stevestojan Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 As Bucky Gleason stated in his column in the Buffalo News yesterday.... "I'm not sure what was more disturbing, Bettman's final offer that included a $42.5 million salary cap or Goodenow's refusal to accept it. You know how much $42.5 million equates to when sliced up for a 23-man roster? About $1.8 million per player, which was the average salary last season when teams were drowning in red ink." Earlier in the column he mentions that owners wanted to get the average salary down by about 500k. Offering 42.5 doesn't make sense from an owners perspective. 244691[/snapback] AGAIN, that's a $1.8 million per player IF EVERY TEAM PAYS UP TO THE CAP. They won't!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 screw them. just start a new league next year and build it from there. 244692[/snapback] Agreed. This is the best in the long run. The league has needed a overhaul for a couple decades now. Not just fiscally but product wise as well. The game has to be tweaked(officiating) to make it the great entertaining game it once was an can be again. It appears the only way that is going to happen is to nuke it. Cancel the season. Come to a agreement and start working on how to make it exciting again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gross Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 detroit...rangers...philly...those teams will spend to the cap and still gain an unfair advantage over teams like buffalo. not that sabres don't share some of the blame with their sh------- drafting over the years, but it sucks when your favorite team already has 2 strikes against it like that. 244674[/snapback] Tell that to Tampa Bay, San Jose, and Calgary. They managed to make their respective conference finals despite the fact that Philly, Detroit, NY managed to spend at least twice as much. Heck, Nashville made the playoffs despite an NHL low $22M in team salary...Don't you think taking $30 mil out of their payroll levels things much better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaska Darin Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 AGAIN, that's a $1.8 million per player IF EVERY TEAM PAYS UP TO THE CAP. They won't!!! 244693[/snapback] So what? The average hockey player is a high school graduate with no other skill to offer the workforce. Even if they only pay $30,000,000 per team that's an average salary of over $1,000,000 per player. I don't know what the NHL minimum is but I think it's around $300K. Not bad for a HS grad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevestojan Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 So what? The average hockey player is a high school graduate with no other skill to offer the workforce. Even if they only pay $30,000,000 per team that's an average salary of over $1,000,000 per player. I don't know what the NHL minimum is but I think it's around $300K. Not bad for a HS grad. 244718[/snapback] That's not at all my point Darin. The argument of "how much is a pro athlete worth?" could take days and never reach a resolve. My point is people are saying that the NHL will lose TONS of money if each team is spending $45Million. The problem is, that is the CAP... most teams will not come anywhere NEAR that... My problem is people keep using numbers in their examples that assume each team will spend every last dime allowed. And that simply won't happen... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zow2 Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 My point is people are saying that the NHL will lose TONS of money if each team is spending $45Million. The problem is, that is the CAP... most teams will not come anywhere NEAR that... My problem is people keep using numbers in their examples that assume each team will spend every last dime allowed. And that simply won't happen... 244722[/snapback] I agree with you and have said the same thing. That's why it's even more mind boggling that the NHLPA didn't pounce on that $44M cap?!? (it's $42M cap plus $2M benefits per team). Anything above $35M is not realistic except for about 6 teams. The players did a huge disservice to themselves. As for the competitive balance....there won't be a huge disparity anymore and that will help. Let's face it, even though you have small payroll teams like Carolina and Calgary slipping through to the finals...you still have regulars like Dallas, Philly, Detroit, St.Louis, Toronto, etc... that make the playoffs every year solely because they buy the best talent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverNRed Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 Agreed. This is the best in the long run. The league has needed a overhaul for a couple decades now. Not just fiscally but product wise as well. The game has to be tweaked(officiating) to make it the great entertaining game it once was an can be again. It appears the only way that is going to happen is to nuke it. Cancel the season. Come to a agreement and start working on how to make it exciting again. 244699[/snapback] Bring on the replacement players! