While plenty of NHL players have already made back-up plans in case of a lockout, Wayne Simmonds has elected to keep a more positive outlook.
For now, anyway.
“Obviously, I’m hoping there’s a season,” said Simmonds, who hasn’t yet looked into any NHL alternatives for the coming year. “I’m sure as it comes closer, I’ll speak to my agent about [other places to play], and see where things go from there.”
Simmonds, who agreed to a six-year extension with the Flyers late Wednesday.
NHLPA head Donald Fehr said Friday the players are prepared for the eventuality of an owners' lockout if a new collective bargaining agreement can't be reached.
Fehr wrapped up a meeting held over parts of two days with about 40 players at a hotel outside of O'Hare International Airport. The union will hold similar informational meetings next week in British Columbia and Toronto.
Fehr said it's no surprise for players to hear about the possibility of a lockout, especially since both the NFL and NBA have recently weathered shutdowns.
Players are not surprised and fully understand what the ramifications of a work stoppage would mean, since most of them either lived through or have teammates who were playing when the NHL shut down in 2004, he said.
"It was interested. It was focused. It was sobered," Fehr said, describing the tone of the meetings.
Read more: Donald Fehr says NHL lockout threat has players unified - NHL - SI-com
There will be no daily update and analysis in this space about collective bargaining issues and the pending lockout in the National Hockey League.
The reason? I don’t care enough about it to render any meaningful opinions.
I can’t make a case for the rich owners and management, who shut down the game for an entire season, got their cost certainty, fixed little in the process, can’t police themselves, charge too much for tickets and take their massive audience for granted.
And at the same time, I can’t make a case for the players, almost half of whom are disposable, roster pieces than can easily be replaced, except they are protected by their guaranteed contracts. Almost anyone who can skate in the NHL is paid $1 million a year. Most are paid more. The sports and its fans would be better served by the Hollywood model: The stars are way overpaid, the extras make next to nothing. And really, when you see Mike Komisarek or Ales Hemsky being paid $45 million combined, well, you understand why ownership and management needs to find ways to police itself.
Read More: SIMMONS: NHL labour talks? Don't know. Don't care | Hockey | Sports | Toronto Sun
When it comes to negotiations regarding a collective bargaining agreement -- and over the last two years, sports fans have had to deal with plenty of them, thanks to the NFL and NBA -- it's understandable the average fan doesn't have a major interest in the nuts and bolts of the whole thing. They want games to be played, and if they have any interest in the negotiations at all, they just want to understand them.
So, rather than writing a column explaining why Executive A is being greedy or which stipulations are absurd, here's an attempt at making this whole mess somewhat understandable. The major players are already known -- it's the league, led by commissioner Gary Bettman, vs. the players' association (NHLPA) and executive director Donald Fehr -- and the current CBA expires on Sept. 15.
Assuming you already knew that, here are nine more things you need to know to better understand the situation: bruins - 10 things to help understand the NHL's CBA negotiations - WEEI | DJ Bean
Losing a half or full season in an NHL lockout could be the death knell for some players on their last legs.
In 2004-05, despite attempts to keep sharp in circuits from Fargo to France, many couldn’t cut it a year later, especially in the faster NHL.
The same fate could await many this year, even if the projected labour dispute is settled in time for the Winter Classic.
But in hindsight, one group might have benefitted from the league being mothballed in 2004-05.
“Everyone talks about the 2003 draft being so great,” an NHL exec told QMI Agency. “But what they don’t recall is how many spent that (lockout) year getting better in the American Hockey League.”
No. 1 overall pick Marc-Andre Fleury won 26 games in Wilkes-Barre for Pittsburgh. No. 2 Eric Staal improved upon his rookie numbers in Carolina with 77 points back at Lowell. That was just ahead of Manchester’s Dustin Brown, the now Cup-champion captain of the Kings.
Tomas Vanek fired 42 goals in Rochester for the Sabres, while across the state, Zach Parise had 40 assists for the Albany River Rats.
Ryan Suter got his feet wet in Milwaukee and Mike Richards joined the Philadelphia Phantoms for the playoffs and had 15 points in 14 games for the Calder Cup champs.
