View Poll Results: Is your team in cap hell?
Yes
0
0%
No
0
0%
Don't care
0
0%
Go Nordiques!
0
0%
Voters: 0. You may not vote on this poll
Hockey: News and Discussion Thread
08-14-2012 | 08:59 PM
Senior Moderator
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 167,734
Likes: 23,026
08-15-2012 | 08:24 AM
Senior Moderator
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
iTrader: (6)
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 92,275
Likes: 4,499
From: ShitsBurgh
08-15-2012 | 08:32 AM
Understood but Selig (who I am not a fan of) is also selected by the owners but he seems to try to make decisions that are for the good of the game, which is my understanding of the job description.
08-15-2012 | 11:50 AM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
The Count's job is solely to "run the league."
08-15-2012 | 12:16 PM
This mindset is imho the issue that has the US in the toilet.
Seems management does not see that if the employees that are their bread & butter are unhappy, the customers will be unhappy and eventually take their business elsewhere.
Seems management does not see that if the employees that are their bread & butter are unhappy, the customers will be unhappy and eventually take their business elsewhere.
08-15-2012 | 12:40 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
^^ Take that to R&P.
Meanwhile, it's clear the NHL players are very unhappy with their $$ millions, and are jumping ship in droves to the KHL because it's a better work environment.
...and fans are leaving the game in droves and the U.S. TV ratings and attendance is at all time lows under the current CBA.
Poor players.
Poor owners.
Poor fans.
Such a sad state of affairs.
Meanwhile, it's clear the NHL players are very unhappy with their $$ millions, and are jumping ship in droves to the KHL because it's a better work environment.
...and fans are leaving the game in droves and the U.S. TV ratings and attendance is at all time lows under the current CBA.
Poor players.
Poor owners.
Poor fans.
Such a sad state of affairs.
08-15-2012 | 03:29 PM
nnInn
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 37,670
Likes: 1,084
Selig is a fucking idiot and does not make decisions based on what good for the game. As said, he's run the league for the owners, to make money. Players juiced up to hit a lot of home runs, made them more money. Anything that he has done in the past four to five years has been because he's afraid of Congress getting involved.
08-15-2012 | 05:53 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
Only suckers believe the lock out will not happen....
Toronto — Have you heard the one about the wolf in sheep’s clothing?
How about the Trojan Horse, where the enemy is left a benign-seeming gift, but one that comes with some serious strings attached; enough to hang themselves with?
Either metaphor is apt when it comes to analyzing the NHLPA’s proposal -- or at least the bones of it that have been made public -- presented to the owners on Tuesday, also known as Day 1 in the negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.
The players -- confronted with the owners’ sledgehammer of an offer a month ago, which calls for them to give up 24 per cent of their salaries and a large swath of contract rights -- did the smart thing when confronted by a bully. They backed away, stayed calm and are instead trying to out-manouver the big mean kid with brains rather than an empty show of force.
If it works, it will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to their membership and avoid a work stoppage.
It won't work.
The gist: The players are offering to delink their salaries from hockey related revenue (HRR) for the next three seasons and take a smaller share of league revenues over that period than the loathsome (from the owners point of view) 57 per cent they get under the current CBA, which expires Sept. 15.
All the other stuff – free agency, salary arbitration, entry level contracts, contract lengths – the owners want to clamp down on would stay the same.
It’s a move that gives the owners the ultimate in cost-certainty, which they love. They will pay the players $1.91-billion in 2012-13; $1.98 billion in 2013-14 and $2.12 billion in 2014-15. Only if league revenues grow at more than 10 per cent a year would it be any more.
Those figures represent raises of two, four and six per cent from the $1.87 billion the players got as their 57 per cent share of the $3.3 billion of HRR in 2011-12.
As a bonus, the players are offering the owners the opportunity to keep the lion’s share of the league’s magical ever-growing revenue pool over the next three years.
On the surface, it’s not a bad deal, and Fehr’s apparent even-handed proposal, delivered while symbolically flanked by Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin on Tuesday, certainly won him some credit among fans.
If the league grows at seven per cent annually -- the rate is has under the current CBA -- the owners will get to keep $450 million that they would currently have to share with the players.
If the league grows at the rate it has the past two years -- an average of 9.6 per cent -- the savings the players are offering the owners is closer to $800 million.
It’s also worth noting the players would get to keep 57 per cent of the league’s "new" revenues if they grow at more than 10 per cent. It’s upside protection for the players if revenues really explode, which is not unrealistic given the 2012-13 season is the first year of the league’s new broadcast deal with NBC, valued at $200 million annually. As well, the Canadian broadcast rights come up in two years, which could mean a significant jump in revenues by 2014-15.