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zamboni Man Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 I don't understand why ever pro sports league doesn't follow a similar model to the NFL's CBA. Sure the NHL doesn't have a huge tv deal like the NFL or the huge fan base, there should still be a hard salary cap, full revenue sharing and the elimination of guarenteed contracts. I don't see why the NHLPA is putting up such a hard fight. When you look at the NFL, the owners are happy, the players are happy, they both make a ton of money, and most importantly the fans are happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester43 Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 Tell that to Tampa Bay, San Jose, and Calgary. They managed to make their respective conference finals despite the fact that Philly, Detroit, NY managed to spend at least twice as much. Heck, Nashville made the playoffs despite an NHL low $22M in team salary...Don't you think taking $30 mil out of their payroll levels things much better? 244707[/snapback] i'm not saying you CAN'T have a good team without a high payroll. but it puts some teams at a disadvantage. the fct that a few small market teams have played well despite that is to their credit. but it doesn't make it a fair system. as a small market fan, i want a hard cap that all teams can afford. then when the sabres suck, we'll know who to blame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LabattBlue Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 My point is people are saying that the NHL will lose TONS of money if each team is spending $45Million. The problem is, that is the CAP... most teams will not come anywhere NEAR that... 244722[/snapback] Why do you think that most teams won't come near a 42 million dollar cap? More teams are likely to be close to the cap in an attempt to "win at all costs" rather than saying....well since the cap is 42 million, I now only need to spend 30 million. I'd like to know what the teams salaries would have been for the 04-05 season and how many teams were around or above 42 million? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvermike Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 I'm willing to spend $10 million less than the top team in the NHL. I'm just pissed when we spend $50 million less. Ideally, you'd have a cap that would have every team at roughly the same amount of team salary. But it just doesn't quite happen. And hey, even in the NFL, there are teams that are a big chunk under the cap - including the Eagles, who I think have about $15 million of space. They did pretty OK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draconator Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 The NHL needs a detailed revenue sharing plan. If team "X" spends $30M, and Team "Y" spends $50M, team "X" gets $10M to make it able to compete with team "Y". This needs to be detailed and agreed upon, before any discussions of a salary cap can even begin. Unfortunately, both sides are focusing on the cap, with is a classic cart before the horse situation. If any league needs a dedicated revenue sharing plan, for basic survival, it's the NHL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiderweb Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 Agreed. This is the best in the long run. The league has needed a overhaul for a couple decades now. Not just fiscally but product wise as well. The game has to be tweaked(officiating) to make it the great entertaining game it once was an can be again. It appears the only way that is going to happen is to nuke it. Cancel the season. Come to a agreement and start working on how to make it exciting again. 244699[/snapback] I agree 100%. This is an opportunity to not just set a realistic cap, but to explore revenue sharing (ala NFL) as well. That will provide the economic balance that is needed to make the league viable. Also, when one compares the revenue streams between the NFL and NHL, one quickly sees that the cap figure really shouldn't be 40 Mil plus either. If saving the game/league is really what this is all about, how about a rollback of sorts on the ticket prices for those who are willing to support the game if they could afford to? This should be about a major overhaul, not bandaids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaska Darin Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 I agree with you and have said the same thing. That's why it's even more mind boggling that the NHLPA didn't pounce on that $44M cap?!? (it's $42M cap plus $2M benefits per team). Anything above $35M is not realistic except for about 6 teams. The players did a huge disservice to themselves. As for the competitive balance....there won't be a huge disparity anymore and that will help. Let's face it, even though you have small payroll teams like Carolina and Calgary slipping through to the finals...you still have regulars like Dallas, Philly, Detroit, St.Louis, Toronto, etc... that make the playoffs every year solely because they buy the best talent. 244734[/snapback] It certainly cuts the gap and it also means that the "Have" teams won't be able to load up their rosters late in the season because they likely won't have the room to trade 2 minor leaguers and a pick for one of the 15 best players on the planet. