NHL Set to Cancel Season Tuesday
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Sadly they are willing to talk again after saying that its all over for the season.
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• Conference Championships
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• All-Time Record:
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Talks Break With No Progress Made Between NHL, Union
Associated Press
Saturday, February 19, 2005; 4:58 PM
NEW YORK -- Even with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux at the bargaining table, the NHL and the players' association still weren't able to come to an agreement Saturday that would un-cancel the hockey season.
NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly told The Associated Press that no progress was made in the 6 1/2-hour meeting. No new talks have been scheduled.
Just three days after the season was called off because of the protracted lockout, the NHL and the union restarted talks at 9 a.m. Saturday at an undisclosed location in New York.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and players' association executive director Bob Goodenow were not at the meeting, two sources close to the negotiations told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
However, Gretzky, the managing partner of the Phoenix Coyotes, and Lemieux, the player-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, joined the talks aimed at getting a deal done that could save the season, the sources said.
Gretzky and Lemieux were joined on the owners' side by Daly and outside counsel Bob Batterman, while the union was represented by NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin, director of business relations Mike Gartner, players' association president Trevor Linden, vice president Vincent Damphousse, and outside counsel John McCambridge.
- No good news...yet
- Note, for the local angle, our old favorite, Mike Gartner, at the table for the NHLPA
- For the dismal, or cynical view from the Caps, see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Feb16.html
McPhee, however, wasn't disappointed when he found out yesterday morning that a season wouldn't happen.
"I thought we were playing," he said yesterday in the team's downtown office. "I thought we would be getting going today. [But] I'm relieved . . . [because] the deal wasn't right for us in Washington and it wasn't right for our fans. We want to be able to compete and win a cup, and I'm sure that system wouldn't have worked."
Capitals defenseman Brendan Witt also experienced a full range of emotions in recent days.
"I thought there might be a good chance that we would be playing," Witt said. "In the scheme of things it came down to $6 million, and they couldn't figure a way to bridge the gap. It's a shame for everyone, especially the fans."
Although the cancellation left players, owners and fans disappointed, it may work to the Capitals' advantage in time. McPhee and owner Ted Leonsis were criticized for dismantling the Capitals last season, when they traded away star players such as Jaromir Jagr, Peter Bondra and Robert Lang for draft picks and prospects.
McPhee and Leonsis said the moves were necessary to prepare the Capitals for the new economic reality that was coming to the NHL. It was a gamble, and in the end, it appears to have been the right move.
Because of the lockout, Leonsis didn't have to pay large contracts owed the few remaining veteran Capitals, the biggest belonging to Olaf Kolzig ($6.25 million). Meantime, the organization's prospects, such as Boyd Gordon, Steve Eminger, Tomas Fleischmann and Shaone Morrisonn, spent the year honing their skills and fostering team chemistry with the Portland Pirates of the AHL, the Capitals' top minor league affiliate. And whenever the NHL resumes, the Capitals will have the money to fill in the gaps by signing a handful of free agents.
"We have a lot of cash in the bank," Leonsis said. "And a lot of room under the cap. I believed last year this could be a long and contentious lockout. We took some strong medicine."
One issue that remains unresolved, however, is when fans might expect to see Alexander Ovechkin, the Capitals' No. 1 overall draft pick last June. He is now playing for Moscow Dynamo in the Russian Super League.
And a comment from Michael Wilbon:
Owners Win, Hockey Loses
By Michael Wilbon
Thursday, February 17, 2005; Page D01
There was one moment of stupefying arrogance during Gary Bettman's news conference yesterday when the NHL commissioner, moments after announcing the cancellation of the season, said with the straightest of faces, "I don't have any concerns that the fans will come back."
During this man's tenure, four NHL franchises have declared bankruptcy and two teams have left the game's home, Canada, to move to the United States.