What else? The players are agreeing to keep the owners sacred hard salary cap in place.
Sounds good, right?
What the players are asking for in exchange for a hard cap and a short-term pay cut is that the owners share some of their new-found wealth with the league’s weakerthans and in a more robust, less restrictive way than they do now. The New York Islanders, for example, can’t participate in revenue sharing because they’re in a television market with more than 2.5 million homes.
It’s not really that huge an ask. The league’s revenue-sharing program currently calls for about $200 million (six per cent of HRR) to trickle down from the top 10 earning clubs to those that qualify. The NHLPA is proposing that number jump to about $250 million and be shared among more teams.
What the players do get for that extra $50 million in revenue sharing is the opportunity to send a clear signal to the 20 or so "not rich" clubs that they’re willing to do their part to help -- more than the rich clubs are now.
Fehr described it Tuesday as the players’ effort to stabilize the league and rescue it from a perpetual cycle of labour unrest -- a work stoppage in September would be the fourth in 20 years.
It’s a classic wedge issue tactic by Fehr that may be well-intended but with the added benefit of potentially causing a rift in the owners solidarity.
A much bigger ask by Fehr is that in return for allowing the owners to keep the lion’s share of the league’s revenues for the next three years, the league would "snap back" to the terms of the existing CBA in year four (2015-16).
In other words, the players would once again share in 57 per cent of league revenues, just in time for the next round of CBA talks.
What does it all mean? Well, not much because there is zero chance the owners accept the players proposal as written, but we’ll play along for now.
For starters it would all but guarantee a lockout after the 2015-16 season as there is no way that if the owners are contemplating a lockout now to move the players off 57 per cent of HRR, they won’t be looking to do the same thing three years from now.
The idea that the players' proposal would somehow usher in a lengthy period of labour peace was the one clanging note Fehr struck Monday.
For the purposes of this negotiation it means that the gap between what the owners are asking for and what the players are willing to give remains significant, massive even.
It means there will very likely be a lockout.
Why?
Assuming league revenues grow by seven per cent annually, the owners’ proposal last month would pay the players $6.79 billion over the next four years by cutting the players' share of HRR to 43.3 per cent.
Under the players' plan, they would get a minimum of $8.53 billion in that period.
There was a reason Fehr referred to the gap in the two sides’ positions as a "meaningful gulf" last week. The price tag on that gulf is about $1.74 billion.
Put another way, the owners’ plan would give the players 43.3 per cent of HRR, rolling salaries back by 24 per cent immediately. The players’ proposal would get the players about 54.4 per cent of HRR and allow them to keep every cent that’s in their current contracts.
No wonder Crosby thought the players’ plan was great — it means the contract he signed this summer will be worth $104.4 million, not the discounted version worth $76.6 million the owners would like to pay him under their proposal.
Moreover, the owners benefit in the players’ deal is theoretical, based on revenues that are expected to grow but might not. The owners’ plan means real cash savings beginning right away.
To the extent that Bettman didn’t reject the players’ proposal out of hand Wednesday was because the players’ position has two key aspects the commissioner likely believes he can sell to the owners as a starting point of meaningful negotiations -- the players’ willingness to keep working in a hard cap system and their acceptance of a reduced share of HRR.
That’s the extent of the common ground, and now the fight for how much of HRR each side will get in the future begins in earnest.
The real genius in the NHLPA proposal is that it is a slick effort to get the players out of the ever-shrinking box that seems to be the fate of athletes who enter shared revenue/salary cap arrangements with owners.
With the cap system in place, the owners begin each CBA negotiation by offering the players a smaller share of the revenue pie. All the players can hope for is that they can keep what they have, knowing all along that the moment the owners lock them out, they’re losing money they won’t get back.
It’s a tough position.
The real concern for the players, long-term, isn’t that they might have to settle for 50 per cent (to pick a number) of HRR in the deal they’re negotiating now. It’s that when that deal expires, the owners will want to make the players share smaller still, and even smaller the next time.
With a salary cap in place -- and without any real leverage -- all the players seem to be able to do is minimize the inevitable claw-backs the owners are ever seeking.
By having the deal the players are proposing reset, whereby in the fourth year of it the CBA "snaps back" to what they have in place now -- a 57 per cent share of HRR -- that number becomes the starting point for negotiations four years from now, which is far better than the 43.3 per cent they’d be trying to protect next time around if the owners get their way.
It’s a clever mechanism to maintain the status quo, and Fehr should be congratulated for thinking outside that ever-shrinking box.
Unfortunately, the owners want that box to keep shrinking and they want to cut their No. 1 expense: player salaries.
Fehr’s proposal doesn’t do that in what the owners would define as a meaningful way and sets the stage for player costs staying much higher than the owners want for the foreseeable future.
