NHL IS BACK! The Official 2012/2013 Canucks & NHL Thread

[Mike Oxbig]

Giroux coming back to north america to see a neck specialist froma neck injury.

More like keeping a CONCUSSION on the DL!!!

[spideyv2]

Originally Posted by cliffhanger33

i need some fkn hockey already

how's Kingston brah?

[pastarocket]

NHLPA gave a written proposal to the league for a 5 year deal. There's a big pile money, $182 million, being the gap between the player's union and the owner's demands.

Get a deal done so that we don't need to hear the player's yap to the media or see Fehr and Bettman talk back and forth. I wanna see some NHL hockey!!

NHLPA awaits league response to new CBA proposal

[Hondaracer]

The front loaded contract issue remains as bob Mackenzie has tweeted

If the NHL comes out and flatly rejects today's offer and says they are still far apart, the season is done IMO
Posted via RS Mobile

[MR_BIGGS]

This may be a proposal the NHL will work from, but we still aren't at that absolute deadline where the season is in 100 per cent jeopardy. The 94/95 season started on January 20 with 48 games played in the regular season. Even though Fehr says this is the best they can do, Bettman and co. will try and extract more. They still have the leverage of cancelling through mid December. PR wise, not the best move, but they still have that in their repertoire.

[fsy82]

More detailed information of the offer sent today

NHLPA MEMO OUTLINING THE UNION'S NOV. 21 CBA PROPOSAL

NHLPA memo to the players outlining the union's Nov. 21 proposal that was sent to the National Hockey League:

The NHLPA's Negotiating Committee today provided the NHL Owners with a comprehensive 6 page proposal on the key issues (see below). As you will read in the proposal, the players have made substantial moves in order to address all of the owners' concerns, end the owners' lockout and get the game back on the ice. Our proposal works off the league's proposed language/structures and moves off our position that there be a guaranteed players' share. These are major moves in the owners' direction. Regarding player contractual issues, we have also addressed the owners concerns regarding back-diving contacts and NHL contacts being "buried" in the minors.

Now that we have made this proposal, there is no longer any doubt as to how far apart the parties are in dollars. As you will recall, we had previously said we thought the gap was less than $200M, while the owners had said that the gap was much larger and close to $1B. Under our proposal, it is now undisputed that the gap is only $182 M over 5 years. Now it is up to the owners to finally make a move towards the players.

At the same time, we have protected player rights by refusing to accept their proposals restricting free agency and salary arbitration.

Here are a few significant details from our proposal:

Players' Share: A major move in the owners' direction by removing guarantees or fixed targets for Players' share.

Honouring Players' Contracts/Transition payments: Players' Share will equal 50 percent of HRR plus fixed payments in the first four years to partially honour player contracts and ease the transition to 50/50:

2012-13 - $182M
2013-14 - $128M
2014-15 - $72M
2015-16 - $11M

Total $393 M

*The owners had previously proposed $211M

Long-term back-diving contracts – Cap benefit recapture rule so clubs no longer benefit from front-loading contracts (move in the owners' direction)

Contracts in the minors – Clubs take a cap hit on contracts in the minors over $1M (move in the owners' direction)

Four Recall Rule – Unlimited recalls after regular season (move in the owners' direction)

Salary Arbitration – Elimination of walk-away from arbitrator's decision, but clubs can still "walk-away" by not qualifying a player

Please read through the proposal below and contact the NHLPA if you have any questions. The league indicated that they plan to respond to our proposal later today. We will provide a further update following this meeting.

Regards, Don

NHLPA Proposal - 21 November 2012

This proposal addresses significant open issues concerning revenue sharing, player contracting, the players' share, and certain other open areas, as reflected below. This proposal does not address other items upon which we have agreed or are pending, such as health and safety, hockey issues, the "jock tax", and international.

1) Revenue Sharing

- Pool of $200 Million at $3.303 B of HRR. Varies year to year with HRR.

- Contributions to be raised per NHL formula. No discretion to increase individual team contributions beyond what formula provides

- Existing level of distributions to be protected for 2 years. If additional funds needed, raised pro-rata from all teams

- Revenue Sharing Oversight Committee (RSOC) has discretion to adjust amounts for Phase One distributions by up to +/- 15% per team, provided that all such adjustments are considered and decided upon at one time

- RSOC by unanimous vote may move beyond +/- 15% limitation towards but not exceeding the straight pool value for regular season HRR. (Must therefore compute straight pool every year.)

- Industry Growth Fund to be managed by the RSOC.

- IGF will have callable dollars of up to $20M in first year, $40M in second year, and $60M in each subsequent year of the agreement.

- Need to establish criteria for which teams may apply for IGF funding and/or will submit plans.