This is a man who oversees a league that walked to the brink of economic ruin by putting franchises in places that value palm trees, not ice. Bettman is a man who will be perfectly ready to trot out replacement players to start the 2005-2006 season in October.
Ray Ferraro, the former NHL player who works for ESPN as a hockey analyst, said during an interview from Vancouver on ESPN's "Pardon The Interruption" yesterday, "If I had a business and he was the face out front, I'd poke my eyes out."
And having said that, because everything in sports comes down to winners and losers, I should probably point out Bettman has won the great hockey labor debate of 2005. He won because he answers to the owners and the owners made clear when this lockout began that they would lose less money canceling the season than they would playing it. Bettman won because the players' union, or at least the leaders of the players' union, caved in the 11th hour like you wouldn't believe.
Wilbon should stick to talking about things that he understands.
... and such broad statements prove that he doesn't in this instance.
I'm just a guy with an opinion... but I certainly have said from the start that two AMERICAN LAWYERS will never be able to sort this out... but take the following into consideration, and try to use some logic:
The Edmonton oilers ownership were on TV last week and were asked about linkage and the cap...
"The Edmonton oilers spent $1.58 of every DOLLAR taken in at the gate JUST TO PAY THE PLAYER SALARIES in 2004."
You don't have to be Donald Trump to figure out that with NO TV REVENUE STREAM TO SPEAK OF, this is a recipe for bankruptcy... and soon.
Wilbon speaks of 'caving' like any solution was formed. None was. By all accounts, it's right back to square one. Sure gretz and Lemieux are working overtime but the changes yesterday were 'cosmetic' at best to their final offer and there already grumblings that ownership is mad that Bettman even conceded 42.5 Million when they had agreed that 40M was as high as they would go.
And as for bettman saying that "I don't have any concerns that the fans will come back." That's just plain BS sound byting. Bettman spent the entire hour apologizing to the fan base for the stoppage... they couldn't even get a sorry out of Goodenow. When Bettman said that he didn't have any concerns that the fan base would come back, he said it was because they were the best fans in the world. He also conceded that they knew this would have a detrimental effect for 'some time' but that he thought the fans would indeed come back because they love the game so much.
The two Candian teams that went state-side went there because of the financial state of the team... the state of the Candian dollar at the time had a TON to do with it... and the fact that there are no TAX BREAKS FOR THE TEAMS LIKE THERE ARE IN THE UNITED STATES. They have since implemented a few shelters that help that, but the dollar is also worth about 25 cents on the dollar more than it was a couple of years ago. But I guess pure economics shouldn't come into economic discussions.
... and such broad statements prove that he doesn't in this instance.
I'm just a guy with an opinion... but I certainly have said from the start that two AMERICAN LAWYERS will never be able to sort this out... but take the following into consideration, and try to use some logic:
The Edmonton oilers ownership were on TV last week and were asked about linkage and the cap...
"The Edmonton oilers spent $1.58 of every DOLLAR taken in at the gate JUST TO PAY THE PLAYER SALARIES in 2004."
You don't have to be Donald Trump to figure out that with NO TV REVENUE STREAM TO SPEAK OF, this is a recipe for bankruptcy... and soon.
Wilbon speaks of 'caving' like any solution was formed. None was. By all accounts, it's right back to square one. Sure gretz and Lemieux are working overtime but the changes yesterday were 'cosmetic' at best to their final offer and there already grumblings that ownership is mad that Bettman even conceded 42.5 Million when they had agreed that 40M was as high as they would go.
And as for bettman saying that "I don't have any concerns that the fans will come back." That's just plain BS sound byting. Bettman spent the entire hour apologizing to the fan base for the stoppage... they couldn't even get a sorry out of Goodenow. When Bettman said that he didn't have any concerns that the fan base would come back, he said it was because they were the best fans in the world. He also conceded that they knew this would have a detrimental effect for 'some time' but that he thought the fans would indeed come back because they love the game so much.