From where the owners are sitting, the deal the players are offering comes cloaked in the spirit of compromise but has some very sharp teeth.
Gary Bettman will cry "wolf," and he will be right.
How about the Trojan Horse, where the enemy is left a benign-seeming gift, but one that comes with some serious strings attached; enough to hang themselves with?
Either metaphor is apt when it comes to analyzing the NHLPA’s proposal -- or at least the bones of it that have been made public -- presented to the owners on Tuesday, also known as Day 1 in the negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.
The players -- confronted with the owners’ sledgehammer of an offer a month ago, which calls for them to give up 24 per cent of their salaries and a large swath of contract rights -- did the smart thing when confronted by a bully. They backed away, stayed calm and are instead trying to out-manouver the big mean kid with brains rather than an empty show of force.
If it works, it will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to their membership and avoid a work stoppage.
It won't work.
The gist: The players are offering to delink their salaries from hockey related revenue (HRR) for the next three seasons and take a smaller share of league revenues over that period than the loathsome (from the owners point of view) 57 per cent they get under the current CBA, which expires Sept. 15.
All the other stuff – free agency, salary arbitration, entry level contracts, contract lengths – the owners want to clamp down on would stay the same.
It’s a move that gives the owners the ultimate in cost-certainty, which they love. They will pay the players $1.91-billion in 2012-13; $1.98 billion in 2013-14 and $2.12 billion in 2014-15. Only if league revenues grow at more than 10 per cent a year would it be any more.
Those figures represent raises of two, four and six per cent from the $1.87 billion the players got as their 57 per cent share of the $3.3 billion of HRR in 2011-12.
As a bonus, the players are offering the owners the opportunity to keep the lion’s share of the league’s magical ever-growing revenue pool over the next three years.
On the surface, it’s not a bad deal, and Fehr’s apparent even-handed proposal, delivered while symbolically flanked by Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin on Tuesday, certainly won him some credit among fans.
If the league grows at seven per cent annually -- the rate is has under the current CBA -- the owners will get to keep $450 million that they would currently have to share with the players.
If the league grows at the rate it has the past two years -- an average of 9.6 per cent -- the savings the players are offering the owners is closer to $800 million.
It’s also worth noting the players would get to keep 57 per cent of the league’s "new" revenues if they grow at more than 10 per cent. It’s upside protection for the players if revenues really explode, which is not unrealistic given the 2012-13 season is the first year of the league’s new broadcast deal with NBC, valued at $200 million annually. As well, the Canadian broadcast rights come up in two years, which could mean a significant jump in revenues by 2014-15.
What else? The players are agreeing to keep the owners sacred hard salary cap in place.
Sounds good, right?
What the players are asking for in exchange for a hard cap and a short-term pay cut is that the owners share some of their new-found wealth with the league’s weakerthans and in a more robust, less restrictive way than they do now. The New York Islanders, for example, can’t participate in revenue sharing because they’re in a television market with more than 2.5 million homes.
It’s not really that huge an ask. The league’s revenue-sharing program currently calls for about $200 million (six per cent of HRR) to trickle down from the top 10 earning clubs to those that qualify. The NHLPA is proposing that number jump to about $250 million and be shared among more teams.
What the players do get for that extra $50 million in revenue sharing is the opportunity to send a clear signal to the 20 or so "not rich" clubs that they’re willing to do their part to help -- more than the rich clubs are now.
Fehr described it Tuesday as the players’ effort to stabilize the league and rescue it from a perpetual cycle of labour unrest -- a work stoppage in September would be the fourth in 20 years.
It’s a classic wedge issue tactic by Fehr that may be well-intended but with the added benefit of potentially causing a rift in the owners solidarity.
A much bigger ask by Fehr is that in return for allowing the owners to keep the lion’s share of the league’s revenues for the next three years, the league would "snap back" to the terms of the existing CBA in year four (2015-16).
In other words, the players would once again share in 57 per cent of league revenues, just in time for the next round of CBA talks.
What does it all mean? Well, not much because there is zero chance the owners accept the players proposal as written, but we’ll play along for now.
For starters it would all but guarantee a lockout after the 2015-16 season as there is no way that if the owners are contemplating a lockout now to move the players off 57 per cent of HRR, they won’t be looking to do the same thing three years from now.
The idea that the players' proposal would somehow usher in a lengthy period of labour peace was the one clanging note Fehr struck Monday.
For the purposes of this negotiation it means that the gap between what the owners are asking for and what the players are willing to give remains significant, massive even.
It means there will very likely be a lockout.
Why?
Assuming league revenues grow by seven per cent annually, the owners’ proposal last month would pay the players $6.79 billion over the next four years by cutting the players' share of HRR to 43.3 per cent.