- IGF funding is available to any team by unanimous consent of RSOC

- IGF funding also available for industry-wide programs or projects

- RSOC has seven (7) members selected by the parties in their sole discretion, as follows

- Four employer representatives, at least one of which must by an owner

- Three (3) player representatives, at least one of which must be a player

- Parties may name up to 2 Alternate RSOC representatives who will serve in the event of absence of a member

- Need to spell out in drafting the process of the RSOC, and limited arbitral review of decisions

2) Defined Benefit Pension Plan

- The parties will establish a defined benefit pension plan under US law per the NHLPA proposal.

3) Discipline

- For on-ice discipline, there will be an appeal to a neutral arbitrator or to a panel of three arbitrators (one appointed by each side and one neutral). The standard of review will be whether the League's finding of a violation of the League Playing Rules was supported by substantial evidence, and, if so, whether the penalty imposed was within the League's reasonable discretion and consistent with past practice

- For off-ice discipline, there will be an appeal to the impartial arbitrator. The issue will be whether the discipline was for just cause.

4) Player Contracting and System Issues

- NHLPA liability for escrow is eliminated from the side letter.

- NHLPA may set a higher percentage for escrow in a given year than the formula would provide. The NHL may also set a higher percentage than the formula would provide in the last year of the agreement, provided that any number so set is not unreasonable.

- The Playoff Pool is increased per the NHLPA proposal

- Liquidated damages provisions in SPCs are prohibited. This applies only to new contracts, i.e., contracts entered into after a new CBA is in effect.

- Prompt mutual disclosure of European loan agreements, ATOs and PTOs.

- NHLPA proposal on no trade / no move clauses

- NHL proposal to prevent a team playing with less than the minimum of 18/2 is accepted provided limitation is the NHL minimum + $100,000; counts against the share but not the cap.

- Waivers

- Re-entry waivers are eliminated

- Waivers will be required to loan a player who is on emergency recall if that player has played 10 games

- NHLPA proposal on 13.23 waivers

- Four Recall Rule

- After the conclusion of the Regular Season, a Club may exercise an unlimited number of additional Regular Recalls provided that it may have no more than three (3) Players on its Active Roster who were recalled by way of Regular Recall after the Trade Deadline

- Minimum salary continues to increase on the same schedule as previous CBA, $25,000 every second year

- Goepfert Rule as proposed by NHLPA

- Performance bonus cushion in each year of the agreement

- The Lower limit must be satisfied without consideration of performance bonuses.

- Players and cash/cap trading. A team may have an unlimited number of Retained Salary Transactions up to 15% of the Upper Limit in any League year

- The amount in excess of $1M paid to a player while in the minor leagues or in Europe on an NHL contract counts against the cap (none counts against the share). This applies only to new contracts, i.e., contracts entered into after a new CBA is in effect.

- NHLPA cap benefit recapture proposal.

- Applies only to new contracts, i.e., contracts entered into after a new CBA is in effect.

- Applies to contracts of 9 years or longer

- 35 year old rule changed to provide that the cap charge taken will be as per cap benefit recapture

- Salary Arbitration

- Walk away eliminated

- Second buyout period will continue in its current form except that

- A Club may not buy out a player who was not on its Reserve List as of the most recent Trade Deadline

- A Club may not buy out a player who has a cap hit of less than $3 M

- Critical dates calendar

- Sec. 12.3(a) election moved per NHLPA proposal

- Free agency interview period per NHLPA proposal

- Salary Cap and Payroll Range

- Growth Factor, Performance Bonus Cushion, Long-Term, injury continue except for any changes already agreed to or contained in this proposal

- +8M/-8M payroll range becomes +/- 20% of midpoint beginning in 2013/14

- The Upper Limit may not fall below 67.25 M in any year of the agreement. This is half way between the 11/12 Upper Limit (64.3 M) and the 12/13 UL (70.2 M).

5) Players' Share

- Our players' share proposal is identical to yours in all material respects except for the amount of the transition payments added to the 50% share. There are no guarantees or fixed targets, other than a requirement that, beginning with the second year of the Agreement, players' share, expressed in dollars, may not fall below its value for the prior season. This proposal allows us to determine players' share regardless of the effects of the lockout and its aftermath.

- Player share will equal 50% of HRR, plus these fixed dollar payments attributable to the first four years of the agreement:

- 2012/13: $ 182M
- 2013/14: $ 128M
- 2014/15: $ 72M
- 2015/16: $ 11M

- Payment of these amounts may be deferred for one year (specific payment date to be agreed upon), with the deferral accumulating interest rate equal to the sum of the prime interest rate in effect at The J.P. Morgan Chase Bank on the next June 15, plus 1%. Payment of these fixed dollar amounts is guaranteed by the League.