The two Candian teams that went state-side went there because of the financial state of the team... the state of the Candian dollar at the time had a TON to do with it... and the fact that there are no TAX BREAKS FOR THE TEAMS LIKE THERE ARE IN THE UNITED STATES. They have since implemented a few shelters that help that, but the dollar is also worth about 25 cents on the dollar more than it was a couple of years ago. But I guess pure economics shouldn't come into economic discussions.

Sean Taylor was one of a kind, may he rest in peace.
But I guess pure economics shouldn't come into economic discussions.


- What about revenue sharing? That is the fundamental thing that kept the NFL together, along, of course, with the giant network revenue pot available to share. The NHL has not had much of a national US TV contract for more than 20 years, but some local teams do well: note the Rangers, for instance, and in spite of their preposterously bad teams with glowing stars. The Rangers own, or belong to a company with a network; they overpay for stars and ex-stars (and almost stars) like Theo Fleury. Why not revenue sharing as a stricter form of luxury tax than baseball?
- Admission of over-reaching: reading The Hockey News, it looked as if too much NHL revenue came from selling new franchises in the '90s. Surely a sign that something fundamentally was wrong. Sort of a pyramid scheme.
- Contract the extra franchises...which, of course, runs right into the money that new franchise owners paid. Oops. Painful medicine, but I think the game belongs where people appreciate it. In spite of the Canadian dollar, and smaller cities, consider Minneapolis. There is no reason why Minnesota should have lost a hockey team...I used to hear that the state high school hockey championship was biugger than the basketball championship. In some areas, as CLL mentioned, people don't skate much, and the equipment is so expensive that only wealthy preppies play. No so across New England and the upper mid-west.
- I think that hockey will always be more of a live spectator game than a TV game. Basketball is played on a small court, half of which fits inside the TV frame. I found that I didn't see all the action unless I was at the arena. You certainly miss the physical impact of the games, of a defenseman rushing full-tilt for a dump-in and swooping, curving up-ice...and you miss the adjustments that players make in flight. An NFL game has a nice break between plays, when John Madden can draw up the play, re-run in slo-motion, etc etc. Same with baseball.
- So maybe players and owners have to live without the illusion that an NHL star will get paid the same as an NBA star. Maybe this starts a downward trend in salaries, but, given MSG and Detroit, I doubt it.
- Cap: (not THE Caps...). There has been a cap in effect for several years, although it worked by a team running short of money to pay its players. I had no sentimental attachment to Jagr and Lang, but Bondra is different. So was Konowalchuk, and several other players the Caps "dumped" earlier. Juneau? Zednik? OK, maybe it won;t be so bad to have a smaller, legal and public, salary cap. Unrestrained free agency certainly brought ruin.
OK, any other ideas? (and I still like the larger surface, still hate watching the trap, and still get bored every time the designated fighters drop the gloves.)
Scooter wrote:Lost my giva-shooter on this one a long time ago. I usually side with Owners, but I don't think either side is in the right - and they'll both suffer a great deal because of it. They have my number if they REALLY want to get a deal they can live with... and I work pretty affordably.
Yeah, the owners should continue to lose money hand over fist. So what if they agreed to open the books to the player's association, so what if they invested millions of dollars only to lose money at breakneck speed. So what if a fricking player makes MORE PROFIT IN A YEAR THAN THE GUY WHO PAID A COUPLE OF HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS to buy the team.
I think people just don't seem to understand that without a TV contract, there is only gate revenue. And if gate revenue is only covering 63% of your salaries, you're dead in the water.
The owners are easy scapegoats... they did after all, sign the contracts that put themselves in this position. But at what point do you cut them some slack for trying to field a competitve unit? And now that they've drawn a line in the sand, they're obviously the bad guys.
If the players wanna earn TV-revenue-type-salaries, then they should have picked a sport to play that had some.
I feel particularly sorry for the guys that were making $10 Million a year... I can see how 6 or 7M would put a serious damper on their car collection.