Under the players' plan, they would get a minimum of $8.53 billion in that period.
There was a reason Fehr referred to the gap in the two sides’ positions as a "meaningful gulf" last week. The price tag on that gulf is about $1.74 billion.
Put another way, the owners’ plan would give the players 43.3 per cent of HRR, rolling salaries back by 24 per cent immediately. The players’ proposal would get the players about 54.4 per cent of HRR and allow them to keep every cent that’s in their current contracts.
No wonder Crosby thought the players’ plan was great — it means the contract he signed this summer will be worth $104.4 million, not the discounted version worth $76.6 million the owners would like to pay him under their proposal.
Moreover, the owners benefit in the players’ deal is theoretical, based on revenues that are expected to grow but might not. The owners’ plan means real cash savings beginning right away.
To the extent that Bettman didn’t reject the players’ proposal out of hand Wednesday was because the players’ position has two key aspects the commissioner likely believes he can sell to the owners as a starting point of meaningful negotiations -- the players’ willingness to keep working in a hard cap system and their acceptance of a reduced share of HRR.
That’s the extent of the common ground, and now the fight for how much of HRR each side will get in the future begins in earnest.
The real genius in the NHLPA proposal is that it is a slick effort to get the players out of the ever-shrinking box that seems to be the fate of athletes who enter shared revenue/salary cap arrangements with owners.
With the cap system in place, the owners begin each CBA negotiation by offering the players a smaller share of the revenue pie. All the players can hope for is that they can keep what they have, knowing all along that the moment the owners lock them out, they’re losing money they won’t get back.
It’s a tough position.
The real concern for the players, long-term, isn’t that they might have to settle for 50 per cent (to pick a number) of HRR in the deal they’re negotiating now. It’s that when that deal expires, the owners will want to make the players share smaller still, and even smaller the next time.
With a salary cap in place -- and without any real leverage -- all the players seem to be able to do is minimize the inevitable claw-backs the owners are ever seeking.
By having the deal the players are proposing reset, whereby in the fourth year of it the CBA "snaps back" to what they have in place now -- a 57 per cent share of HRR -- that number becomes the starting point for negotiations four years from now, which is far better than the 43.3 per cent they’d be trying to protect next time around if the owners get their way.
It’s a clever mechanism to maintain the status quo, and Fehr should be congratulated for thinking outside that ever-shrinking box.
Unfortunately, the owners want that box to keep shrinking and they want to cut their No. 1 expense: player salaries.
Fehr’s proposal doesn’t do that in what the owners would define as a meaningful way and sets the stage for player costs staying much higher than the owners want for the foreseeable future.
From where the owners are sitting, the deal the players are offering comes cloaked in the spirit of compromise but has some very sharp teeth.
Gary Bettman will cry "wolf," and he will be right.
08-15-2012 | 10:19 PM
Trolling Canuckistan
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 10,453
Likes: 811
From: 100 Legends Way, Boston, MA 02114
Up until the last lock out, I was a big hockey fan. If there was a game on, I'd watch it, it didn't matter which teams were playing. After the lock out, I lost that passion. From 2005-2011, I was a Bruins fan if they were out of the playoffs I stopped watching.
Last season changed that. Even after the B's got knocked out, I watched every game I could and thoroughly enjoyed it. Another lock out is going to take fans like me and bring us back from being hockey fans and make us fans of the home team again.
The fans will always come back, but they may not have the passion they did before the lockout. IMO that's the issue that will cost the league money if the season doesn't happen.
Last season changed that. Even after the B's got knocked out, I watched every game I could and thoroughly enjoyed it. Another lock out is going to take fans like me and bring us back from being hockey fans and make us fans of the home team again.
The fans will always come back, but they may not have the passion they did before the lockout. IMO that's the issue that will cost the league money if the season doesn't happen.
08-16-2012 | 10:14 AM
http://bleacherreport.com/tb/d8dws?u...m_campaign=nhl
NHL labor talks: Gary Bettman kills optimism with negative assessment
By Sean Gentille, Sporting News
On Tuesday, the NHL's shaky CBA negotiations seemed to be on the upswing. By Wednesday afternoon, that feeling of optimism was out the window.
"The sides are far apart and have different views of the world," commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters in Toronto.
The NHLPA submitted an alternate proposal on Tuesday that was met with widespread optimism from fans and media alike: There are provisions to address the gap between the league's low- and high-revenue teams, and the union would take a lower percentage of hockey-related revenue than its current 57 percent.
Bettman added that the league understood the proposal but added that it wasn't complete, and that "there is still a wide gap between us with not much time to go."
The current CBA expires on Sept. 15. Bettman has said there will be a lockout if no agreement is reached by then. The regular season is slated to begin on Oct. 11.
