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Hockey: News and Discussion Thread
01-03-2013, 05:15 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
What's hockey?
01-03-2013, 05:27 PM
Senior Moderator
They cancel the season yet for the NHL?
01-03-2013, 05:35 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
What is this NHL you speak of?
01-03-2013, 05:49 PM
Senior Moderator
Well, Waldorf...I told escabby a few pages back that it is this League of Two Ugly Men who negotiate and whine about millions of dollars and issue dumb press conferences every few days about how far apart they are.
That's the NHL. Duh.
That's the NHL. Duh.
01-03-2013, 05:54 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
^^ For a moment there I thought you were talking about Daryl Katz and the Mayor of Edmonton. 
01-03-2013, 06:46 PM
Senior Moderator
if they became the Seattle Oilers.
01-04-2013, 07:20 AM
Senior Moderator
01-04-2013, 10:22 AM
The sizzle in the Steak
I think I am only 1 of about 5 people in the entire U.S. that are aware of the tourney.
01-04-2013, 10:29 AM
I shoot people
01-04-2013, 10:59 AM
The sizzle in the Steak
location, location, location 
01-04-2013, 11:55 AM
I shoot people
01-04-2013, 12:07 PM
Senior Moderator
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
iTrader: (6)
01-04-2013, 12:16 PM
Senior Moderator
I hope that's a chewy cookie.
01-04-2013, 01:19 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
wookie?
01-04-2013, 01:26 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
More truthful words have never been spoken:
Ultimately, the NHL CBA negotiation is a lot like an NBA game. You'll save a lot of time & won't miss much if you just tune in for the final 2 minutes.
01-04-2013, 01:53 PM
Senior Moderator
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
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iTrader: (6)
1 week left to save the season... Final countdown
01-04-2013, 01:57 PM
Senior Moderator
Save the season? Dude...there is no season to save. Never was.
Can the season, please!
Can the season, please!
01-04-2013, 02:06 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
Half a season is no real season.
Kill it.
See you in October.
Kill it.
See you in October.
01-04-2013, 05:09 PM
Senior Moderator
01-04-2013, 05:13 PM
The sizzle in the Steak
^^ But if the season gets completely cancelled, you guys are The Cup winners by default.
01-05-2013, 12:22 AM
Senior Moderator
Yup. I already said the Leaves are winning this year's Cup by default. 
01-05-2013, 01:54 AM
Senior Moderator
Toxic atmosphere engulfs CBA talks...written nicely by Hackel of CNNSI: http://nhl-red-light.si.com/2013/01/...?sct=uk_t11_a5
Dunno...from what I'm reading, I don't see how a season can be salvaged.
Dunno...from what I'm reading, I don't see how a season can be salvaged.
01-05-2013, 08:18 AM
Senior Moderator
First time in 14 years Canada failed to at least medal at the world juniors.
I'm going to go play in traffic now.
I'm going to go play in traffic now.
01-05-2013, 11:55 AM
Senior Moderator
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
iTrader: (6)
01-05-2013, 11:55 AM
Senior Moderator
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
iTrader: (6)
01-06-2013, 07:07 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/sp...t.html?hp&_r=0
N.H.L. and Players Union Reach Tentative Agreement to End Lockout
The National Hockey League and its players union reached a tentative agreement on Sunday to end the lockout, after a marathon 16-hour negotiating session
The end came at about 5 a.m. Sunday, the 113th day of the lockout, at a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
“Don Fehr and I are here to tell you that we have reached an agreement on a framework for a new collective bargaining agreement,” the N.H.L. commissioner Gary Bettman said, standing alongside Donald Fehr, the executive director of the N.H.L. Players’ Association. “We still have more work to do, but it’s good to be at this point.”
“Hopefully within a very few days,” Fehr said, “The fans can get back to watching people who are skating, not the two of us.”
Pending ratification, which is likely, by the players and owners, a 48- to 50-game season is expected to begin before Jan. 20, with the Stanley Cup awarded by the end of June.