Read More: NHL lockout could be blessing for some | Hockey | Sports | Toronto Sun
In the days since plans to form a union representing players at the highest level of junior hockey in this country were revealed by a little-known Las Vegas-based website, the would-be Canadian Hockey League Players’ Association has remained not much more than a rumour.
The CHL and its member leagues did not know anything about it. Players quoted in various stories are similarly uninformed, despite assurances from the CHLPA that an “overwhelming” number of them support the initiative. And, most significantly, the people behind the organization have been cloaked in mystery.
On Tuesday, one of the few people publicly associated with the CHLPA, spokesman Derek Clarke, told the National Post in an interview that it had appointed an executive director: retired NHL player Georges Laraque.
Read More: Junior hockey’s union plan looks shaky | Sports | National Post
The so-called crucial stage of NHL collective bargaining talks began Wednesday morning, but there wasn’t much to hold anyone’s interest beyond lunch.
Four of the big names in the process, league commissioner Gary Bettman, deputy Bill Daly, union boss Donald Fehr and brother Steve, his top lieutenant, gathered at the Bay St. office of the Players Association, ahead of a planned long afternoon session involving larger groups. But Bettman departed before 1 p.m. to the NHL’s Toronto office a couple of blocks away, leaving Donald Fehr to explain why talks were truncated and will pick up Thursday.
“You can probably observe there’s some degree of frustration between the parties,” Fehr said. “But that doesn’t surprise me. We’re better off doing other things (with internal meetings on both sides the rest of Wednesday). We had discussions to hopefully insure we understand one another as to how we saw our respective ways to go forward, meaning to continue discussion.
“Sometimes you schedule things and they don’t come off, sometimes you schedule things and they go longer.
I wouldn’t put any significance (on Wednesday’s lack of progress).”
Fehr said the tone Wednesday was “businesslike”, but it’s still early in the game.
“I don’t read tea leaves,” he joked. “My humble suggestion is your attempt to read them would be accurate to the rate of a dart throw.”
The current CBA expires Sept. 15 and Bettman has warned the players will be locked out if there is no deal in place.
Read More: NHL labour talks 'frustrating' | Hockey | Sports | Toronto Sun
The first mistake you can make when thinking about the coming NHL lockout is thinking about it at all, but let’s blow right past that to the second mistake, which is thinking that it might be about what’s fair. Labour negotiations are not about what’s fair. Labour negotiations are about leverage. Ask a wrestler if there is a difference.
The National Hockey League and its players are headed for a lockout on Sept. 15 because of leverage, and also because of a lack of leverage. The two sides have exchanged opening proposals, but NHL commissioner Gary Bettman came out of their two-hour meeting Thursday and made himself clear.
“It’s clear that we’re at a point where it’s going to be difficult to move this process along until we deal with the fundamental economic issues,” Bettman said. “And certainly as it relates to the fundamental economic issue, we are far apart both in terms of magnitude and structure.”
Read More: NHL and NHLPA labour talks have nothing to do with what is fair | NHL | Sports | National Post
Unrestricted free agent Shane Doan won't go into a potential NHL work stoppage without a new contract.
Doan's agent, Terry Bross, told azcentral-com that his client will sign a contract before the current collective bargaining agreement with the league expires on Sept. 15. And if the Phoenix Coyotes ownership situation isn't resolved by then, Doan will look to sign with another team.
"(It has to) be done before the 15th, otherwise we're signing somewhere because we don't know what the new CBA is going to look like, and I don't know if it's going to limit any scope of a contract, so we want to make sure we sign before then," Bross said. "I guess from that respect, time is ticking."
So Sept. 15 is the latest deadline -- there have been many more and all have passed quietly --for Doan to sign.
The Buffalo Sabres have reportedly offered Doan a four-year, $30 million contract. Other teams have expressed interest as well but Doan has been waiting to see what happens with the Coyotes franchise before deciding where to play.
Read More: NHL notes: Doan wants new deal before Sept. 15 | Hockey | Sports | Toronto Sun
As the negotiations toward a new collective bargaining agreement proceed as most expected after the owners’ initial taunt of an offer, it is good to remember that this dispute is not about public relations or fairness.