Union head Donald Fehr said players are set to surrender as much as $465 million in revenue under their proposal if the league continues to grow at an average rate. He says that number could balloon to $800 million if the league grows revenues the same rate it has over the last two seasons.
An NHL proposal last month called for a significant decrease for players in revenue share by introducing new contract restrictions, including a five-year cap on deals.
That proposal is the problem. After a lockout that nearly canceled the 2011-12 NBA season, those sides agreed to a rough 50/50 split. If that's the kind of agreement the league is seeking—and based on its proposed 57/43 split, it is—it's easy, if ridiculous, for owners to tout "a wide gap," because players would still earn 54 percent of hockey-related revenue, regardless of how progressive and beneficial their other ideas would be.
NHL labor talks: Gary Bettman kills optimism with negative assessment
By Sean Gentille, Sporting News
On Tuesday, the NHL's shaky CBA negotiations seemed to be on the upswing. By Wednesday afternoon, that feeling of optimism was out the window.
"The sides are far apart and have different views of the world," commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters in Toronto.
The NHLPA submitted an alternate proposal on Tuesday that was met with widespread optimism from fans and media alike: There are provisions to address the gap between the league's low- and high-revenue teams, and the union would take a lower percentage of hockey-related revenue than its current 57 percent.
Bettman added that the league understood the proposal but added that it wasn't complete, and that "there is still a wide gap between us with not much time to go."
The current CBA expires on Sept. 15. Bettman has said there will be a lockout if no agreement is reached by then. The regular season is slated to begin on Oct. 11.
Union head Donald Fehr said players are set to surrender as much as $465 million in revenue under their proposal if the league continues to grow at an average rate. He says that number could balloon to $800 million if the league grows revenues the same rate it has over the last two seasons.
An NHL proposal last month called for a significant decrease for players in revenue share by introducing new contract restrictions, including a five-year cap on deals.
That proposal is the problem. After a lockout that nearly canceled the 2011-12 NBA season, those sides agreed to a rough 50/50 split. If that's the kind of agreement the league is seeking—and based on its proposed 57/43 split, it is—it's easy, if ridiculous, for owners to tout "a wide gap," because players would still earn 54 percent of hockey-related revenue, regardless of how progressive and beneficial their other ideas would be.
08-16-2012 | 10:24 AM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
Up until the last lock out, I was a big hockey fan. If there was a game on, I'd watch it, it didn't matter which teams were playing. After the lock out, I lost that passion. From 2005-2011, I was a Bruins fan if they were out of the playoffs I stopped watching.
Last season changed that. Even after the B's got knocked out, I watched every game I could and thoroughly enjoyed it. Another lock out is going to take fans like me and bring us back from being hockey fans and make us fans of the home team again.
The fans will always come back, but they may not have the passion they did before the lockout. IMO that's the issue that will cost the league money if the season doesn't happen.
Last season changed that. Even after the B's got knocked out, I watched every game I could and thoroughly enjoyed it. Another lock out is going to take fans like me and bring us back from being hockey fans and make us fans of the home team again.
The fans will always come back, but they may not have the passion they did before the lockout. IMO that's the issue that will cost the league money if the season doesn't happen.
Sports fans are suckers for sports.
There is nowhere else for them to go.
Asshole Kings f'ing up lord stanley's cup
08-16-2012 | 12:31 PM
Trolling Canuckistan
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 10,453
Likes: 811
From: 100 Legends Way, Boston, MA 02114
You either missed the point or didn't read what I said because I didn't say the fans wouldn't come back. I said they always will come back but they may be lacking the passion they had in years prior. That lack of passion will end up with lower revenues or lower TV ratings.
08-16-2012 | 12:42 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
You either missed the point or didn't read what I said because I didn't say the fans wouldn't come back. I said they always will come back but they may be lacking the passion they had in years prior. That lack of passion will end up with lower revenues or lower TV ratings.
08-16-2012 | 01:16 PM
Trolling Canuckistan
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 10,453
Likes: 811
From: 100 Legends Way, Boston, MA 02114
But is it a wise decision to set their progress back 7 years? Back to the days where NHL Tonight was replaced with the world series of poker and nobody had any fucks left to give? When television networks realized they could air shows which cost substantially less to produce and therefore brought them more revenue on their investment?
They just started making some good progress, I can't believe they are all willing to throw that goodwill away and start over again.
They just started making some good progress, I can't believe they are all willing to throw that goodwill away and start over again.
08-16-2012 | 01:53 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
But is it a wise decision to set their progress back 7 years? Back to the days where NHL Tonight was replaced with the world series of poker and nobody had any fucks left to give? When television networks realized they could air shows which cost substantially less to produce and therefore brought them more revenue on their investment?
