NHL season canceled

[Dutchy]

Game Off! NHL season canceled (http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_ylc=X3oDMTBpNWZic251BF9TAzI1NjY0ODI1BHNlYwN0 aA--?slug=ap-nhllockout&prov=ap&type=lgns)

Wow... I've heard about games being cancelled in sports, but a whole season? Amazing.

[darth_mcbain]

I don't know - while cancelling a whole season is terrible, at this point, the season really wasn't even worth salvaging - They'd missed so many games. Plus, a lot of the better players went overseas to play in European leagues (and who can blame them...) Hopefully they can get this stupid labor dispute ironed out and start next season on-time.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Yeah - if they'd managed to get the season started, they'd have like a month of games and then had to go straight into the playoff schedule. Talk about a wide open shot at the Stanley Cup. :p

I'm not surprised the season is canceled. Of course - does this mean that players who were suspended for this season (Bertuzzi?) will be suspended next season instead, since no one played this year?

[Zyon Rouge]

I'm not surprised, I mean whats the point in doing the season if you are only going to have a month of games? I rather them take the time to solve this mess so we can have a real season!

[CMJ]

I hope all the teams can make it back. With no revenue at all more than acouple smaller markets may go under.

[Jedieb]

On the upside, THE TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING ARE THE REIGNING STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS FOR YET ANOTHER SEASON! :crack
http://home.ntelos.net/~eltemmorejon/jedieb/lightning.jpg

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well it is going to be tough for a lot of teams to survive I heard reports earlier that several teams might be forced to go bankrupt. The sad thing is most people in the U.S probably don't care that the NHL cancelled the season.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

My husband is furious about it.

[JMK]

I was resigned to this months ago. Both sides are run by men who act like 8 year olds trying to share toys.

They weren't as close as people thought to reaching an agreement, and now they're starting over from scratch. The players have removed their 24% rollback on salaries and the league has put linkage back on the table. By all indications this will stretch in to next season as well unless a mutiny happens on either or both sides.

As disappointed as I am that there's been no hockey at all, I'd rather be upset about no hockey than debating the merits of a shortened season and awarding the cup to a team that hasn't truly earned it. The NHL season is widely regarded as the toughest grind in pro sports and the stanley cup is supposedly (according to many many sports experts) the hardest championchip to win. To win one this year would be a slap in the face to the teams in the past who have played upwards of a 100 games to hoist the cup. Let them rot, let them shrink their pie even further. Then they'll realize that they should have resolved this when they had the chance. The best thing that can come from this is that Bettman and Goodenow get cast aside and better people come in to lead their side.

[jjwr]

This may be for the best in the long run. The players will now get on the Players association's case and urge them to work better in negotiating for them. The report yesterday is a number of players weren't happy the Union waited this long to accept a Salary Cap when they could have made the offer months ago and had things worked out rather than waiting for the last minute.

As for small market teams dying, sadly thats what the game needs. There are too many teams in poor markets, thin the herd so to speak, you will have less teams with better markets. As the game goes forward the League & Owners need to realize that expansion isn't the way to fix things.

What the Players Union doesn't realize is that the NHL is not the NFL, you can't make tons of money with such a small TV Contract. With the Lockout/Cancelation they should realize that a lot of people don't care and if they don't smarten up they will be back playing in Eastern Europe for 100k a year rather than "only" the 1.5million average or whatever it is.

[JMK]

Bettman will do whatever possible before shutting down franchises. He put them there despite cries from people who thought they should have never been there in the first place.

Sadly, hockey does not belong in Florida, Atlanta, Nashville, Carolina and a couple other spots. The fan interest just isn't there unless a team is in a cup run.

I think the NHL could be better off by dumping 4-6 teams, but the owners don't want that, and the player's association would fight even harder to keep those jobs.

