The Official CBA Negotiations/Lockout Super Thread

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Originally Posted by Maddogg420

Yeah that would be AWESOME!! Having no one in the arena for when the Kings raise their first Stanley Cup Champions Banner in history would be AWESOME!!


(sarcasm)

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While I want to see a full arena for the banner raising, and while I know I'm back on day number 1, I wish the NHL would feel some pain. The problem with hockey fans (and this isn't really a bad problem to have) is that they are a very devoted group. There doesn't seem to be a lot of casual hockey fans out there. After the last lockout everybody came back and started watching again. it was as if the league didn't miss a beat. MLB on the other hand has a whole lot more casual fans and it took years for attendence to fully recover. Since 94 baseball has done a lot more in avoiding a labor stoppage because they know the damage it can do. The NHL on the other hand knows people will quickly come back.

Not saying I don't want people to watch the Kings raise a banner, I do however wish that the NHL would feel some serious pain from the fans because of this.

so y'all are saying while we have a first world problems meme, there's no nhl/nhlpa problems meme? Excellent this is what the internets were invented for!

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Good sign: The players responded to the owners' most recent offer by presenting not one but three different counter-proposals.
Bad sign: Those three different offers were created by Donald Fehr shifting his weight slightly while he sat pantsless on the photocopier.


Good sign: Bettman seems to already be thinking ahead to bringing back the post-lockout slogan "Thank You Fans", since he keeps writing that phrase in his notebook over and over again while smiling.
Bad sign: On closer examination, that first word may not be "Thank".


Good sign: Experts agree that the actual gap between players and owners has become so small that the league would have to be run by complete idiots to cancel the season now.

Bad sign: Everyone who says that immediately trails off, looks around awkwardly, and then mutters "So… see you next year."

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Down Goes Brown: Good signs and bad signs in the ongoing CBA talks

NHL ALLOWED GM'S TO TALK TO PLAYERS LAST WEEK ABOUT OFFER


For 48 hours last week, the National Hockey League allowed its owners and general managers to answer questions directly from their players regarding the NHL's latest CBA proposal.

But the NHL Players' Association was not informed about the window of opportunity.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed to TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun on ESPN.com that the league sent out a legal memo to its clubs that outlined the specifics of what could be discussed.

The union was not pleased that they were excluded from the news.


"Most owners are not allowed to attend bargaining meetings," NHLPA counsel Steve Fehr said in a statement sent to several news outlets. "No owners are allowed to speak to the media about the bargaining. It is interesting that they are secretly unleashed to talk to the players about the meetings the players can attend, but the owners cannot."

Players are normally not allowed to be in contact with clubs during the labour stoppage and are not allowed to use their team's facilities.

"I'm not sure why that's a big story," Daly added.

ESPN.com's Katie Strang adds that the league's memo strictly prohibits general managers from negotiating with players, making coercive statements, undermining the NHLPA or soliciting feedback on "their sentiment about collective bargaining matters."

It does, however, allow GMs to answer certain inquiries from players. ESPN.com also reports that the memo included a sample question-and-answer portion that gives executives suggestions on how to answer such things as: "What do you think we should do?," "What happens if the union doesn't accept this proposal?" and 'Why did the league take so long to make this offer?"

After exchanging offers last week, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman suggested that a deal must be reached by Thursday this week in order to save a full 82-game regular season that begins on Nov. 2.


NHL allowed GM's to talk to players last week about offer

I just got one thing to say



GET IN THE FRIKKIN ROOM AND NEGOTIATE FOR CHRIST SAKE!


Okay, thank you

Tick tock.

I heard from some one at taco bell that it looks like a Dec start for the season
:nono:

I like the poll on TSN. 88.6% of people think the deal won't get done this week. Only 10,500 people voted.

NHL rejects players' attempt to restart talks - Yahoo! News

Couple of thoughts....

The gist of Daly's comments today say alot. Essentially, the NHLPA has to work off of the owner's last offer or the season is dead. Fehr knows this, yet the NHLPA seems to doubt his sincerity. That's a mistake. The NHLPA better understand this and deal with it, because if they don't, the season is lost, and they will end up making the deal in April that they could have made now.

Also, for once in his life J. Roenick made some sense. On Bob Costas' show JR talked a lot about what he lost in 2004. Not only the 8 million he lost, but he lost his game too. You got the sense he really regretted losing the season. This is a lesson that the NHLPA might want to pay attention to.