MadBuffaloDisease Posted December 20, 2005 Posted December 20, 2005 Also, and I don't think this is a reason most Buffalonians but it is a reason I wasn't happy with him, he was the guy that negotiated the horrible 1995 CBA that nearly bankrupted the league and led to the Sabres hemorraging money for about a decade. I forgot to mention that part. My personal opinion of the guy has improved over the past 2 or so years, because he did work to keep the Sabres in Buffalo and he negotiated a new CBA that gives the Sabres a fighting chance to compete and quite possibly thrive. As I said above, Shumer had more to do with keeping the Sabres in Buffalo, or more precisely, "suggesting" to Bettman that the NHL keep the Sabres in Buffalo. And as for the new CBA, that was mostly the owners' doing. After his last CBA, I doubt they gave him as much free-reign to screw them over again.
Taro T Posted December 20, 2005 Posted December 20, 2005 I forgot to mention that part. As I said above, Shumer had more to do with keeping the Sabres in Buffalo, or more precisely, "suggesting" to Bettman that the NHL keep the Sabres in Buffalo. And as for the new CBA, that was mostly the owners' doing. After his last CBA, I doubt they gave him as much free-reign to screw them over again. 538096[/snapback] Jacobs also had a lot to do with keeping the Sabres in Buffalo as his concessions contract is basically worthless without an NHL team in that rink. That said, for whatever reason Bettman did work to keep the team in town. I'm not as concerned about his reasons for finding religion, I'm just happy he did. As for the CBA, you had essentially the same group of fractious owners in 2004-'05 that you had in 1994 and in the prior labor negotiation. The difference between the 3 negotiations is that Bettman had been in office for more than a few months this last time and put together a set of goals for the negotiation and a plan to achieve those goals. He managed to have ALL the owners publicly support him, even though the big market owners had to hate the fact that the lockout began. In '95 he caved to Goodenow because the owners weren't united in what they wanted. (Also, conventional wisdom at the time was that the owners won the negotiations, it wasn't until about a year later that everyone knew how badly Goodenow had screwed them.) I give Bettman kudos for coming out of the negotiations with essentially everything he said he was going to try to get. Right now it looks like a good agreement for the owners and I believe, long term, it will end up good for the players as well.
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