[darth_mcbain]

Originally posted by jjwr
As for small market teams dying, sadly thats what the game needs. There are too many teams in poor markets, thin the herd so to speak, you will have less teams with better markets. As the game goes forward the League & Owners need to realize that expansion isn't the way to fix things.


Amen...

[CMJ]

Originally posted by JMK
Sadly, hockey does not belong in Florida, Atlanta, Nashville, Carolina and a couple other spots. The fan interest just isn't there unless a team is in a cup run.

I don't truly believe that. Hockey is really big in the Dallas area. When I moved away I'd wager the Stars were the 2nd most popular team - other than the Cowboys - the city had. More than the Mavs and Rangers.

Dallas is in the South. It never really snows. ;) Hockey can find an audience anywhere.

[JMK]

Ah, but the Stars are huge spenders. They're not on my list of places where hockey should not be, even though they are in the South. And I agree that pretty much any city can have a fan base for any sport, but to a certain degree. The people in Nashville or Atlanta who are at the games are pretty much the only ones in that state who are paying attention at that moment; the tv numbers reflect that. The NHL is where? Like #1,000,000 on the list behind darts and swamp buggy racing?

[Jedi Master Carr]

I don't think Hockey is that popular in the South. I know no Hockey fans around here and have never met one from the South. I don't think it can make it in place like Charlotte and Atlanta because of that but they are going to keep the teams unless they decide to move them afterwards. About a cap yeah if I were the Owners I hold out until they got that. To me it is what Baseball should have done back in 95 it would have change the whole dynamics of the game and made things more balanced.

[JMK]

They'll get their cap, they're going to destroy the players this time. The players should have taken one of these past offers. They're going to come crawling back.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The thing is, the players AGREED to a cap, but the owners refused to meet them in the middle. Owners wanted 42.5 mil cap, the players finally said "ok" and offered a 53 mil cap. Instead of saying "Okay then, let's deal, 45 mil cap" the owners flat out refused to negotiate further, and then the next day they canceled the season.

They need new leadership.

(numbers may not be totally accurate - gist is true according to ESPN)

[JMK]

The players agreed to a cap, and the owners agreed to drop linkage. Those were the 2 biggest issues.

The players proposed a 52 million dollar cap, the owners a 40. Then the players came down to 49, the owners up to 42.5. Gary Bettman later went back to the owners and told them that if they would go up to 45 million be believed they could get a deal done, but the owners told him that they will not going any higher than 42.5 - they were stretched to the limit as it was.

You also have to look at it this way: while it sounds like they were only 6.5 million apart, you have to multiply that 6.5 by 30, which is nearly 200 million. The Player Association's job is to get as much money for their constituents as possible, so they were not haggling over 6.5 million, but over close to 200 million dollars.

[JMK]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1994750

Looks like the season could be saved afterall.

I wish they would get this over with...

[Master Yoghurt]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1994750

Looks like the season could be saved afterall.

I wish they would get this over with...

lol, that link is too funny. They cant even agree about disagreeing. NHL players make millions of dollars every year, yet they manage to postpone most of the season, possibly cancel the whole thing (when was the last time you saw that in professional sports?). Thats incredible. How about they just play some hockey.

[JMK]

I believe it's the owners that want a season more than the players at this point. They desperately want their playoffs money, plus they just don't know how much damage they will do if this drags on for another year.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

um, baseball, 1994?

And - yay for hockey coming back. I'd hate it if our WHL players had no NHL to go to when they're too old to play here anymore. Although, it means that we might lose our team captain to the Atlanta Thrashers when they start the abbreviated NHL season. :(

[Figrin D'an]

Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
um, baseball, 1994?


That wasn't the whole season, though. That was from mid-August on, canceling the post-season that year. If this does indeed break down completely, which it appears it will, it will be the first time an entire season of one of the four major professional sports has been lost due to a labor dispute.

[Jedi Master Carr]

And Hockey is no where near as popular as Baseball, heck I say Hockey is below Nascar and Golf right now in popularity.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Below Nascar and golf? Somehow I doubt that.

