The Lockout Thread (R)

The End of the NHL as we know it begins tomorrow...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132500,00.html

 

man, i was so excited for the thrashers this season, i blame jaromir jagr and his 600 million thousand billion dollar a day contract.

 

I'm a huge hockey fan.
The season in Germany will start on friday, I bought tickets for my favourite team's first match today.

Will be interesting for sure to see what players will come over to Europe in addition to those who already signed "in case of lockout" contracts.

I guess most european players will go "home" and some of the other stars will probably follow the money to Russia and Switzerland but maybe some will also play in Germany, Hecht and Sturm for sure.

 

Aftonbladet, a Swedish daily, had a list of players coming over to play in the Swedish elite league. 27 players, including names like Peter Forsberg, Tomas Holmstrom, Mattias Ohlund, the Sedin brothers, and Markus Naslund are coming over to play in Sweden. If the lockout runs past Christmas, Mats Sundin, and a couple of others, are heading over as well. This is in addition to players who had already signed earlier this summer in anticipation of a lockout.

 

Man, I was thinking that not watching the dysfunctional Rangers might be a blessing but I've realized that I still love these idiots regardless and now I can't imagine life without hockey.

What are your personal takes on the labor situation? Do you think the players are being selfish in not wanting a salary cap or were the owners too poised on their demand that it seems unfair?

 

don't forget seidenberg!... one of my flyers.

 

*hawk* *ptoo*


You play a friggin game for a living and make much more than any of us do. Shut your bitch hole and play.

 

Politically, I'm a liberal and 100% pro-union. But I'm also a hockey fan and I try to be a realist. And I am DAMN PROUD to be a New Jersey Devils fan after John Madden had the guts to say what few other players have been willing to say. Mad Dog - and I'm sure other NHLPA members - realize that a salary cap may need to be imposed so the league can cope with economic realities.

It makes me a bit worried that when the whole strike thing is over, it may drive a wedge between him and his teammates, but again - it had to be said.

 

can someone please explain this to me....

what the hell is going on over there?

is this a union strike or something.....?

 

Not a strike, but a lockout. The player's union and teams have been arguing over a new CBA since the last has run out. Essentially, the teams want sallary caps, and the union won't hear of it.

So the teams have put in place a lock out, meaning the owners are not allowing the players to play.

 

It's a lockout. Their contact agreement has expired and the owners want a new agreement.

 

Lockout:

Pro: Annoying Flyers' fans have lower profile.

Con: No Red Wings games for quite awhile.

Pro: No Don Cherry

Con: No Don Cherry

 

Ok, the 2 of the last 4 NHL games I've been to , Islanders at Ottawa, Leafs at Carolina, those ones I paid for the tickets. I got a playoff ticket in Carolina from a scalper for less than I would pay for a regular season Leaf ticket from the box office.

The other two games were in Toronto, and my buddy got the tickets free from work.

The last two games my son went to?
Islanders at Ottawa, and Vancouver at Buffalo.

We just can't afford Leaf tickets.
I can take my kids to a ball game in Toronto, (as long as I feed them first), but I cannot afford to take them to a Leaf game. The prices are too high.

Granted, the Leafs have been making the playoffs, and have seemed to be putting a team on the ice that has had a chance to make it to the Cup Finals, although they haven't made it there in almost as long as I can remember.

Do I blame the players? No.They are going to play anyway, for whatever the going rate is. The owners want the salary cap to protect themselves; not from the players, the owners need the salary cap to protect themselves from themselves. The fans who pay for tickets at a Leaf's home game should be checked in to a mental institute.

I can drive up the street to a Kitchener Rangers junior game and be just as well entertained hockeywise, for a fraction of the cost, and I can take my kids too!