- In years two through five of this Agreement, the players' share in dollars may not be less than it was in the previous year.

- Attached are charts which show this proposal against your last in the format you provided after our last proposal.

6) Term of CBA

- The term of the CBA will be for 5 years/seasons, and will end on September 15, 2017.

7) Transition Rules to be negotiated

- May cover, among other things, compliance buyouts, pro-ration of status/service and statistical criteria/thresholds based on the length of the season, movement of deadlines, and any other relevant matters.

[kristianhay]

Darren Dreger ‏@DarrenDreger
Close on rev sharing, but no contract concessions and league remains firm on $211 mil Make Whole. Talks will continue, but may not meet Thur

Darren Dreger ‏@DarrenDreger
Players won't be happy with how the league is responding to proposal. No meaningful give-backs according to PA source."Disappointing day."

TEAM Radio ‏@TEAM1040
RT @chrisbottanhl: Don Fehr: "The players have done everything they could to get the game back on the ice."

TEAM Radio ‏@TEAM1040
RT @ian_mendes: There are no further meetings planned between the NHL and the NHLPA.

Chris Johnston ‏@reporterchris
Donald Fehr says players insisted on guaranteeing their share won't go down any year because of the other concessions they've made.

TEAM Radio ‏@TEAM1040
RT @sungarrioch: NHL doesn't like the increase in 'Make Whole'.

Michael Del Zotto ‏@MichaelDelZotto
Surprise surprise. #embarrassing

[ForbiddenX]

^^
sigh

[fsy82]

the players have made a lot of concessions. bettman and the owners are fucked up. i think its time for a mediator..cause this shit aint going anywhere

[kristianhay]

If no progress is made at all this week, I fear the season is lost. Bettman is fucking retarded.

Chris Botta ‏@ChrisBottaNHL
A player at today's meeting told me the NHL's response was something like this: "No, no, no way, no friggin way, no and no."

josh gorges ‏@jgorges26
Another massive step in the owners direction and still gets rejected obvious they don't want a deal to get done #enoughsenough #theplayers

[CRS]

Originally Posted by fsy82

the players have made a lot of concessions. bettman and the owners are fucked up. i think its time for a mediator..cause this shit aint going anywhere

Except that a lot of owners are losing money while players are raking it in.

This includes Lemieux for Pitts that lost money (something like 200k) last year while paying Sid his 8 mill.

It's really a catch 22. Both sides are playing hard ball and both are pretty unreasonable. However, I understand where the owners are coming from when they are losing money to pay players and the players want to keep getting paid while the owner is losing out.

Don't get me wrong. I think Bettman is an ass for moving teams/creating expansions in markets that can't support them but at the same time, this is a case of greedy players looking out for themselves and not the fans.

[Mike Oxbig]

Too bad its not the perfect timing for Toronto team#2 and Quebec city to own any team within 2 yr time frame to back up the bottom feeding teams (PHX & CBJ). Sports has no loyalty in this generation you just gotta go where the money is...

[UFO]

Originally Posted by CRS

Except that a lot of owners are losing money while players are raking it in.

This. However the way I see this is that there is a broken system in the NHL, and really its basic fundamental structure. Cutting players' salaries will not fix the problem, it will only mask the symptoms and make the owners currently turning profits even richer, as salaries will inevitably increase over the next 3-5 years and we are back to this same point with the owners asking the players to take another salary cut.

this is a case of greedy players looking out for themselves and not the fans.

There is a lot of this notion going around, and fair enough its easy to hate on players making millions playing a simple game taking no risk in the business operations. You can't blame the players, they HAVE to look out for themselves, its not their job to look out for the fans, they just play a game and entertain the fans. That's all their job is, nothing more nothing less.

You can point that same finger to the owners and say they are greedy and looking out for themselves and not the fans, yet most seem to be ok with that because they see the owners as business operators. But it IS absolutely the owners' job to look out for the fans, because it is the fans who pay their bills at the end of the day.

[murd0c]

The league can go fuck them selves. The players are trying to get this done and Bettman is saying it's not good enough and they are not willing to budge at all. It's a complete fucken joke and the NHLPA should hold off until that clown is exposed for what he is a little fucken rat that has been dragging this league down for years.

I say fuck the season, fuck the owners I'm tired of the leagues BS and don't even care anymore....

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by Gumby

Yeah just looked it up, they're the same age. And Comrie retired earlier this year.

However, Underwood > Duff

Meh, Hillary Duff ain't bad looking. Plus Comrie has a balls ton of money and Hillary Duff isn't famous anymore so he doesn't have to go around to awards shows with her and hold her purse.

The Comries are estimated to have a $500 million fortune so yeah, Comrie wins.

[kristianhay]

More antics.