Hockey from a Canadian Perspective:
Found here. That's what Hockey is to Canada!
World's longest hockey game nears its end
Not even lopping off part of his finger in a freak Zamboni accident could keep Brent Saik from a date with history.
The organizer of the world's longest hockey game just bandaged it up and hit the ice.
That was nine days ago. He's still going.
"We are on adrenaline right now," he said late Saturday. "I don't know how many people are here. It is crazy."
Player Mike Burge said: "The fans are always giving you that extra boost. Otherwise, you are just out here skating."
One of those fans is Glen Oldach: "This is the best hind of hockey. With the NHL, those guys want too much money. They guys are doing it for nothing."
The game is being played in Strathcona County, just east of Edmonton, on Saik's acreage.
All the players have a special motivation: All have lost a family member to cancer. Saik's father and wife died of the disease.
Part of the tournament's goal is to raise money for cancer research. They have a target of $200,000.
"At this point no cure for cancer, but if we can do this, they can find a cure," Saik says.
Having established a new world record late Saturday night with 203 hours of play, the 40 players are planning to keep going until Monday at noon, MT.
That would make for 240 hours of play since they got started on Feb. 11.
They are wresting the record from a group in Ontario.
The players have skated in shifts through whatever the weather threw at them.
They have played through the cold, through the slush -- and through injuries.
Jay Brookman took a stick in the eye, but he was stoic about it: "I ended up leaking a bit from the eye. It doesn't even hurt."
Doug Geschuk says: "... The sores go away. You know it makes it all worthwhile."
Found here. That's what Hockey is to Canada!
If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?
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Fantastic!tazlah wrote:That's what Hockey is to Canada!

You know what? Next year you can be sure the guys in Ontario are going to try to get the record back for charity!
Daniel Snyder has defined incompetence, failure and greed to true Washington Redskins fans for over a decade and a half. Stay away from football operations !!!
Who Needs the N.H.L. When the Moose Is on the Loose?
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Feb. 20 - This blue-collar prairie city is often belittled for its icy winds in winter, its ravenous mosquitoes in summer and its deplorable skid row in the heart of downtown. Now suddenly modest Winnipeg has some bragging rights.
With the National Hockey League season all but extinguished, Winnipeg's American Hockey League team, the high-scoring Manitoba Moose, has emerged as the hottest box office draw of any professional hockey team in Canada.
That is sweet revenge for a city that has not had an N.H.L. game since 1996, when the Winnipeg Jets left for Phoenix. Now the rest of Canada is finding out what life after the N.H.L. feels like - and maybe learning a thing or two about the game's traditional roots and joys.
"If there's a Leafs fan who wants to watch hockey, I'm happy to scalp him my ticket to see the Moose!" said Jeff McEachern, 37, a software company executive, referring to the Toronto Maple Leafs. "The Manitoba Moose mean getting out with your neighbor and seeing good hockey without needing to mortgage your house to do it." He spoke Friday night between periods of the Moose's sellout 3-2 overtime victory over the Edmonton Road Runners.
Winter in Winnipeg is made almost cheerful by neighbors getting together weekday evenings and weekend afternoons to tie their skates and tape their sticks on backyard rinks, lakes and ponds. But the city is particularly excited this winter about its new arena and Cinderella team.
Having finished in the cellar of its division last year, the Moose, a farm team of the Vancouver Canucks, are contenders this year for the league championship. They are playing the fast-pace, give-and-go, shoot-out hockey that was given up long ago by many N.H.L. teams, which seem content to clog up the neutral zone and win low-scoring games.
If Canadian hockey fans are jaundiced, the Moose have a cure. The team is big on community outreach, including an annual dinner where the players wait tables and give their tips to charity, and a sports carnival where children can shoot on the team goalies. There are pee-wee exhibition scrimmages between periods, with announcers providing play-by-play.