My answer to this situation (a fan's solution) is to have lower guaranteed base salaries, and higher performance bonuses. If the team makes the playoffs, all the players get a bonus,(which is amply covered by the inflated playoff ticket prices).
You get 20 goals, you get a bonus, you get 30 goals, you get a bigger bonus.
You lead the league in plus/minus stats (or any category) you get a big bonus.
Top 10 finish in the league in any stat(offensive or defensive) you get a certain bonus level.(elite players).
Top 11-25 you get a lower bonus.
25-50 you get a lower bonus.
It's not based on absolute numbers, but relative numbers. Your percentile performance against you peers.

You don't have a good year, you get your base salary, (and an incentive to improve the following year).

Ticket prices follow the team's performance. Miss the playoffs? You have to lower your prices by a certain percentage. Make the playoffs? You get to increase prices by a certain percentage.
Got 100 points in the regular season? You get to raise your ticket prices. Get only 80 points the following season? Ticket prices have to come down.
Make it all relative to performance.

The teams have an incentive to have a good year, therefore to hire the best talent available(in all facets, players, coaching, trainers etc.) If they have a bad year? Well the money is not so great the following year.

Players changing teams would get paid to play their first year according to where they fit in on their new team's stat sheets.

The bonuses for advancing through the playoff rounds should be geared to providing the incentive to succeed. The playoff ticket sales should be enough to cover the owner's incentives.

Both sides are right. This thing needs to be fixed, but it is the paying public who should be providing the input and incentive.
Don't go to the frikkin' games until you feel you are getting your money's worth.

Oh yes and Mr. Bettman, and Mr. Goodenow. Can't iron out a collective bargaining agreement? Your salary goes down. (or disappears altogether)

Come on people. Why do they call it common sense, when it seems to be so rare?

 

To be fair, the owners aren't blameless. But a lot of smart ass observers say that the players shouldn't have to pay for the owners' mistakes, that the owners never should have offered those exorbitant contracts in the first place. Well great, now that that ship has sailed, what do they propose? Look, it's the owners' money. They should be able to set an upper limit on player costs and tie that to revenues. Where else but in sports can you find a system in which an employee is paid, regardless of performance, and can't be discharged without penalty to the employer?

This is a seperate issue, but why do people complain about the salaries that professional athletes make? Most fans are annoyed with the NHLPA because they want to continue to make money, even if clubs continue to lose money, hand over fist. But a lot of fans complain bitterly that sportsmen make too much anyway. And yet, no one ever seems to complain about how much actors and musicians make.

My question for Goodenow: The Players' Association has said repeatedly that it will not negotiate on the basis of a salary cap. The question having been begged so copiously, I will ask it. Why?

 

This is the most depressing issue.

Both sides claim they want a season and a strong league...blah blah blah....yet both don't do the required thing and that s to make sacrifices, bargin, and work out a deal everyone can sleep with. You dont have to love it and be 100% happy with it NHLPA and owners, all you need to do is Business and conclude a deal that puts those players on the ice for their teams.

look at baseball, they managed to work out a contract and the league seems strong. They may have learnt from the terrible strikeyear about 10 years ago. Hockey has not and thats the depressing issue. Millions of Hockey fans everywhere are as angry as me and some will not return to hockey. not when sports like Basketball, Football, baseball, and others are around.

Shame on the players. Shame on the owners .pity for the hockey fan.

 

Does anybody here know where to get a breakdown of ticket prices across the league?
I would like to compare this to each team's salaries. Just for my own information.
If I knew where to get the numbers, I would work up a spreadsheet, using last year's numbers.
Ticket prices, number of seats at each price level. Maximum revenue per game, total player's salaries, points etc.
A couple of pie charts and bar graphs etc.
It might be interesting to look at it.

The point is this; purely from a fan's perspective. Why aren't ticket prices(increases in prices)indexed to on ice performance? Break it down into categories or tiers. Have 6 tiers of ticket prices. Teams can move up and down through the ticket pricing tiers based on their on-ice performance.