They just started making some good progress, I can't believe they are all willing to throw that goodwill away and start over again.
They just started making some good progress, I can't believe they are all willing to throw that goodwill away and start over again.
They have to address the costs, and if that means losing some fans short term to protect the future of the game, they will do it.....no doubt about it.
The owners are at fault for spending.
The players are at fault for continuing to want more.
The agents are at fault for continuing to want more.
There are no saints in this situation...everyone is at fault.
08-16-2012 | 02:11 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
FLYERS, SIMMONDS AGREE TO SIX-YEAR CONTRACT EXTENSION
The Philadelphia Flyers and forward Wayne Simmonds have agreed to a six-year contract extension.
The deal is believed to have an annual average value of around $4 million per season.
"We are pleased to announce that we have agreed to a multi-year extension with Wayne Simmonds," general manager Paul Holmgren said. "Wayne plays the game with courage and honor and we believe he will continue to be a very good winger for our organization."
"I'm extremely happy to have this deal in place," Simmonds said. "We're going to have a good team in Philly for a long time and I just wanted to be able to be a part of hopefully bringing a championship back to the Philly faithful."
The 23-year-old scored a career-high 28 goals to go with 21 assists while playing in all 82 games in his first season with the Flyers. He was traded to Philadelphia from the Los Angeles Kings along with Brayden Schenn last June, 2011 as part of the Mike Richards deal.
A resident of Scarborough, Ontario, Simmonds has 67 goals and 75 assists in 322 NHL contests with the Flyers and Kings.
Simmonds is scheduled to earn $2 million this season in the final year of a two-year, $3.5 million deal that carries an annual cap hit of $1.75 million. His new extension begins in the 2013-14 season.
The Philadelphia Flyers and forward Wayne Simmonds have agreed to a six-year contract extension.
The deal is believed to have an annual average value of around $4 million per season.
"We are pleased to announce that we have agreed to a multi-year extension with Wayne Simmonds," general manager Paul Holmgren said. "Wayne plays the game with courage and honor and we believe he will continue to be a very good winger for our organization."
"I'm extremely happy to have this deal in place," Simmonds said. "We're going to have a good team in Philly for a long time and I just wanted to be able to be a part of hopefully bringing a championship back to the Philly faithful."
The 23-year-old scored a career-high 28 goals to go with 21 assists while playing in all 82 games in his first season with the Flyers. He was traded to Philadelphia from the Los Angeles Kings along with Brayden Schenn last June, 2011 as part of the Mike Richards deal.
A resident of Scarborough, Ontario, Simmonds has 67 goals and 75 assists in 322 NHL contests with the Flyers and Kings.
Simmonds is scheduled to earn $2 million this season in the final year of a two-year, $3.5 million deal that carries an annual cap hit of $1.75 million. His new extension begins in the 2013-14 season.
Good for him!
08-16-2012 | 04:03 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
Mystery Solved!!!
It's clear how the bottom of The Cup was dented:
Moments after this pic was taken, Willie Mitchell hit the kid with the Nuck's T-shirt over the head with The Cup....(allegedly)
It's clear how the bottom of The Cup was dented:
Moments after this pic was taken, Willie Mitchell hit the kid with the Nuck's T-shirt over the head with The Cup....(allegedly)
08-20-2012 | 11:27 AM
Cherry expects two-month NHL lockout/Wears "reasonable" clothes
http://bleacherreport.com/tb/d8gaj?u...m_campaign=nhl
KINGSTON, ONT. - Don Cherry doesn't see an agreement between NHL players and owners happening before the season is scheduled to start and said he expects that a lockout will last two months.
The hockey legend and commentator was back in his hometown to lead a walking tour about another famous Kingstonian – Canada's first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald.
"I'm afraid it looks like two months. Everybody's talking that they're going to be out two months,” Cherry said after the walk Friday evening. “It's a lockout, it's a shame. Everybody's making money but everybody wants more money, and wouldn't you? And that's the way it works. It's too bad.
"It's hard to believe we're going to miss hockey for two months."
NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said he plans to talk to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on the weekend before the two are scheduled to resume negotiations on the hardcore issues on Wednesday and Thursday in Toronto.
If there is going to be a lockout — and Bettman has said the owners will take that course of action if no new CBA is reached on or before Sept. 15 — it will likely happen because of disagreements on economics.
Hockey matters, Fehr said, have led to some harmony.
-With files from Terry Koshan
http://bleacherreport.com/tb/d8gaj?u...m_campaign=nhl
KINGSTON, ONT. - Don Cherry doesn't see an agreement between NHL players and owners happening before the season is scheduled to start and said he expects that a lockout will last two months.
