2013-13 NHL Season Thread.

[Greeney]

According to Elliot Friedman from CBC, Anaheim, Columbus, Florida, the Islanders, Phoenix, St. Louis, Washington and Dallas are the hardline owners along with Boston. Samueli wants more revenue sharing because Anaheim is not in good financial shape at all. They aren't one of the absolute bottom of the barrel teams, but they are a money loser and a revenue sharing taker.

Two owners you're missing that should be high up there on the list are Calgary's and Carolina's. I should have mentioned Carolina's owner before, he is a big loudmouth anti-NHLPA from what I read.

And for those that think Anaheim is one of the teams that are on the owners side. That couldn't be farther from the truth.. Contrary to recent attendance the past few years the Ducks generate some nice revenue in this area from things outside of hockey games. The team is in a very good place compared to other small market teams.

Anaheim is a harder team to judge. The Samuelli's aren't outspoken, they haven't spent money on ridiculous contracts, they continue spending and losing money, but they are being considered hardliners here by just about any source. So I don't think you have any reason to hate them, but it could most certainly be further from the truth.

Snider also happens to head up Comcast who own NBC (since Comcast are the owners of the Flyers), so nothing but a giant bunch of fucking hypocrisy from that decrepit old assbag. He is so in bed with Bettman that he must be giving Gary reach around's because if either of those two giant douche nozzles had any level of intelligence, they would have been the first to both prevent the lockout because of the TV contract.

As I said before, Snider was a big player in starting the lockout in the first place.

"Snider, the longest-serving NHL governor, is believed to be feeling a "strong discontent" for Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs, who has been one of the lockout's ringleaders. "
http://www.thefourthperiod.com/news/phi121117.html

[Rennadrel]

Yeah, only 3 months after the lockout started, kinda amusing how some people have a change of heart when money is on the line. Greedy pricks just want to start stuffing their bank accounts with the money of the fans. I hope the fans stay at home if the season starts up at some point this year just to send a message that people aren't going to tolerate the greed of the owners and how much they have continued to force absurd changes down the throats of the players.

[MordorFires]

As bad as Bettman is, much of the blame deserves to be placed on the owners as well. I don't know all of the details, but from what I've heard the players gave up many concessions in the last deal and are now very much against doing so again. Honestly, both sides get more money than they deserve (an over-generalization, many players probably aren't doing well right now), and us fans are suffering.

The NHL has become a sorry example of how pathetic people can be when they actually have too much money to worry about, much like the NFL referee issue earlier this year.

[Captaincrab]

From what i can understand Gary Bettman dosent really seem to be that interested in a quick solution that he says he is.
He dosent want to agree with any of NHLPA's proposals and he (if you ask me) only made this lockout for personal winning.
which dosent really seem to be very smart of him tbh, since really Gary Bettman is replaceable there is there is probably someone in the world that would take on his job for WAY less money than Gary make and he would probably do it better (gary have 3 lockouts under his career.. way to go)
But the players are NOT replaceable since there is a reason they play there and its because they are the very best players in the world so why is gary willing to sacrifice the players for his own good?

So i wonder why is Gary doing this? Is he just a greedy person that wants to increase the size of his wallet or is he doing this to make NHL better?
OR is it the players who are greedy since they still will make more money than a normal person?

I myself do not think that hockeyplayers are overpaid, they are actually underpaid if you ask me, 82 games minimun in 1 season and still they make about the same as NFL players who plays like 16 games minimum?

Baseball players play tons more. It's about how much can the body take before you end up with too many players risking career ending injuries too soon, football seasons doesn't last all that long and yet coaches still don't play some star players at the end of the season if playoff spots are safe.

The reason they keep the guy is because every time he's ended up saving the owners a lot of money at the cost of arguably the least valuable part of the season. I don't agree with the guy, but they won't sack him unless things get a lot uglier.

[Garbles]

Stumbled across this http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...3Rpb25z;_ylv=3, got a good laugh from it...

Aside from that i have an idea, when the 2014 season comes around, lets pull a Bill Wirtz and stop showing the games on TV, that'll get people to stop going to/watching the games all together. Hey, after time maybe each franchise can make something like "Hawkvision" and you can pay $30 per month to watch the games on pay-per-view...no not really i just wanted to rant about that because im still not over it.

[Rennadrel]

Baseball players play tons more. It's about how much can the body take before you end up with too many players risking career ending injuries too soon, football seasons doesn't last all that long and yet coaches still don't play some star players at the end of the season if playoff spots are safe.

The reason they keep the guy is because every time he's ended up saving the owners a lot of money at the cost of arguably the least valuable part of the season. I don't agree with the guy, but they won't sack him unless things get a lot uglier.

If the NHLPA files for declassification, Bettman is sure to lose his job, it's that simple. Declassification would destroy everything past CBA's have introduced and the league would be stuck with no structure at all, they would be forced to start from absolute scratch and bargain with the NHLPA on everything. The upside is that it could revert the salary cap and convince the league to at least just consider having a hard cap on player salaries and hard cap team spending at like 100 million a year but having no cap floor, setting a fair term length and introducing rules to prevent front loaded long term deals would be more in the best interest of the players. It would also nullify all existing contracts so maybe some of these idiot owners could go back and redo the contracts they signed willingly and we wouldn't have these issues.

