dam these hockey players are smart
 

The players locked them out

and instead of sitting on their ass and getting hockey fans upset with them they are playing in a pickup league and using it to raise money for literacy programs.

now the bad guys are the greedy owners who don't want to pay fair market for the services of the players

vs

the players who will play for free for the love of the game but want the ability to get what they are truly worth when they put their bodies on the line

I have to side with the players on most points.....however in terms of a Salary Cap, I think it's needed.

If practically every team in the league loses money, even winning teams, somehting must be changed.

If the average hockey player is comparing himself to someone in the NBA or NFL at the same level as he is, that's not right. The NBA / NFL get wayyyyyyyyy more revenue coming in from sources like TV.

It would be the same situation if you were working as a programmer at a small company and they pay you $15/hour. Your friend does the same job as you but is getting $50/hour. The difference? The amount of money the company is generating can dictate how much they can pay.

I have no problem with a superstar getting 8-10 million per year, because he is probably worth it. However a role player, who was getting probably 1 million few years back, getting 3-4 million now is ridiculous :2 cents:

I'd agree with everything you said, they need a salary cap. But it's kinda the owners fault if they want to pay these guys. For example on the Ducks they have a guy who sucks ass and didnt play much nhl time this year but made a million bucks.

They need a salary cap, and have a star player who doesn't count towards the cap. Or maybe slowly work into the cap, say they have to be under X by 2007 or 2008 so they have time.

tough call there but i would have to go with the players as long as the salary isnt to god awful

The players get too much money. You cant have a good league when the teams lose money. A hard salary cap tied to the revenue, and revenue sharing, will make the NHL stable and strong.

Too bad more people are concerned with the poker on Cable tv than NHL hockey in the USA.

They take off for 18 months, they can kiss their ass good bye.

Speaking of the Ducks, it sucks they got rid of Prospal already....they were beginning to play well as a team the 2nd half of the season....

Guess it's a money issue. I heard they wanted to get rid of Fedorov as well, but had no takers.

The high end players "stars" should be paid fairly it's the 3rd or 4th liner muckers that should not be paid that well.... 2-3 mill range. They should be getting like 1 -1.5 max.

I think they should do it like baseball does. No hard cap but a limit. Say for example 50 million and any team that spends over that amount has to pay an obscene luxury tax to the league. in baseball if you go over the cap amount you have to pay 50% of what you go over to the league and the league then gives that money to the teams that had the worst records and the biggest finacial losses the year before so when the yankees are 40mil over that number they end up having to pay an additional 20mil to the league and the league gives that money to the royals, brewers, tigers etc so that they can afford some bigger name players.

I think the NHL could do well under a system like that so teams like the Rangers and the Red Wings and the flyers that have tons of income can still spend and spend but they will be giving money to the smaller market teams like Calgary in the end which will help calgary get better

either way if they end up with no season this year it will all but kill the league. Hockey in the US gets terrible ratings and they will only get worse with something like this

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

The league as a whole has lost 100's of millions last year... and players want the keep salaries as they are... They dont even want to accept a % of the profits... Yeah.. the players are the good guys... LOL

i'm a hockey player and damn does this suck. once i become an owner, i'll settle things.

i was talking about the spin that the players could put on the situation by donating their time to these pickup games

Which team you plan on owning? :Graucho

Calgary was in the stanley cup finals this past season. they also beat detroit in the playoffs. I dont think they need more money to get better, they do great with what they have.

Get back to the table you greedy bastards :BangBang:

heh, i only get 300$ per month, but just got to seniors, but played for them for a couple of years though. :(

the players get 75% of revenues. it should be around 50-55%. players are nothing but greedy, especially with the sport going down the shitter.

no they don't. they wont be able to keep their team together or add the pieces together to be competitive every year. same thing happens in other small markets. they can't compete with the bigger markets every single year.

I just hope the season starts before the end of October or it wont be worth it:2 cents:

The flyers owners have some SERIOSULY deep pockets.

Ed Snider and his crew. They own Comcast, the Spectrum where the games are played plus numerous other properites in Philly and elsewhere.

These guys have serious cash.

yeah this is true and I think they actually made a profit because of being in the finals but if they hadn't or if they had gotten bounced in the first round they would have lost money on the year.

They should release EVERY GREEDY player and start over. Ban all players from the league that wont work NOW. You telling me these guys can not survive with average salery of 1.7 million..
PLEASE.

Start a new league, get rid of all the greedy crybabies.
Soldiers are being killed in Iraq for $30K a year and these GREEDY MOTHER FUCKERS crying about a salary cap.

FUCK EVERY SINGLE NHL PLAYER FIRE THEM ALL

Are you for real? Fair market is more than the millions they are ALREADY making?

how about the ny rangers owners?

that is a good question... hmm...

Players are greedy. Profit sharing is the only way it will work. First they have to actually be able to make a profit from the NHL and that's not going to happen without salary caps at least in the short term.

This situation will eventually happen to other sports including NFL and NBA. There will come a time where not even the fan base will be able to support the amounts of money needed to pay players their salaries. It's just a matter of time.

The problem with that is, because of their great performance, their players will want more money. They will barely have enough to cover their stars like Iginla and Kiprusoff, so if others want more cash or win more in arbitration because they played wlel, they will have to be let go and the team won't be the same one that made it to the finals, it will have taken 2 steps back.

I don't think they'll get any better then what they did last year. They pretty much reached the pinnacle. They gelled at the right time. Who knows they could perform like the mighty ducks did, when hockey resumes.

The fucked up thing about the League (owners) is, they won't reveal exactly how much they're loosing and what teams are loosing money. This time around I agree with them on most points, mostly the cap and the contract cut off date, where if a guy doesn't have a contract by training camp, he's ineligible to play the whole year. However I wish they'd make their loses public, because from the way the NHLPA is talking, it's the Rangers and Red Wings who are loosing all the money with their stupid salaries, not the small markets. If that's the case then they're just fucking idiots.

Exactly once a player has one or two break out seasons he then wants his fair market value, the smaller market teams cannot afford it. So they lose the player and become a dead end team once again.

All the money that needs to be paid to players has caused the fan base to become more middle upper class then lower middle.

The people who are watching the games and want to take there families are the blue collar guys who love the game.

IT's sad when a family of 4 needs to spend and entire weeks salary to go to a sporting event.

Maybe both the players and fans need to look at it for more of what it will take to keep fans around then what it will take to add another million to there salary

Greed clouds judgement and rationale. While your solution is a noble one, it won't ever come to fruition.