Darren Dreger ‏@DarrenDreger
Bettman now in a discussion with a fan...cameras rolling. Tells fan the union hasn't been willing to negotiate.

TEAM Radio ‏@TEAM1040
RT @darrendreger: League and union expected to talk again on Friday. PA said it would get back to NHL end of week.

Looks like they may talk Friday, though doubtful anything gets done. I think I've given up hoping, sigh.

[Ronin]

How can we make Gary Bettman's life suck? People should be throwing rotten eggs at him every day.

[fsy82]

Fuck this season..if thats the way the bettman and co wanna play then the nhlpa should just back off. I mean the players have conceding a ton to the owners. The owners havent budged at all

[AWDTurboLuvr]

Originally Posted by fsy82

the players have made a lot of concessions. bettman and the owners are fucked up. i think its time for a mediator..cause this shit aint going anywhere

Uh, stop drinking Fehr's kool-aid man. Read the proposal, a 5 year deal tabled by the NHLPA where in reality, they don't reach 50-50 split revenue sharing until the 4th year. To calculate this, you have to add in the "Make whole" provision the NHLPA is talking about (an additional $180m). So in reality, the split is this:

Year 1 - 56% goes to NHLPA
Year 2 - 54%
Year 3 - 52%
Year 4 - 50%
Year 5 - 50%

Oh and they have written in a rule that this is to be based off of 5% annual revenue growth of the est. $3.3b a year that the NHL generates...regardless of what actual growth is. God knows that the league won't make $3.3b after this shitshow.

In summary, the NHLPA's proposal is for the players to get maximum reward with immunity from any down years in the NHL revenue.

Honestly, Fehr is the worst person to represent the NHLPA and he's destroying the game. He doesn't care about the game or the players...just player agents.

[UFO]

Werd, Fehr has been dishing out a lot of Koolaid, and I'm totally pro-players in this whole ordeal. In reality, the PA has made considerable concessions, but that's mainly because their initial offers were so total and utter garbage. I don't fault them for this because the NHL offers were not much better at that point. The recent PA offers have been fair IMO and workable, the players are giving up some based off the old CBA, while Bettman and co. have just been giving everything the cold shoulder. The PA offers of late have been more or less the same, with a little bit of movement, just presented in different forms/ways to make it seem like they've made a lot of concessions.

Look at this from today:

The Upper Limit may not fall below 67.25 M in any year of the agreement. This is half way between the 11/12 Upper Limit (64.3 M) and the 12/13 UL (70.2 M).

So in essence the PA is willing to take 50/50 plus make whole payments based on the record high revenues the NHL saw in the last 2 seasons. If every team spends to the proposed 67.25M ceiling players make just over 2B collectively, meaning league revenues will have to be 4B up from the current 3.3B. The PA's assumption is the NHL will continue to grow based on these record revenues, but realistically after this gong show, it will take at least a few seasons for revenues to get back to current levels, IF it can even get back to these levels. However the cap that the PA has proposed will protect all players from these losses.

The owners are in no rush to wrap this up. For 17/30 owners, the owners are losing less money locking the players out and not playing any games at all than they would be if the players were playing based on last year's numbers. Lol. This should speak to the problems in the current system.

[RiceIntegraRS]

Originally Posted by CRS

This includes Lemieux for Pitts that lost money (something like 200k) last year while paying Sid his 8 mill.

U give big contracts to Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Letang, Fleury and then u win a cup. And u complain about losing money? fuck u Mario.

I dont know why this is soo hard to understand. If i make 50K a year, im not gonna be spending 65K a year on shit.

[RRxtar]

The PA can fuck off the way they are getting fan favorite players to tweet things like the league is a joke and the league is holding up negotiations. Couple that with the controversy about Fehr intentionally miscommunicating details to the players. Its skewing the fan's opinion of the negotiations completely backing the PA. Just look at this thread. And the owners can't say a word about the negotiations, so all you read is players saying "The owners are greedy, we are trying to find a deal" what do you think fans are going to believe?

Anyone who actually reads into what the PA and the owners are proposing are significantly more ownership favoring. the PA has no concern for anything other than making sure they make all the money today.

The league is trying to tie salaries to revenue with a percentage (50/50). The PA is trying to guarantee salary regardless of revenue. brb "We will accept 50% as long as revenue increases. If revenue does not increase at the recent record rate, we wont accept 50%"

[Hondaracer]

Fehr is the anti-bettman, bettman has all the power

Bettman could purposely just say, ok, sorry no season just to spite him, and it would be all on Fehr

[mb_]

These greedy assholes are destroying the game we love Honestly not expecting for this season to be salvaged sigh

[Mike Oxbig]

luc bourdon with team canada wjc, as soon as i saw it i turned off the tv