[Wooblez]

more games cancelled

[Fuzzzie]

more games cancelled

write off season is written off. Even if they come back they've lost a lot of their audience.

[Zoma]

[Armourboy]

WTF is wrong with the Vols? Man their football team is just garbage and has been for awhile. You'd think a school that at least seems like a big name wouldn't suck that bad.

As for the Preds being part of the lockout owners, look at it this way, there are at least nine owners right now who are preventing a deal from being made months ago. Those 9 almost certainly include Gary Bettman (the Phoenix Coyotes), James Dolan (the Rangers, giant douche), Jeff Vanderbeek (Devils, tons of financial trouble), Michael Yormark (Panthers, franchise is in horrible financial shape), and Craig LIARpold (Minnesota Wild), John McConnell (Columbus Blue Jackets). That is 6 guys that are almost certainly on that side. I'd guess that the owners of Nashville is one of the other three, but who knows. I'd probably guess Wang also since the Islanders are just biding time now until they move to Brooklyn in a few years. Plus this is one more year off the Dipietro contract lol. Anaheim is probably up there since that franchise is supposedly in rough shape.

The only ones we can bank on not being part of the lockout is all the Canadian clubs, Detroit, Buffalo, Philly (their owner owns the damn tv contract, no way does he support the lockout), Chicago, Pittsburgh (who has been working under the table to try and build up enough owner support to end this rumor has it), LA, Boston, maybe the Caps, and possibly St Louis.

Its called bad AD's and even worse coaches, although I think Dooley is what the program needed at the time ( someone to clean it up). I'm not really a Tennessee fan, my team would be Arkansas, so I don't pay attention to every single thing, but that seems to be the consensus.

As far as Nashville being one of the harcore backers its hard to say. The owners have been fairly silent ( we have like 6 or something) but considering they just brought a Canadian in to be the big money man, I can't imagine they would be going for a win at all cost mentality. Like I think with lots of owners, I figured they backed it at first, but as things have drug on I'm not so sure now. You gotta keep in mind that Nashville is a different beast, and while obviously they want to make more money, I'm not sure they are willing to put the entire franchise on the line just to do it. Being a local ownership group mostly, the larger scope is to keep a team in Nashville and win a cup. I just don't think they would be willing to completely lose most of the fan base back to other more popular sports to win in negotiations. I could be wrong though, with how much it grew in the last few years, plus the fact Bridgestone Arena is the 4th most used Arena in country for other events, they might think they can survive it.

[kabookiejoez]

so happy i bought season tickets to the Mooseheads. and they're 21-2

[Zoma]

Lockout Trivia Time: Did you know we've gone 64 pages without an NHL game?

[Irony]

Well that's depressing.

[Kerdoz]

The only positive thing about this is NHL players coming over to Europe. Really starting to miss NHL though. I am starting to get the feeling that we won't be seeing any games this season

[Zeoni]

They cancelled the allstar game and more games through December, I've come to terms and pretty much accepted we're not getting any NHL season this year. Not to worry however, World Junior tournament is not too far away!

[Armourboy]

I've at least been enjoying watching the CHL games on NHL network when I can catch them. Personally would rather see those than the old Winter Classic and Playoff reruns.

[Skippy88]

They cancelled the allstar game and more games through December, I've come to terms and pretty much accepted we're not getting any NHL season this year. Not to worry however, World Junior tournament is not too far away!

Just remember the last 3 lockouts didn't get resolved until the year after. It's hard to say if they will get a deal done early enough that they can have a shorten season or not.

[conscript]

Just remember the last 3 lockouts didn't get resolved until the year after. It's hard to say if they will get a deal done early enough that they can have a shorten season or not.

Ya at this point they are looking at at best 41 games since even if the deal was done and signed today it would take another 2-3 weeks to get everything worked out scheduling wise to start the year. Anything longer and they are looking at games in July which is impossible since there is no way the ice can support play in some markets in that weather. Hell it can barely hold up in April-May in some arenas.

[Fuzzzie]

Ya at this point they are looking at at best 41 games since even if the deal was done and signed today it would take another 2-3 weeks to get everything worked out scheduling wise to start the year. Anything longer and they are looking at games in July which is impossible since there is no way the ice can support play in some markets in that weather. Hell it can barely hold up in April-May in some arenas.

Yeah, I recall when Tampa was in the playoffs last year or maybe the year before they said the ice was melting because of the temperature. It gets really hard to cool when theres also thousands of people breathing and being in the arena.

[Garbles]

BREAKING: NHL & NHLPA have agreed to federal mediation per Bob McKenzie.

---------- Post added 2012-11-26 at 02:14 PM ----------

Deputy Director Scot L. Beckenbaugh, Director of Mediation Services John Sweeney, and Commissioner Guy Serota to serve as the mediators.

Mediation agreements are binding. The parties are not bound to agree to anything in mediation.