports to see what a salary cap does: NFL, MLB, and NBA.

Of these, the NFL and NBA have a salary cap, both of these leagues are making tons of money, and salaries have steadily reason every single year. Baseball (MLB) does not have a salary cap and that is a sport that is experiencing economic difficulty. The reason that salary caps make it easier for both parties to make money is because 1. The athletes make heeps of money regardless, and 2. Teams can budget if they know how much they can spend on a team on a year-to-year basis. For example, if they set a salary cap at say, $50 million per team per year (which is probably higher than it needs to be), then each team has to figure out a way to make $50 million in revenue that year. Under the current system, you may need $50 million one year, and $75 million the next year.

Splunge is right that you can't have all the owners get together and say we're not spending more than X dollars on any player. It is price fixing and also violates anti-trust (read monopoly) rules.

 

Hockey players today really piss me off. The say they don't want a salar cap. For God's sake, they play a game for a few hours every few days, and they make millions of dollars for doing so! They should be lucky to get half a million. Seriously, I want to see the players play for the sake of having fun. The game is starting to lose meaning, even to me, and I've only been watching hockey for the past two years. It almost makes me sad as to how greedy these people can be.

 

If I could swear you, you'd see a massive rant against the players.

If you ask me they might as well melt the Stanley Cup down and turn it into a tire iron, and disband the NHL, it's all tainted. I won't watch another NHL game, and definitley won't pay to go to another one if the player get there way.

Play for the love of the game, quit bitching because you can't afford another Ferrari.

If the NHL is looking for replacements, count me in.

 

Its all good, because it means all the best players will come back to Sweden...

 

I'm not against the players, they should grab all they can get, it's the commercial world who came up with those insane salaries, and not the players themselves, they just gladly went along with it. But in the long run, the players will lose this. It happened before in the MLB and NBA, and the owners came out as the winners in the end. It won't be any different this time.

 

It is a double edged sword, both sides are wrong and they can't come to a middle ground. Players want more cash, owners want more cash. Gary Bettman should stick his head between his legs and kiss it because he has sucked for as long as he has been commissioner. Look at him, he looks like a freakin ferret. Once, just once I would love to see someone like Chris Simon, or Darian Hatcher throw him an open ice hit.