Scot L. Beckenbaugh, deputy director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, emerged as crucial player for his efforts to end an often bitter lockout.
Saturday’s negotiations went on as players completed a vote on whether to authorize Fehr to dissolve the union if the talked stalled. Exercising that option would have probably ended the bargaining and push the proceedings into court.
But hopes rose that a settlement could be reached as the negotiations went late into the early hours of Sunday morning.
Bettman, the league commissioner, had set a deadline of Jan. 11 for saving a 48-game schedule.
Beckenbaugh spent 12 hours Friday shuttling between the N.H.L. office in Midtown Manhattan and the union’s hotel two blocks away.
Under federal mediation rules, Beckenbaugh was not allowed to reveal to one side what the other side had said. Rather, he was bound to discuss the issues with each side and learn how far each was willing to go without indicating what the other had said.
Finally he determined that it would be worthwhile to bring the sides together for a bargaining session, which began at 1:15 p.m. Saturday at the union’s hotel and turned out to be by far the longest since the stoppage began on Sept. 15.
Beckenbaugh started the day around 10:30 in the morning, meeting each side separately before presiding over the face-to-face talks. Often the two sides retired to caucus separately, and Beckenbaugh would shuttle between them.
Altogether, Beckenbaugh, 59, worked more than 30 hours on Friday, Saturday and into the wee hours Sunday to bring the two sides back together and keep them focused on the issues..
As the talks picked up some momentum, voting on the measure authorizing Fehr to dissolve the union ended at 6 p.m., with the membership of more than 700 players approving the move.
But that point became moot with the settlement.
The lockout began Sept. 15, when the collective bargaining agreement that had been in place for seven years expired. The atmosphere was cordial at first, but became increasingly bitter as negotiations stalled.
On Oct. 18, the N.H.L. took less than 15 minutes to reject three union proposals, with Bettman saying he was thoroughly disappointed.
“When you make three proposals and get shut down in 10 minutes, it’s hard to think the other side really wants to negotiate,” the Penguins star Sidney Crosby said.
On Dec. 6, Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner, informed the union via a voicemail message that the league had rejected another proposal, less than an hour after the offer was made. The rejection came even as Fehr, surrounded by more than a dozen players, was announcing that a framework for a deal was in place.
Shortly afterward, an angry Bettman said he was bewildered by Fehr’s actions, and Daly told reporters that the issue of contract term limits was “the hill we will die on.”
Fehr was criticized for not informing the union membership of the true nature of the owners’ proposals — a claim that he and other players denied, pointing out that several players were present for every bargaining session. But despite that and other accusations, the players remained united behind Fehr throughout the lockout.
As the lockout dragged on, some players made comments that fed the atmosphere of distrust. The Blackhawks’ Dave Bolland apologized for reposting a Twitter message about “wanting Bettman dead.” The Red Wings’ Ian White called Bettman an “idiot,” and the Panthers’ Kris Versteeg called Bettman and Daly “cancers.”
Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold were seen as especially fractious figures during talks, with each getting into arguments with players on the other side of the negotiating table. Leipold signed the free agents Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to identical $13-year, $98 million contracts just before the lockout, then sought to roll those and similar contracts back in negotiations. Owners were not present for the final, successful bargaining sessions.
The lockout was the third since Bettman became commissioner in 1993. The three lockouts together have led to the cancellation of about 2,400 regular-season games since Bettman assumed office, some 10 percent of the games originally scheduled. That percentage is more than three times higher than for any other major league in the same 20-year period.
The first lockout cost almost half the 1994-95 season, as the league tried unsuccessfully to impose a salary cap on the players’ union. A settlement was reached Jan. 11, 1995, with play resuming on Jan. 20.
Each team played a 48-game schedule, down from the 84-game schedule of the season before. The Devils won the Stanley Cup on June 24, the latest finish to a season in N.H.L. history.
The second lockout canceled the entire 2004-5 season, the only time a full season in a North American major sports league was erased by a labor dispute. The league was successful in imposing a salary cap as well as getting players to accept a 24 percent pay cut.