[Jedieb]

Putting hockey behind Nascar and Golf isn't that much of a stretch. Nascar has a lot of growth potential and here in the south it's a friggin' religion, much like hockey is in the Great White North. Golf has a long history and it's a "sport" that many of its watchers actually play. Hockey is in serious trouble. Then again, the Lightning have their cup, I'm happy.:evil

[JMK]

The NHL is WAAAAAAAAY below Nascar and Golf.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Yeah it is, CNN said the other day that NASCAR has 75 Million fans heck that might be third now behind NFL nad MLB (since the NBA has taken a dip in recent years.) Hockey has just fallen off a lot in recent years.

[JMK]

Hockey is barely on the radar in the US, except for the anywhere in the north, and even at that, it's not that big.

[Sanis Prent]

Yawn.

Here's one of the million reasons why I dislike pro sports. Too bad, so sad.

Oh and Carr, your analysis about the south and hockey is pretty off target, considering that at least one of the lower collegiate hockey divisions has been frequently dominated by a team from the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Take that as you will.

[Jedieb]

Collegiate domination and fan interest are two completely different things. Carr's pretty much on target. The South definitely has the least amount of NHL interest in the whole country. Northeastern colleges could go decades without winning squat, you're still going to have way more interest in the Bruins and Rangers then any of these newbie southern NHL teams.

Personally, if they had gotten a season together they should have tried something along the lines of 15-20 game preseason, then a league wide playoff. Only something like that would have gotten casual sports fans interested again.

[Zyon Rouge]

Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
um, baseball, 1994?

And - yay for hockey coming back. I'd hate it if our WHL players had no NHL to go to when they're too old to play here anymore. Although, it means that we might lose our team captain to the Atlanta Thrashers when they start the abbreviated NHL season. :( Ugh, I hate the Thrashers.

[JMK]

Originally posted by Jedieb
Collegiate domination and fan interest are two completely different things.

And might I add fan interest in professional hockey.

[Rasha Vill]

Most people up here in Canada (That I've talked to) are really disipointed about no NHL, but they really arn't worried. Most of them are just getting their hockey fix by going to the minor leauges, like the BC Hockey Leauge or Canadian Hockey Leauge. It couldn't be better for the minor teams. The two local minor hockey teams are reporting that they will have a profit at the end of season enough that they can upgrade their rink and equipment, improving things for them for some time to come.

But for me there are really no tears lost over the millionares not getting payed for a year. If they were smart they should have more than enough money to last them for the rest of their lives. I much prefer the BCHL, the CHL and the Women's CHL Hockey over the NHL. I find it's better to watch people play for the fun of the sport, over those that squable over money and are their just because of the money.

[JMK]

Most of the people I know, many of them being diehard hockey fans don't miss the NHL that much at all. And they're not even going elsewhere for their hockey fix...it's almost as if it has slipped off the radar. I think Ken Dryden had it right when he said "Never give the fans an opportunity to realize that their passion is really just a habit."

[James Prent]

The draft has now officially been canceled as well. :verymad

[JMK]

The sweepstakes for phenom Sidney Crosby just really heated up as a result of this.

He's already gone on record many times saying he's most love to play for Montreal, so if all the kids who were supposed to be drafted become free agents, my Canadiens will have a good chance to grab him! This kid is like the Lebron James of hockey in terms of hype.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Where does he play right now?

[JMK]

He plays for a town several hours north of Montreal called Rimouski. The regular season just ended, he played in 62 games and scored 66 goals with 102 assists. Not even close to the record for a junior player but in the age of tight defense and great goaltending, this is a huge number. He was 50 points better than the runner up for the scoring title, and he missed 8 games around new year's because of the world junior hockey championchips.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well cancelling of the draft is probably because the NHL is determined to use replacement players if they can't come to an agreement.