Surely the administrative, clerical, and support staff(ushers,zamboni drivers etc.) could be paid out of the team's share of the concessions and licensing. But the people directly responsible for the on-ice product(players, coaches, trainers, general managers) would be paid a percentage of the gate.
What would have to be ironed out, would be those percentages. How much of the total gate would go to the owners and shareholders, and what percentage would go to hockey operations.
Out of the hockey operations share, a certain percentage would go to G.M.s, coaches, trainers etc. and the remainder would be the player's share of the pie.
Players wouldn't sign a contract based on a dollar figure, but rather a percentage of the players portion of the gate. So a Sundin, Jagr, Sakic etc. might sign a contract for 35% of the player's portion, whereas a rookie might be capped out at 2.5 or 3%. With 25 players on a roster, the league average salary for a player would be about 4% of the players portion of the gate.
Each team would have to divide their player's salaries in this way. You can't have your players portions add up to more than 100%.
Now bonuses would be a separate thing, and paid out of a separate pool of money. (The owner's share, or shrewd local TV, radio deals) The beauty of this is that the better individual players perform, the better the team might perform, and the more souvenirs and shirts might be sold, therefore rewarding the players for their exceptional play.
If a team wanted to sign a free agent, or make a trade for a blue-chip player at the trade deadline, they would have to have to have enough percentage left in their player's pool to make the deal. If the team was using 90% of their player's pool money,(10% available) and wanted to sign a player that is requesting 20%, then the team would have to free up that 10% somehow.
They might trade a couple of 5% players away for draft picks, or The team might have to go to the players, and tell them that they need an extra 10% to make the deal. Would Sundin, Mogilny and Belfour be willing to pony up a percent or two each, and would some of the lesser players be willing to cough up a half of a percent, or a 10th of a percent each, to add a Sakic to the lineup, and perhaps win a cup? Bring that one to a team vote and find out.

The bottom line here is this. The player's portion continues into the playoffs,(where ticket prices increase) There is incentive to succeed, both for the owner's and the players.

Teams like Toronto that always sell out, have a guaranteed payroll. Players know pretty much how much money they will be making. Newer teams that don't have the attendance figures, have the incentive to improve. If the players and coaches can succeed, they will make more money.

Who wins? Everybody, the players, the coaches, the owners, and especially the fans.
What disappears in these equations are these stories about teams trading away a high salary mistake and picking up a portion of their contract for the next few years. When you only have 100% to work with, you will be less inclined to make these kinds of deals. (sure it will take awhile for the present situations to filter out of the system, but a percentage gate system will eventually weed this nonsense out of the game.)

So how does this benefit the fans?
Teams that miss the playoffs cannot raise ticket prices. (enforced by the league). In fact, perhaps teams that miss the playoffs might be required to roll back prices to the next lower tier. Obviously, there would have to be a minimum pricing level, so that a team that was already in the lowest tier of ticket prices could not fall any lower.
A system would be put into place that restricted ticket price increases based on performance. Teams that make it to the cup final can move up two tiers. Teams that make it to the semi-finals can move up one tier.
Teams that finish 7th or 8th in their conference would have to freeze prices for the following year. (unless of course they managed to navigate their way through the playoffs into the semi-finals, in which case they would be allowed to move up into the next tier of pricing.
Some kind of point system that takes into account regular season play as well as playoff performance, would regulate the rise and fall of ticket prices.(which tier a particular team falls into)

The players say they want a market system. The owners say they want cost certainty. Well guys, there it is in a bare-bones nutshell.

 

A simpler solution (for the fan, anyways) might be having a 2-3 tiered pricing structure according to the opponent. Like, say, Detroit, Rangers or Colorado might be tier-1 whereas Minnesotta and Columbus might be tier 3. That helps increase ticket sales for those wednesday night games that no one really cares about.

 

That's exactly what Golisano did in Buffalo.

https://www.sabres.com/tickets/variable_pricing_guide.php


A Wednesday night versus Nashville is considerably cheaper than Friday night versus Toronto.