NHL Strike

[drothgery]

Obviously, the situation is not the same today as it was back then, but if they keep doing this, it never will be. I'm annoyed by sports strikes of all kinds, but at least baseball players know they're not gonna lose enough of their fanbase to really hurt. That's just not true for the NHL. People will get involved in other activities, and quite a few of them won't go back to watching or attending games, at least for quite a while.

It took years of terrific baseball, including the tail end of Cal Ripken's streak, the McGwire vs. Sosa chase to break Roger Maris' home run record, Barry Bonds, a ton of new ballparks, some truly great players bursting onto the scene, the Yankees returning to dominating Evil Empire form, and my Indians being the best offensive team in baseball from 1995-2001 for attendence levels to reach pre-strike levels. If we'd had a decade where nothing exciting happened in baseball (like, say, the 1980s), I think baseball would still be recovering from the 1994 strike.

obDisclaimer: I rarely watch hockey outside of the Olympics.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Ha ha, very funny. We might have a very bad team, but its still fun to go watch Hockey.

You guys hired the talented (if injury-prone) Andrew Cassles away from us, so you can't be all bad :\

 

[Teflon Billy]

Last season on TV, nationally in the US, hockey was beaten on three separate occasions, head-to-head, by NBC's broadcast of curling tournaments.

That's because curling is awesome

 

[Teflon Billy]

It pains me to say that I side with the owners. They're the ones that caused this problem by paying marginal players obscene amounts of money. There is no way a third line forward or fifth point man should be making in excess of a million dollars a year. Hearing John Ferguson JR. complain about the state of the league is hilarious considering his teams payroll.

BUT, they had to do something, some time. Now I just hope they show the solidarity that the players are spouting.

What they should offer is to honor the agreements they have made up to this point. The owners said they would pay these guys this kind of money. No one made them, for some reason they felt this was sound business sense.

Why on Earth should they be able to just say "Yeah, I know we signed a contract, but actually forget it." Is that the nature of a contract in your neck of the woods?

If they want to change the amounts they pay players, that mechanism is already in place: it's called contract negotiation.

If the owners can't trust the New York Rangers to not drive up salaries...then how united are they exactly?

 

[Teflon Billy]

How can Trevor Linden keep a straight face when looking at the TV camera and saying that he "Understands how the fans feel". Sorry Teflon Billy, but I hope Bertuzzi punches him in a scrimmage this winter. Maybe it will knock some sense into him.

Trevor doesn;t get into many fights but he has never lost one.

He also shoved a guy through the glass at one point.

You wouldn;t think so to look at him, but Linden vs Bertuzzi would be closer than you might htink.

(assuming Bert didn't get him from behind)

 

[Stone Angel]

Bring on the scabs!! Remember when the NFL did the same thing? This season saved football as we know it. I hope it does the same for Hockey. I love hockey. But I hate to watch it on TV.

Crothian are the Bluejackets semi pro?

The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Crothian]

Crothian are the Bluejackets semi pro?

They are the bravest team in the NHL...what other "semi pro" team plays with the big boys...

 

[Teflon Billy]

They are the bravest team in the NHL...what other "semi pro" team plays with the big boys...

The Pittsburgh Penguins

 

[Crothian]

The Pittsburgh Penguins

They might be doing bad now, but they had their good years.

 

[devilbat]

Why on Earth should they be able to just say "Yeah, I know we signed a contract, but actually forget it." Is that the nature of a contract in your neck of the woods?

Noooooo, but in my neck of the woods we don't forget about that cute little trick many players utilize to get around a contract, called "holding out".

Remember Pavel Bure with the Cunucks? He still had years left on his exsisting contract. He was making plenty of money, the fans loved him, the toast of British Columbia. What did he do? Oh yeah, held out until traded.

Nobody should kid themselves to believing that the players would continue to play without a Collective Bargaining Agreement. If the owners didn't lock them out, they would be striking.

Oh yes, the owners did agree to pay these guys, and they should be held ultimately responsible for the state of the game. BUT, they own the teams. If they want to change things, they should be able to. If players don't like it, they should go to Sweden, Finalnd, Russia or anywhere else they have a pro league.

But wait, the owners can't get together and agree to change the way they do things, because that would be collusion. Remember what happened in Baseball with that C word.

Anyway, the cracks are starting to show. John Madden of the Devils was quoted in a New Jersey newspaper saying that he would agree to a salary cap, if thats what it took to get the season underway.

GO OWNERS!