In the aftermath, the players’ association was riven by dissension and ran through three executive directors before Fehr arrived in early 2010. He became executive director in December 2010, after leading the baseball players’ union from 1983 to 2009.
In 1994, the N.H.L. was on a popular and financial upswing after the Rangers’ first Stanley Cup victory in 54 years, but the lockout stalled the momentum. But the league was losing money before the lockout in 2004, which, from the owners’ point of view, made it essential that they get salary cap on players salaries and more control of costs.
The lockout that ended early Sunday morning was seen as especially self-destructive, coming as the league was growing financially and generating record revenues, including $3.3 billion last season.
Stanley Cup victories by teams in big American cities — Los Angeles in 2012, preceded by Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Detroit — and strong contenders in Philadelphia and New York have helped raise the league’s profile. The 2010 Olympic hockey tournament, with N.H.L. stars in the spotlight, and the annual Winter Classic extravaganza brought high ratings and boosted fan interest in the United States. A strong dollar in Canada, where the N.H.L. remained the dominant sports league, raised revenues across the board.
But the success was deceptive; 10 or more clubs were believed to be losing money. By canceling the three least profitable months of the season, the lockout assured that clubs like Phoenix, Columbus, Florida and the Islanders cut their losses.
The lengthy layoff angered fans, sponsors and television networks. In 2011 NBC agreed to 10-year, $2 billion TV rights contract with the N.H.L., which provided a significant amount of programming for the struggling NBC Sports Network. Fans and sponsors may be slow to return to a league seen as habitually troubled by labor problems.
The fear among many involved with the N.H.L. is that on the American sports landscape, it has returned to the shadows from whence it only recently emerged.
“Hate to say it,” Red Wings Coach Mike Babcock said last month, “but we could end up like bowling.”
N.H.L. and Players Union Reach Tentative Agreement to End Lockout
The National Hockey League and its players union reached a tentative agreement on Sunday to end the lockout, after a marathon 16-hour negotiating session
The end came at about 5 a.m. Sunday, the 113th day of the lockout, at a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
“Don Fehr and I are here to tell you that we have reached an agreement on a framework for a new collective bargaining agreement,” the N.H.L. commissioner Gary Bettman said, standing alongside Donald Fehr, the executive director of the N.H.L. Players’ Association. “We still have more work to do, but it’s good to be at this point.”
“Hopefully within a very few days,” Fehr said, “The fans can get back to watching people who are skating, not the two of us.”
Pending ratification, which is likely, by the players and owners, a 48- to 50-game season is expected to begin before Jan. 20, with the Stanley Cup awarded by the end of June.
Scot L. Beckenbaugh, deputy director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, emerged as crucial player for his efforts to end an often bitter lockout.
Saturday’s negotiations went on as players completed a vote on whether to authorize Fehr to dissolve the union if the talked stalled. Exercising that option would have probably ended the bargaining and push the proceedings into court.
But hopes rose that a settlement could be reached as the negotiations went late into the early hours of Sunday morning.
Bettman, the league commissioner, had set a deadline of Jan. 11 for saving a 48-game schedule.
Beckenbaugh spent 12 hours Friday shuttling between the N.H.L. office in Midtown Manhattan and the union’s hotel two blocks away.
Under federal mediation rules, Beckenbaugh was not allowed to reveal to one side what the other side had said. Rather, he was bound to discuss the issues with each side and learn how far each was willing to go without indicating what the other had said.
Finally he determined that it would be worthwhile to bring the sides together for a bargaining session, which began at 1:15 p.m. Saturday at the union’s hotel and turned out to be by far the longest since the stoppage began on Sept. 15.
Beckenbaugh started the day around 10:30 in the morning, meeting each side separately before presiding over the face-to-face talks. Often the two sides retired to caucus separately, and Beckenbaugh would shuttle between them.
Altogether, Beckenbaugh, 59, worked more than 30 hours on Friday, Saturday and into the wee hours Sunday to bring the two sides back together and keep them focused on the issues..