It is about naked power and leverage, nothing more. The players had to know that, because after they hoisted the white flag and agreed to give the owners everything they wanted after the last lockout, the owners retained the same leadership. To expect a different approach now would be unrealistic.
And the key word in that last paragraph is ‘agreed.’ The players eventually agreed to those conditions.
Not only is Gary Bettman still at the helm, it’s the same law firm calling the same shots, which were called the last time, from the same firm calling the shots employed by the NFL and the NBA owners. So there are no surprises here.
In an excellent piece a couple of weeks back, Larry Brooks of the New York Post asked what people would think of the players if they, like the owners are doing now, basically insisted upon a 24 per cent raise in all their negotiated salaries before they took the ice this season. And he pointed out that’s exactly what the owners are doing by insisting the players take rollbacks again this time on contracts that both parties have already freely entered into. Good point.
At the end of the 2004-05 lockout — a nuclear winter for hockey fans — union exec Mike Gartner assessed the fallout of the 310-day dispute.
“I hope it never happens again,” an exhausted Gartner told the Los Angeles Times. “We’re both going to kill each other if we do it again.”
But eight years forward, on the precipice of another extended work stoppage, there’s a better chance that some fans die of boredom from rich-man rhetoric than any boardroom violence. The NHL is a $3.3-billion industry, the players are hardly starving and the pro game is generally an entertaining product that’s going global.
So when they finally settle, all that matters to them is which side did a better job covering its assets. The players have to maximize their earning power in short careers and set themselves up for life after hockey. The owners want a bigger share of league revenue or a way to bail out some of their weak U.S. markets. That’s hardly news or grounds for a street brawl, in fact the fan on the street is already yawning about a possible lockout with a “wake-me-when-it’s-over” attitude.
“This time, we know going in that a lockout won’t kill the game,” said Gord Stellick, former general manager of the Maple Leafs, now with Hockey Night In Canada. “We know the players aren’t as militant, we know the fight won’t get as personal as it was between Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow and we know a lot of NHL people think games in October and November are for the dogs and can be compressed later. It won’t be the end of the world if a lockout starts.
Read More: Ready to be bored, NHL fans? | Hockey | Sports | London Free Press
The uncertainty of the National Hockey League season is having – drip, drip – a trickle-down effect to junior hockey.
Under normal circumstances, junior operators dispatch their elite players to NHL training camps in early September. Their next order of business is to cross themselves and hope those players are returned in time for the start of their regular season.
These aren’t normal times, of course. With a lockout appearing inevitable, NHL camps won’t begin as scheduled. But what happens if matters are settled in November or December? Will NHL teams then be permitted to haul up draft picks – normally frozen in junior once they’re sent back – and disrupt their junior seasons?
“We’re in limbo,” Vancouver Giants general manager Scott Bonner admitted Monday as his team continued training camp in Ladner. “We have talked about it, but there is nothing set. Say the NHL starts up in November, I assume that the kids who are under contract and have a chance to make the big club, like a David Musil, might get called in for a shortened training camp. But I’d be shocked if they came down and grabbed everyone they drafted.”
The Giants have four players selected by NHL clubs: defencemen Musil (Edmonton) and Brett Kulak (Calgary), left-winger Marek Tvrdon (Detroit) and centre Jordan Martinook (Phoenix). Musil and Tvrdon have already signed NHL contracts but only Martinook, at age 20, is eligible to play in the American League. The others must play junior if they are unable to stick in the NHL.
Commissioner Gary Bettman presented NHL players with a new six-year collective-bargaining proposal that would phase in a reduction of their share of league revenues from 57% to a 50-50 split by the fourth year.
The league's position is that players, based on the league's average revenue growth rate, would be back at 2011-12 dollar levels and begin to see increases, starting in the fourth year.
The NHL Players' Association has not provided its opinion on the NHL's calculations. When NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr left Tuesday's second session of negotiations, he said he didn't want to comment on the specifics of the proposal and headed for more meetings for players.