But what is most important to fans is the aggressive Moose style of play. When opportunity strikes, the team sends a full complement of forwards and even an occasional defenseman on the attack in the kind of go-for-broke play fans love. That's how they won Friday night, as their star left wing, Jason King, sneaked the puck through the legs of a defenseman and faked out the Edmonton goalie on an overtime breakaway.
"The fans want to see goals scored and a fast pace where there are lots of offensive chances," said Nolan Baumgartner, a 28-year-old defenseman and the team captain. "That's what we work on in practice."
Morley Duchschler, a 42-year-old restaurant owner, said, "I live and die for the Chicago Blackhawks, but I am so sickened by the N.H.L. right now that I could care less if they come back." He pointed to five children no older than 10 banging excitedly on the rinkside glass while waiting for the initial Moose-Road Runners face-off. "This is hockey: the excitement of the kids to get close to the players. Does the N.H.L. care about these little guys?"
Players and management are not shy about criticizing the N.H.L. product. "I think it needs a remake on the ice and off the ice," said Mark Chipman, the Moose's owner. "It needs to be a lot more exciting to watch, and more affordable for the fans."
Mr. Chipman's team has doubled its advertising revenue this year and leads Canadian teams in the league in attendance. Moose tickets cost a small fraction of what an N.H.L. ticket would cost, because the team's salaries total less than $2 million. (That is less than 10 percent of the gross salary for the Pittsburgh Penguins, which has the lowest N.H.L. payroll.)
But for all of the Moose's popularity, the ghost of the Jets lives on. "Go Jets Go" is a chant still heard sometimes at Moose games.
In their 17 years as an N.H.L. franchise, the Jets never won a Stanley Cup or a conference championship, but they gave the city a certain panache and self-esteem.
With a population of fewer than one million and a small, outdated arena, Winnipeg, like Quebec City, ultimately could not sustain an N.H.L. team. But as the N.H.L. faces a shake-up of its business plan and rules, fans here dare to dream they could attract one of the failing big league teams.
"In '94 we didn't have the building to generate revenues, but now we do," said Mr. Chipman, who tried to help finance a rescue of the Jets before they left. "We would love to be playing in the greatest league in the world - if and when it gets fixed."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/inter ... eg.html?hp

Hockey is very much alive here in London too...
Knights make OHL history with lopsided 7-0 victory over Sting
LONDON, Ont. (CP) - The Knights became the first team in OHL history to register consecutive 50-win seasons with a 7-0 win over the Sarnia Sting on Friday night before a capacity crowd of 9,090 at the John Labatt Centre.
Trevor Kell scored three goals while goalie Gerald Coleman got the shutout as the Knights outshot the Sting 57-33.
The Knights (50-4-2-0) have the best record in the Canadian Hockey League. They won the regular-season title last year, finishing at 53-11-2-2. Their 110 points is the OHL record.
The league record for most wins is 54, held by the 1984-'85 Soo Greyhounds. The CHL mark is 60 by the 1980-'81 Victoria Cougars of the Western Hockey League.
The Knights have six games remaining....
Read more here.
If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?
My son, Redskin Dan v1978, tells me that there is an AHL tean in Trenton, NJ. The New York area is pretty much over-exploited by Rangers, Devils, and Islanders, so I had though to find the nearest AHL teams in Albany (used to be the Devils' River Rats) and Hartford (Rangers farm team).
It's getting time to go hunt for hockey, although I wish I lived closer to Portland, where tickets start at $6, and no seat is all that far from the ice.
I note that stats of young Brooks Laich:
GP G A Pts +/-
44 Laich, Brooks C 42 11 5 16 -19
We got him for Bondra. You would have to work hard to go minus 19 in only 42 games. Bondra, I repeat.
It's getting time to go hunt for hockey, although I wish I lived closer to Portland, where tickets start at $6, and no seat is all that far from the ice.