As the talks picked up some momentum, voting on the measure authorizing Fehr to dissolve the union ended at 6 p.m., with the membership of more than 700 players approving the move.
But that point became moot with the settlement.
The lockout began Sept. 15, when the collective bargaining agreement that had been in place for seven years expired. The atmosphere was cordial at first, but became increasingly bitter as negotiations stalled.
On Oct. 18, the N.H.L. took less than 15 minutes to reject three union proposals, with Bettman saying he was thoroughly disappointed.
“When you make three proposals and get shut down in 10 minutes, it’s hard to think the other side really wants to negotiate,” the Penguins star Sidney Crosby said.
On Dec. 6, Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner, informed the union via a voicemail message that the league had rejected another proposal, less than an hour after the offer was made. The rejection came even as Fehr, surrounded by more than a dozen players, was announcing that a framework for a deal was in place.
Shortly afterward, an angry Bettman said he was bewildered by Fehr’s actions, and Daly told reporters that the issue of contract term limits was “the hill we will die on.”
Fehr was criticized for not informing the union membership of the true nature of the owners’ proposals — a claim that he and other players denied, pointing out that several players were present for every bargaining session. But despite that and other accusations, the players remained united behind Fehr throughout the lockout.
As the lockout dragged on, some players made comments that fed the atmosphere of distrust. The Blackhawks’ Dave Bolland apologized for reposting a Twitter message about “wanting Bettman dead.” The Red Wings’ Ian White called Bettman an “idiot,” and the Panthers’ Kris Versteeg called Bettman and Daly “cancers.”
Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold were seen as especially fractious figures during talks, with each getting into arguments with players on the other side of the negotiating table. Leipold signed the free agents Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to identical $13-year, $98 million contracts just before the lockout, then sought to roll those and similar contracts back in negotiations. Owners were not present for the final, successful bargaining sessions.
The lockout was the third since Bettman became commissioner in 1993. The three lockouts together have led to the cancellation of about 2,400 regular-season games since Bettman assumed office, some 10 percent of the games originally scheduled. That percentage is more than three times higher than for any other major league in the same 20-year period.
The first lockout cost almost half the 1994-95 season, as the league tried unsuccessfully to impose a salary cap on the players’ union. A settlement was reached Jan. 11, 1995, with play resuming on Jan. 20.
Each team played a 48-game schedule, down from the 84-game schedule of the season before. The Devils won the Stanley Cup on June 24, the latest finish to a season in N.H.L. history.
The second lockout canceled the entire 2004-5 season, the only time a full season in a North American major sports league was erased by a labor dispute. The league was successful in imposing a salary cap as well as getting players to accept a 24 percent pay cut.
In the aftermath, the players’ association was riven by dissension and ran through three executive directors before Fehr arrived in early 2010. He became executive director in December 2010, after leading the baseball players’ union from 1983 to 2009.
In 1994, the N.H.L. was on a popular and financial upswing after the Rangers’ first Stanley Cup victory in 54 years, but the lockout stalled the momentum. But the league was losing money before the lockout in 2004, which, from the owners’ point of view, made it essential that they get salary cap on players salaries and more control of costs.
The lockout that ended early Sunday morning was seen as especially self-destructive, coming as the league was growing financially and generating record revenues, including $3.3 billion last season.
Stanley Cup victories by teams in big American cities — Los Angeles in 2012, preceded by Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Detroit — and strong contenders in Philadelphia and New York have helped raise the league’s profile. The 2010 Olympic hockey tournament, with N.H.L. stars in the spotlight, and the annual Winter Classic extravaganza brought high ratings and boosted fan interest in the United States. A strong dollar in Canada, where the N.H.L. remained the dominant sports league, raised revenues across the board.
But the success was deceptive; 10 or more clubs were believed to be losing money. By canceling the three least profitable months of the season, the lockout assured that clubs like Phoenix, Columbus, Florida and the Islanders cut their losses.
