JoeF Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 WRAL TV (CBS in Raleigh)--agreement in principal reached--$45M cap. Meeting tomorrow to put parameters on the season.....some intelligence finally enters into this madness.
kegtapr Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 WRAL TV (CBS in Raleigh)--agreement in principal reached--$45M cap. Meeting tomorrow to put parameters on the season.....some intelligence finally enters into this madness. 245658[/snapback]  !@#$! :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain:
drnykterstein Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 I miss hockey, I'm gunna be at the first home game.
CJPearl2 Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 If the season does go forward, where will the games be televised on? MSG? Where on Directv?
Thailog80 Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 I miss hockey, I'm gunna be at the first home game. 245743[/snapback] Â Â Come on man.....did they give a crap about the fans....NFW!!!!
MikeG Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 I will be cheering louder than ever... but I'm not sure that this "fixes" the game... and that is more important to me than watching hockey this year... I just want the game fixed so a team can stay in Buffalo for the long term and be competitive. Â They are thinking of the fans... I hate that point of view that they don't care about the fans... they do care, but this needs to be fixed and the owners know if they don't fix it, many teams and maybe even the league won't be around for the fans... I can do without hockey for a year so that it stays in Buffalo for decades to come. Just my opinion...
BF_in_Indiana Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 You mean the Penguins aren't going undefeated this year? Â :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: NHL
DC Tom Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 .....some intelligence finally enters into this madness. 245658[/snapback] Â They must have kicked out all the negotiators from Indiana...
duey Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 If this comes to pass, I will be VERY VERY happy. Â GO SABRES!
drnykterstein Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 If the season does go forward, where will the games be televised on?MSG? Where on Directv? 245745[/snapback] MSG
drnykterstein Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 Come on man.....did they give a crap about the fans....NFW!!!! 245748[/snapback] Its my suspicion that for some reason hockey will be more popular than before. Some fans had been taking hockey for granted and now when they don't have it they suddenly realize what they were missing. Reverse psychology of sorts. Â Its gunna be a rockin down at the Arena.
SilverNRed Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 WRAL TV (CBS in Raleigh)--agreement in principal reached--$45M cap. Meeting tomorrow to put parameters on the season.....some intelligence finally enters into this madness. 245658[/snapback] :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: NHL  Let me know how the 10 game season goes....
34-78-83 Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 Sucks for the Amerks...Best record in the AHL...
drnykterstein Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 WRAL TV (CBS in Raleigh)--agreement in principal reached--$45M cap. Meeting tomorrow to put parameters on the season.....some intelligence finally enters into this madness. 245658[/snapback] $45 mill doesnt bode well for the sabres, seeing as our team salary was only like 435 mil last season. yes it does bring down some teams salaries, but still. if there was no season this year you can be garunteed that the cap would be below $40 mil, which would really help the sabres out.  anyone know if there is any revenue sharing?
millbank Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 Nice article from Forbes Magazine that puts one weasel in perspective..... hardly a hero:  Sports Feature Blame Bettman Michael K. Ozanian, 02.17.05, 3:00 PM ET      NEW YORK - Hockey is a sport whose lifeblood has always been the arena. Unlike football, baseball or basketball, hockey is not a made-for-TV spectacle. You have to go to a game to understand the sport--feel the cold, hear the clank of the puck, see the blood, calculate its speed.  It's a sport that has thrived on the passion and fury of local rivalries. Anyone who has ever been to a Rangers-Islanders contest can tell you that Yankees versus Red Sox is a tea party in comparison.  The unmatched intensity of going to a National Hockey League game explains why its buildings have been filled to a greater capacity than the other major team sports. And yet, the league does not get a rights fee from its national broadcasting deal with NBC, owned by General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ). Instead, the NHL had a profit-sharing deal with NBC that guaranteed the league no income. The NHL's cable deal with ESPN, owned by The Walt Disney Co. (nyse: DIS - news - people ), would have paid the league a paltry $60 million for 40 regular season games--half its average payments for the previous five years. In short, hockey in the United States has always been more of a cult religion than a sport.  No more. Yesterday NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who had locked out the players in September just before the start of the 2004-2005 season, cancelled the remaining games as well as the Stanley Cup playoffs because he and Bob Goodenow, executive director of the players union, could not come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement between the league's 30 team owners and the players. While the media has focused on the NHL's operating losses ($96 million last season) and player salaries (an average of $1.8 million), the truth of the matter is that league's bloody P&L statement is the symptom, not the disease.  Hockey's illness is Bettman, a basketball man who is a prodigy of NBA commissioner David Stern. Bettman and the owners he works for trashed the league's identity when they tried to turn a cash-rich, mom-and-pop league into a growth industry.  To reap big millions in expansion fees, and with the hopes of getting a lucrative national TV deal, the NHL expanded to  30 teams from 24 teams in the 1990s. Aside from the quick $80 million the owners got to divvy up when teams were sold, the expansion was a disaster. By putting franchises in places like Nashville and Atlanta--cities that think the Stanley Cup is some type of athletic supporter--Bettman destroyed the sport's economics.  For starters, the big national broadcasting deal never materialized. Why not? While the Super Bowl is usually viewed by 40% of U.S. homes that have televisions and the NBA finals by 17%, the Stanley Cup finals are viewed in just 4%. Bettman never understood--still doesn't understand--that hockey isn't basketball.  Also, apparently much to Bettman's surprise, people outside the Northeast and Midwest have little interest in hockey. Attendance for the new teams in places like Raleigh, North Carolina, Atlanta, Phoenix and Nashville has been very low. Finally, the rapid expansion of the league moved the supply-demand curve towards accelerating player salaries while at the same time diluting the talent pool. To meet the growing demand for players, team rosters were often filled with European skaters with only a fraction of the passion for the game that the Canadian players have. The NHL product lost some of its appeal to its rank and file.  Only someone (like the current commissioner) completely unfamiliar with what makes hockey great could not see the likely result: During the 1996-1997 season the 26 NHL teams had an average operating profit (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $2.3 million. Last season they lost an average of $3.2 million. In November the average NHL team was worth $163 million. With $2.3 billion in league revenue wiped away forever, that figure is now down to $140 million. And big sponsors like MBNA (nyse: KRB - news - people ) and Anheuser-Busch (nyse: BUD - news - people ) may be lost forever.  If the NHL is ever to recover from the debacle created by Bettman, it must put in place a commissioner with hockey in his blood and tremendous integrity. Someone who the fans can identify with and trust. It needs someone who has enough guts to eliminate some teams in order to make the NHL stronger. Wayne Gretzky, anyone?  Forbes
taterhill Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 The Sabres are set for a nice run this year...all but 2 players under contract,,,,and some young studs tearing sh-- up in the AHL
HudsonValleyBillsFan Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 Change the rules .. down with the trap
Mile High Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 Change the rules .. down with the trap 245820[/snapback] Switch the format to olympic hockey.
BILLS4LIFE Posted February 19, 2005 Posted February 19, 2005 Well,if they come back,I will watch whats on TV,but I will be damned if I go to a game for awhile! The fans shouldnt show up for the games and if they do,boo the hell out of them! Send a message those nimrods! :I starred in Brokeback Mountain:
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