I note that stats of young Brooks Laich:
GP G A Pts +/-
44 Laich, Brooks C 42 11 5 16 -19
We got him for Bondra. You would have to work hard to go minus 19 in only 42 games. Bondra, I repeat.
50 wins... 4 losses... 2 ties. Those Knights are simply amazing this year... and with the Lockout... you can't FIND a ticket. They went 31 games without a loss to start the season (29-0-2)... so they're 'slumping' at 21-4-0 in the last 25 games.
We also have the memorial cup here in London this year, so I guess we can't complain that we don't have some good hockey to watch.
... and I have to admit that watching players who CARE night after night, is certainly refreshing.

We also have the memorial cup here in London this year, so I guess we can't complain that we don't have some good hockey to watch.
... and I have to admit that watching players who CARE night after night, is certainly refreshing.
Sean Taylor was one of a kind, may he rest in peace.
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Interesting bit of reporting from ESPN:
Rest of the Article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=2003701
Don't know if anyone has any immediate reactions to this or not. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out--I don't really see this happening, but you never know.
Firms made pitch to owners Tuesday
TORONTO -- An investment firm and a sports advisory company reportedly made a joint proposal to buy all 30 NHL teams for as much as $3.5 billion.
The two Boston companies were invited by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to present the highly unusual offer, the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail reported Thursday. Bain Capital Partners LLC and Game Plan LLC made their pitch Tuesday in New York to NHL owners, whose season has been shut down by a lockout.
Game Plan chairman Robert Caporale confirmed to WBZ radio in Boston that the companies had offered more than $3 billion.
"It's taking the National Hockey League and its 30 teams and operating it as any large corporation does with each team essentially being a division of one company," Caporale said. "We would keep in place team management, team presidents, the GMs. They would be completely autonomous."
Rest of the Article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=2003701
Don't know if anyone has any immediate reactions to this or not. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out--I don't really see this happening, but you never know.
Nothing will come of it. The owners that 'count' didn't like the deal at all.
Toronto maple Leafs ownership said, and I'm paraphrasing, 'Why would we take a deal that was so far off what we were worth?'
The teams had a collective value of approximately 4.9 billion and were only offered 3.5 billion.
... neat story and concept though. It certainly helps ownership give the perception of 'options' to the player's association. The league would have to gain FULL acceptance from ownership and i heard at least 5 of them basically scoff at the idea yesterday and say that it'll get no more consideration than the consideration it got during their 1/2 hour presentation yesterday.
Toronto maple Leafs ownership said, and I'm paraphrasing, 'Why would we take a deal that was so far off what we were worth?'
The teams had a collective value of approximately 4.9 billion and were only offered 3.5 billion.
... neat story and concept though. It certainly helps ownership give the perception of 'options' to the player's association. The league would have to gain FULL acceptance from ownership and i heard at least 5 of them basically scoff at the idea yesterday and say that it'll get no more consideration than the consideration it got during their 1/2 hour presentation yesterday.
Sean Taylor was one of a kind, may he rest in peace.
The papers here could not decide whether it was an offer by a publicity-hound, or an offer suggested by the owners themselves as a threat to the union. The owner of the Bruins said something like, "This is foolish. I'm not selling".
(I think it was the Bruins, but I got up early to fly to Boston for an all-day meeting, and just got home...I might still be dizzy from driving in circles inside Logan Airport).
*
And, of course, the players have challenged the MLS ownership scheme. NHL-organized-like-MLS would have to pass a challenge in both Canadian and US courts.
*
But at least there is some news about hockey, aside from the Swedish sex-scandal.
(I think it was the Bruins, but I got up early to fly to Boston for an all-day meeting, and just got home...I might still be dizzy from driving in circles inside Logan Airport).
*
And, of course, the players have challenged the MLS ownership scheme. NHL-organized-like-MLS would have to pass a challenge in both Canadian and US courts.
*
But at least there is some news about hockey, aside from the Swedish sex-scandal.