The hockey legend and commentator was back in his hometown to lead a walking tour about another famous Kingstonian – Canada's first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald.
"I'm afraid it looks like two months. Everybody's talking that they're going to be out two months,” Cherry said after the walk Friday evening. “It's a lockout, it's a shame. Everybody's making money but everybody wants more money, and wouldn't you? And that's the way it works. It's too bad.
"It's hard to believe we're going to miss hockey for two months."
NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said he plans to talk to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on the weekend before the two are scheduled to resume negotiations on the hardcore issues on Wednesday and Thursday in Toronto.
If there is going to be a lockout — and Bettman has said the owners will take that course of action if no new CBA is reached on or before Sept. 15 — it will likely happen because of disagreements on economics.
Hockey matters, Fehr said, have led to some harmony.
-With files from Terry Koshan
08-21-2012 | 10:21 AM
HOLY ISH!!!
http://bleacherreport.com/tb/d8gGy?u...m_campaign=nhl
Mike McBain, former NHLer, accused of impersonating teammate in molestation arrest
Last week, Michael McBain was arrested and charged with nine felony counts of sexual assault, allegedly abusing a now-16-year-old girl for four years beginning in 2008. This included what police allege was a "rape of the girl during a trip to Europe in 2010," according to the Las Vegas Journal Review.
McBain played for the Tampa Bay Lightning from 1997-99, and spent five years with the ECHL Las Vegas Wranglers before joining the team as an assistant coach in 2008-09.
The case itself is abhorrent enough without getting into the details, but good lord the details are downright horrific, tying in a sinister way with McBain's pro hockey career. From the Journal Review, here's how McBain preyed upon a teenage crush:
According to the report, as a coach, McBain noticed the victim had a crush on a Wranglers player, Jason Krischuk, who has played for the team off and on since 2006, including filling in for an injured player last season. Police believe McBain created a false email account and used it to contact the victim. He would also text her, send lewd photographs and ask about their sexual encounters under the guise of being Krischuk, the report shows.
Police said McBain also left money, as much as $400, for the victim for sending nude photos of herself to the email address he created under the other player's name. The victim eventually discovered the person emailing and texting her was not Krischuk.
According to the police report, Krischuk said "he believes his friend (McBain) may have pretended to be him to talk to a young girl" as "he had not and was never in conversation with the girl" until she contacted him recently.
McBain turned himself into police on July 5 "after recovering from a suicide attempt in Oregon." According to CBS 8, McBain is "facing two counts of lewdness with a child under age of 14, a count of sexual assault with a minor under 14 years of age, four counts of sexual assault with a minor under 16 years of age and two counts of open or gross lewdness."
Much more from the Journal Review here.
We'd offer you the same chlorine rinse and steel wool that we're currently using on our own eyes after reading this story, but alas we didn't bring enough to go around.
http://bleacherreport.com/tb/d8gGy?u...m_campaign=nhl
Mike McBain, former NHLer, accused of impersonating teammate in molestation arrest
Last week, Michael McBain was arrested and charged with nine felony counts of sexual assault, allegedly abusing a now-16-year-old girl for four years beginning in 2008. This included what police allege was a "rape of the girl during a trip to Europe in 2010," according to the Las Vegas Journal Review.
McBain played for the Tampa Bay Lightning from 1997-99, and spent five years with the ECHL Las Vegas Wranglers before joining the team as an assistant coach in 2008-09.
The case itself is abhorrent enough without getting into the details, but good lord the details are downright horrific, tying in a sinister way with McBain's pro hockey career. From the Journal Review, here's how McBain preyed upon a teenage crush:
According to the report, as a coach, McBain noticed the victim had a crush on a Wranglers player, Jason Krischuk, who has played for the team off and on since 2006, including filling in for an injured player last season. Police believe McBain created a false email account and used it to contact the victim. He would also text her, send lewd photographs and ask about their sexual encounters under the guise of being Krischuk, the report shows.
Police said McBain also left money, as much as $400, for the victim for sending nude photos of herself to the email address he created under the other player's name. The victim eventually discovered the person emailing and texting her was not Krischuk.
According to the police report, Krischuk said "he believes his friend (McBain) may have pretended to be him to talk to a young girl" as "he had not and was never in conversation with the girl" until she contacted him recently.
McBain turned himself into police on July 5 "after recovering from a suicide attempt in Oregon." According to CBS 8, McBain is "facing two counts of lewdness with a child under age of 14, a count of sexual assault with a minor under 14 years of age, four counts of sexual assault with a minor under 16 years of age and two counts of open or gross lewdness."
Much more from the Journal Review here.
We'd offer you the same chlorine rinse and steel wool that we're currently using on our own eyes after reading this story, but alas we didn't bring enough to go around.
