NHLOL Offseason

[Timby]

TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun adds that the new offer includes the 'Make Whole' provision that stays at $300 million and allows each team one compliance buyout prior to the 2013-14 season. The buyout would not count against the cap, but it would against the players' share.

Bullshit, that's just a minor variance on the NHL's position of not wanting to pay the contracts they signed -- that counts as a deduction of hockey-related revenue, and since the cap is determined as a percentage of that, it reduces the player share of the overall pie.

It's good to see the NHL moving on contract limits and salary variance, but their demands for unrestricted free agency are still completely unreasonable. I'll wait to see further details emerge, because it seems like each time the league makes an offer, there's some poison pill for the union that doesn't come out until they've had a chance to actually read the fine print. "We will give you the eight-year contract length you request (but we will round up all of your dogs and cats and dunk them in hydrochloric acid)."

In non-lockout news, the Red Wings haven't been paying their bills to the city. Oops.

Christine MacDonald of The Detroit News reports the team and owner Mike Ilitch may owe the struggling city up to $70 million thanks to an old provision in the team’s television contract as it concerns the city-owned Joe Louis Arena. As you might suspect, this isn’t going over well with city politicians.

“The Ilitches are a multibillion-dollar operation, and they are inside a city that is sinking,” said City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta. “(Mike Ilitch), I am sure, knows about this and should be forthcoming to help the city. Help us by writing a check, not by negotiating a new lease.”

Oh yeah, the lease. The team’s lease to play at The Joe expired in 2010. Since then, the team reportedly hasn’t paid rent nor property taxes to play there and the city hasn’t gotten their cut of concessions either.

Under the current Red Wings' TV contract, Mike Ilitch owes the city of Detroit around $76,219.51 for every home game broadcast on FS Detroit, plus potentially more from games on NBC Sports Network.

For those keeping score at home, not only have the Red Wings been stiffing the City of Detroit for the Joe, but they strong-armed the state into giving out public funding for Mike Ilitch's new pizza palace.

Few things make my blood boil as much as public funding for billionaires to build stadiums.

[Gil T.Azell]

Danny99 wrote:

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http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=412368

Here we go again.

They should take this offer, enough of this Fucking Bull shit!

[Danny99]

Watching Sportsnet lockout coverage tonight just reminded me how bad of a sportscaster Nick Kypreos really is.

[Timby]

Gil T.Azell wrote:

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They should take this offer, enough of this Fucking Bull shit!

It still isn't a realistic offer. It establishes a $60 million salary cap, and sixteen teams are over that number right now, with a half-dozen others butting right up against it. There would be blood in the water if this offer became the framework of a new CBA. It still doesn't give any traction on service time towards unrestricted free agency (ten years is patently ridiculous; given how long it can take to actually reach the NHL, and how bruising the sport is, it shouldn't take ten years for someone to get a payday), and having the buyouts not count against the cap but still counting against the players' share of hockey-related revenue is just another way of further cutting the players' share of the already inequitable "pie." There also isn't any movement towards meaningful revenue sharing -- if the league actually cared about struggling small-market teams, it would institute some form of revenue sharing beyond the joke that exists today.

The NHL is clearly spooked (I don't think they expected the players to vote so overwhelmingly in favor of decertification; all along they've been operating under the assumption that Fehr is leading a divided union and they finally realized that isn't the case), but this is an offer designed to elicit a counter-offer from the NHLPA that the NHL can then throw another tantrum over, then Bettman can go cry that everything is off the table (again), Daly can go back to talking about the hills they'll die on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[Danny99]

Even if the season is lost, the owners will still have other investments to fall back on, star players will go to Europe, star rookies will go to the AHL or Junior.

The brand will be destroyed and the two sides continued lack of contempt for the fan will leave a lot of the casual variety turned off. The NHL is the third major sport at best in the majority of American markets. The longer they are gone, the more those markets with focus on their NBA/MLB/NFL teams and there goes market share. Canadian fans will come back in droves because it's "our sport."

One benefit out of watching last night's Sportsnet coverage was seeing PK Subban in studio, dressed in a suit, elegantly skating around the dinosaur Nick Kypreos in a debate. As much as I hate Kypreos on my own, this just showed how electric Subban could be and how much Kypreos needs to go.

[BigFoot]

Woot!!!!!!!!

[MikeH92467]

It sounds to me like the mediator who got things moving should get a Nobel Prize of some kind. I was astounded that at one point the owners tried to bully the players into not letting Don Fehr back into the negotiations. Their earlier temper tantrum when the players made a counter-offer to what was supposed to be a "take it or leave it" proposal was also pretty amazing. At least we won't have to go through this for at least another 8 years and who knows; maybe by then the hockey owners will be in the same kind of place as baseball where everybody's making so damn much money that they can't afford to get into a dick-waving contest like this again.

[Danny99]

Just like I said, I'll be back watching the hockey and predicting etc.

Now we see how many of the people who said "Oh I won't watch ever again" will actually hold to their word.

[Darth Duck]

I really got into the QMJHL this year. The Halifax Mooseheads are on fire. It's beautiful, beautiful hockey.

Oh, the pros are coming back. Woo?

[Gil T.Azell]

BigFoot wrote:

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Woot!!!!!!!!

Now if we can get rid of Buttman, ASAP.

[MikeH92467]

Gil T.Azell wrote:

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Now if we can get rid of Buttman, ASAP.

The weasel is the hired stooge of the owners. There's no reason for me to believe he's going anywhere.

[Gil T.Azell]

Saw this on my Brother In-Laws FB page

[TheSeeker]

Love it! Just posted it to my own feed.

[gblews]

Finally. Looking forward to watching the Kings get their rings and hoist the first non-Purple and Gold championship banner at Staples.

[Kevin W.]

Gil T.Azell wrote:

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Now if we can get rid of Buttman, ASAP.

Bettman's not the problem. He's just doing what the owners tell him to do. If Bettman left tomorrow, the owners would install someone new who would do the exact same thing.

Owners like Jeremy Jacobs are the problem. Bettman is the Vader to Jacobs' Palpatine.