The lengthy layoff angered fans, sponsors and television networks. In 2011 NBC agreed to 10-year, $2 billion TV rights contract with the N.H.L., which provided a significant amount of programming for the struggling NBC Sports Network. Fans and sponsors may be slow to return to a league seen as habitually troubled by labor problems.
The fear among many involved with the N.H.L. is that on the American sports landscape, it has returned to the shadows from whence it only recently emerged.
“Hate to say it,” Red Wings Coach Mike Babcock said last month, “but we could end up like bowling.”
01-06-2013, 08:22 AM
And btw I really don't want a 30-40 game season.
01-06-2013, 08:23 AM
Senior Moderator
No idea why (being a Leaf fan) but I'm happier than a pig in shit right now.
And stupid enough to watch again after all this B.S.
01-06-2013, 08:36 AM
It is going to be lame and whoever wins the cup will need an asterisk.
01-06-2013, 09:45 AM
Trolling Canuckistan
Some hockey is better than no hockey and as for the asterisk, that's idiotic. Why not go put an asterisk for every team that won the cup with less than 82 regular season games and less than 16 playoff wins. The season format constantly evolving, that's not a new thing. This years Stanley Cup Champion will be the team that was most successful under the current format, just like every year.
01-06-2013, 09:53 AM
Some hockey is better than no hockey and as for the asterisk, that's idiotic. Why not go put an asterisk for every team that won the cup with less than 82 regular season games and less than 16 playoff wins. The season format constantly evolving, that's not a new thing. This years Stanley Cup Champion will be the team that was most successful under the current format, just like every year.
The reality is there are players that did nothing and don't have the conditioning they would have had, there are players that played in other leagues and were hurt.
The thing that makes winning the cup special is the way teams have ups and downs throughout the full season culminating in having what it takes through the playoffs to win. Look at last year. Nobody expected the kings to make the finals and there was the possibility they would not make the playoffs at all. That is what makes it great. Not a short season f00ked off by greedy zillionaires.
I am just sick of the whole thing and find it hard to thank them for screwing us again because I am glad to have any hockey.
01-06-2013, 10:06 AM
Trolling Canuckistan
That is a nice fairytale.
The reality is there are players that did nothing and don't have the conditioning they would have had, there are players that played in other leagues and were hurt.
The thing that makes winning the cup special is the way teams have ups and downs throughout the full season culminating in having what it takes through the playoffs to win. Look at last year. Nobody expected the kings to make the finals and there was the possibility they would not make the playoffs at all. That is what makes it great. Not a short season f00ked off by greedy zillionaires.
I am just sick of the whole thing and find it hard to thank them for screwing us again because I am glad to have any hockey.
The reality is there are players that did nothing and don't have the conditioning they would have had, there are players that played in other leagues and were hurt.
The thing that makes winning the cup special is the way teams have ups and downs throughout the full season culminating in having what it takes through the playoffs to win. Look at last year. Nobody expected the kings to make the finals and there was the possibility they would not make the playoffs at all. That is what makes it great. Not a short season f00ked off by greedy zillionaires.
I am just sick of the whole thing and find it hard to thank them for screwing us again because I am glad to have any hockey.
If we start asterisking anything that isn't an 80+ game schedule, dom's head will explode, the Leafs will have nothing left, they've never won it all with more than a 70 game schedule.
01-06-2013, 10:12 AM
You can call cow pies a souffle, I 'm not eating it.
lol
I'm bitter. I'll get over it.
lol
I'm bitter. I'll get over it.
01-06-2013, 10:29 AM
Senior Moderator
01-06-2013, 12:08 PM
Senior Moderator
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
Regional Coordinator
(Mid-Atlantic)
iTrader: (6)
So the drought in Toronto continues 
01-06-2013, 01:58 PM
Senior Moderator
Wow.
Not sure what to say. Let's see what sort of results at the gate the NHL has after this recent pie in the face.
Will I watch games? Yeah...but, under protest.
Not sure what to say. Let's see what sort of results at the gate the NHL has after this recent pie in the face.
Will I watch games? Yeah...but, under protest.