08-22-2012 | 10:11 AM
WOW!
http://bleacherreport.com/tb/d8gNX?u...m_campaign=nhl
Sidney Crosby gets robbed at a hockey camp, no thanks to Scott Parse of Kings (VIDEO)
Ah, summer camp. A time for fun, adventure, romance, sneaking off into the woods when the councilors are asleep and, of course, stoning Sidney Crosby on a point-blank shot while also shutting him down on a 2-on-0 breakaway.
This was from a summer hockey camp at the Toyota Sports Center last week. C'mon Scott Parse: That's a perfect one-timer Crosby handed you there. OK, granted, you're bouncing back from surgery on your labrum and missed all but nine gamed for the Los Angeles Kings. 'Spose that gets you a pass on the pass …
(Meanwhile, we loved Sid popping one past the goalie after the whistle. He will not be denied!)
According to Mike Silverman, who hipped us to this video, the goalie is 17-year-old Tomas Sholl, who played for the Fresno Monsters of the NAHL last season and will suit up for Bowling Green (CCHA) for 2012-13. From Hermosa Beach, Calif., he previously played for the L.A. Jr. Kings 16 AAA midget team.
And, as you can see from Twitter, he thinks players from Crosby and Matt Duchene, who also attended the camp, are "scary good."
http://bleacherreport.com/tb/d8gNX?u...m_campaign=nhl
Sidney Crosby gets robbed at a hockey camp, no thanks to Scott Parse of Kings (VIDEO)
Ah, summer camp. A time for fun, adventure, romance, sneaking off into the woods when the councilors are asleep and, of course, stoning Sidney Crosby on a point-blank shot while also shutting him down on a 2-on-0 breakaway.
This was from a summer hockey camp at the Toyota Sports Center last week. C'mon Scott Parse: That's a perfect one-timer Crosby handed you there. OK, granted, you're bouncing back from surgery on your labrum and missed all but nine gamed for the Los Angeles Kings. 'Spose that gets you a pass on the pass …
(Meanwhile, we loved Sid popping one past the goalie after the whistle. He will not be denied!)
According to Mike Silverman, who hipped us to this video, the goalie is 17-year-old Tomas Sholl, who played for the Fresno Monsters of the NAHL last season and will suit up for Bowling Green (CCHA) for 2012-13. From Hermosa Beach, Calif., he previously played for the L.A. Jr. Kings 16 AAA midget team.
And, as you can see from Twitter, he thinks players from Crosby and Matt Duchene, who also attended the camp, are "scary good."
08-22-2012 | 12:56 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 71,436
Likes: 1,877
From: Southern California
Talks cancelled:
TORONTO (AP) -- NHL collective bargaining talks have been canceled for the day and will resume Thursday.
It's not clear why the meetings have been called off.
The NHL and the NHL Players' Association had been scheduled to return to the table Wednesday afternoon.
According to TSN.ca, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly met with NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr and his brother Steve, the union's second-in-command, earlier this morning. No details were given about what was discussed.
The sides are resuming talks this week with competing bids on the table and no clear road forward.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz24Ib3Ye8w
TORONTO (AP) -- NHL collective bargaining talks have been canceled for the day and will resume Thursday.
It's not clear why the meetings have been called off.
The NHL and the NHL Players' Association had been scheduled to return to the table Wednesday afternoon.
According to TSN.ca, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly met with NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr and his brother Steve, the union's second-in-command, earlier this morning. No details were given about what was discussed.
The sides are resuming talks this week with competing bids on the table and no clear road forward.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz24Ib3Ye8w
08-22-2012 | 01:29 PM
Senior Moderator
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
iTrader: (6)
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 92,275
Likes: 4,499
From: ShitsBurgh
Talks cancelled:
TORONTO (AP) -- NHL collective bargaining talks have been canceled for the day and will resume Thursday.
It's not clear why the meetings have been called off.
The NHL and the NHL Players' Association had been scheduled to return to the table Wednesday afternoon.
According to TSN.ca, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly met with NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr and his brother Steve, the union's second-in-command, earlier this morning. No details were given about what was discussed.
The sides are resuming talks this week with competing bids on the table and no clear road forward.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz24Ib3Ye8w
TORONTO (AP) -- NHL collective bargaining talks have been canceled for the day and will resume Thursday.
It's not clear why the meetings have been called off.
The NHL and the NHL Players' Association had been scheduled to return to the table Wednesday afternoon.
According to TSN.ca, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly met with NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr and his brother Steve, the union's second-in-command, earlier this morning. No details were given about what was discussed.
The sides are resuming talks this week with competing bids on the table and no clear road forward.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz24Ib3Ye8w
Lock out here we come