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a hell of alot better than having the top 5 teams spend twice as much as the bottom 5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevestojan Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 It's not a perfect solution, but it's a hell of alot better than having the top 5 teams spend twice as much as the bottom 5. 244859[/snapback] What about the top team spending 7 times more than the bottom team? Oh wait, that's MLB... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SDS Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 It certainly cuts the gap and it also means that the "Have" teams won't be able to load up their rosters late in the season because they likely won't have the room to trade 2 minor leaguers and a pick for one of the 15 best players on the planet. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a hell of alot better than having the top 5 teams spend twice as much as the bottom 5. 244859[/snapback] can you imagine the day when ONE of our 1st line forwards could actually make the 4th line or God forbid - the 3rd line - on Detroit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaska Darin Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 can you imagine the day when ONE of our 1st line forwards could actually make the 4th line or God forbid - the 3rd line - on Detroit? 244861[/snapback] I think Briere, Drury, and Satan are guys who are at that level - but it drops off significantly after that. The luxury Detroit and Colorado have is time. Their money allows them to develop their talent and nuture them along because they just fill holes with guys like Ray Whitney, Darian Hatcher, Teemu Selanne, and Rob Blake when they come available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tux of Borg Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 Until there is a hard cap, Buffalo will continue to be a farm team that's only purpose is to develop young talent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sound_n_Fury Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 The Canadian press has a slightly different perspective: http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/2005/02/18/935011.html "As is often the case in situations like this, rumours were rife. But there is no attempted coup. There has not been a liaison between Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky to force a reopening of talks. There has not been a delegation of NHL players approaching the league's New York office to try to effect a solution. But there has been a lot of talking between interested parties who saw an opening in commissioner Gary Bettman's answer to a Toronto Sun question on Wednesday. When it was suggested to Bettman that a deal could have been struck based upon a $45-million US salary cap, Bettman said: "If they wanted 45 million, I'm not saying we would have gone there, but they sure should have told us. It would have been incumbent upon them to tell us if that's where they would have made a deal." Yesterday, sources said that Bettman himself could have gone there. Hours before his self-imposed deadline of 11 a.m., Bettman was given authority by the owners to agree to that $45-million figure, if pressed. But Bettman apparently wanted the union to re-open negotiations so he could appear to be making a concession. When the union didn't call, he cancelled the season. Yesterday, Bettman's hint that a phone call from the NHLPA might have given him reason to pause was seen by analysts on ESPN and the MSG Network as a key point. They said that perhaps it might not be too late to make a last-ditch effort to bring the season back from the dead. Perhaps as a result, there has been some urging -- on both sides -- to consider whether it is irreversibly too late to save the season. But it doesn't go beyond that. New Jersey Devils president and CEO Lou Lamoriello summed it up best when he told Pierre LeBrun of The Canadian Press: "All I've heard is all the rhetoric. I don't pay attention to that until someone tells me factually. "Believe me, I think I would have heard something factual, but I just hear what everyone else is hearing. After a while, you start believing it because you hear it so much. But then you pinch yourself and remind yourself that there's probably nothing to it." Gretzky also denied that anything was in the works. "I did talk to Mario today," Gretzky told the Fan 590. "I had a brief conversation about pretty much what everyone else is talking about, can we believe we're in the situation we're in. "Nobody understands why we're in this situation. Nobody has the answer to how we got here or how we're going to get out of here. "To say Mario and I had a conversation to try to stir up the conversations and talks again, that's just not true." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BradRiter Posted February 18, 2005 Author Share Posted February 18, 2005 That Canadian Press article is absolute garbage. The facts: Bettman says "I'm still willing to listen" at his "cancellation" news conference. Bettman says the same thing AGAIN last night to Sporting News radio. Hockey players want to play hockey and want to get paid to do so. Rumors and speculation aside, there is NO reason to believe this thing is any more dead than it was before the announcement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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