the players that went to europe are probably making 1/10th of what they could be in the NHL

Once, just ONCE, I'd like to see an owner pay a player 50% of his salary because his performance sucked.

Player's have no problem holding out for more money when they have ONE good year, so why the hell not?

Lock out that ONE player until he agrees to a salary reduction.

How fast would a breach of contract lawsuit take in that case?

Why an owner didn't try suing a player for breach of contract when he held out, I'll never know.

FUCK CANADA!

On a lighter note... damn....

good point

i would rather do a pps type system with hockey players :)

but ur right.. but its not just the players fault here.. owners are greedy and so forth.. either way its out of hand on both sides..

but players are not partners, but emplyees, if you have an employee, you have to pay him the salary no matter if you make 1 million or $300k per year.

wrong...

there's 2 types of employes.. those who are paid for what the work they do is worth... based on scholarity, skills, experience, etc.. but not based on revenues..
Exemple.. construction workers, doctors, etc...

And employes with salaries based on the revenues they can generate... Employes that are not replacable and directly responsible for the revenue genrated...

Why do you think certain celebrities are paid $20M and sport athetes are paid millions...? Why do you think footaball players are paid 2x more than hockey players..? Because they work harder? No, because they simply generate more revenues...

of course, more publicity, more money...But the owner of the company, movie company, football club, hockey club has to know what he can afford to pay. Not to make a contract and then say: Oh, sorry, my calculations were wrong, I have to cut your salary.

I agree.

A great example. Adrian Beltre ( a baseball player ) has been an average to above average player his whole career and makes around 5 million a year last year he had a break out year and signed a 5 year 11.5 million a year contract. But I bet if he goes back to being average this year he won't be giving back a bunch of that money.

Exactly.

The WORST incident, I've EVER heard of was Keith Tkachuk in Winnipeg about 10 years ago.

Jackass signed a front loaded contract for say 5 million year one, and one million for years two, three and four. He AGREED to these terms, and signed it.

He played the first year, NO problem, as he was one of the highest paid players in the league.

Year two rolled around and he held out, because he was now being underpaid. Nevermind that he was being OVERPAID the year previous.

That's pretty much when the NHL players lost my respect.

Edit-Those figures show him making an average of 2 million per year (which is probably about right for time actually), so why not just sign a four year deal for 8 million dollars? Presumably because he had full intention of not honoring the deal beyond year one.

you dont seem to understand to high revenue teams set player value by paying them more than what they are worth (based on average team revenues)...

Small revenue teams need to pay players more than what they are worth just to lose LESS revenues that they would have lost without any star players...

High revenue teams pay players more than they are worth because they'll lose money if they dont get those star players while letting their COMPETITORS have them...

Thats the reason why a cap based on revenues is important.. to set rules for the owners to follow...

Sweet! Then we get to keep all the NHL players for the rest of the season :thumbsup

Those players are overgrown kids with a wayyy to large EGO...

Maurice Richard must be fucking turning in is grave...

No wonder i stopped watching this great game over 5 years ago.

Well, here in Europe it works different, in soccer, hockey and all other sports. There are bigger clubs with more money and smaller clubs with less money. A smaller club will not pay a player if they cant afford them, just to take him away from the competitor. They work like efficient company, no money, no expensive players. This is how economy should work.