Read More: NHL offer calls for eventual drop to 50-50 share
The NHL and NHLPA remained at an impasse in the latest round of collective bargaining talks as the deadline for a lockout looms.
The players' association took issue Wednesday with the latest NHL proposal that commissioner Gary Bettman called "meaningful" and "significant."
Donald Fehr, the NHLPA's executive director, and his assistants have broken down Bettman's latest offering. Fehr is expected to make a counterproposal as early as Thursday.
The two sides are at odds over hockey-related revenue. The league wants to knock down the players' percentage to 46. The players' share of HRR was 57 percent last season. Fehr said changes in how HRR is calculated would see the amount of money players give up to escrow increase "significantly." Under the NHL's proposal, the union said current contracts would not be paid in full.
"From a players' standpoint, you should understand, it doesn't make much of a difference," Fehr said Wednesday. "Should the player not get the dollar value that is on his contract because there is a rollback, which is simply a name for crossing out one number and writing in another, or whether he doesn't get an amount because there is escrow, he still doesn't get it."
The current CBA expires Sept. 15 and the league has said it will lock the players out if a new agreement isn't in place by then. Bettman says he's content to wait for that aforementioned response from the union, but declared that players shouldn't feel any "entitlement" to 57 percent of revenues.
Unlike the current CBA in which salaries are tied into revenues, the league's plan calls for the first three years to be separated from HRR. Also, HRR would be redefined in the final three years of the six-year CBA.
Read more: NHL labor talks still at impasse; union counterproposal expected - NHL - SI-com
The N.H.L. Players’ Association will respond on Friday to the league’s latest offer for a new collective bargaining agreement, the union said in a statement Thursday, just days ahead of a Sept. 15 lockout promised by N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman if a new agreement is not in place.
“Obviously the clock is ticking,” said Bill Daly, the league’s deputy commissioner, who added he found it positive that both sides are committed “to meet as often as is takes to get a deal done.”
But, Daly said, “Every day that goes by, it’s less and less likely that we’ll be able to come to closure on all the issues we need to come to closure on.”
On Tuesday the N.H.L. offered a six-year deal that gave players 46 percent of revenue, under current definitions of what constitutes hockey-related revenue. The league’s initial proposal offered the players 43 percent of revenue.
Players get 57 percent of revenue under the expiring deal.
In the first year of the league’s new six-year proposal, the salary cap would be revised downward from its current $70.2 million to $58 million. The cap would then rise by about $2 million a year, until it reached $71.5 million in 2017-18 — finally passing its current level.
On Wednesday Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, characterized the league’s latest proposal as a 19.3 percent pay cut rather than the 24 percent pay cut of its initial proposal. But, he said, the league’s new proposal represented “some movement.”
Daly said league and union officials had agreed to work over the Labor Day weekend if necessary. “Certainly there’s nothing that would preclude us from meeting on Saturday if there’s a reason to meet on Saturday,” he said.
Read More: N.H.L. Union Plans Response to League Proposal - NYTimes-com
Negotiations between NHL owners and players have hit a standstill after talks broke off Friday, two weeks before the league has threatened to lock out players. NHL Players' Association executive director Don Fehr announced that the NHL asked that talks be recessed after the union presented its latest proposal during negotiations at the league's headquarters in New York.
The sides were scheduled to continue negotiations in New York next week, but the status of those talks is uncertain.
"Someone needs to say something new," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said.
Both sides said they are willing to continue to bargain, but the league believes the players offered no substantial movement in their latest proposal, and players believe the owners' only objective is to significantly cut their share of revenues.
The NHLPA's Friday offer came three days after the NHL made its first counterproposal. After asking players to cut their share of hockey revenue from 57% to 43%, the NHL altered its proposal to have players receive a 46% share over a six-year deal.
Read More: NHL labor talks break off two weeks before deadline
Teams have a litany of choices to make over the summer in a bid to catch the Los Angeles Kings and become Stanley Cup champions. General managers can go the free-agent route, build through trades, use the draft wisely. And, of course, there’s the never-popular-with-fans stand-pat option.
Until the puck is dropped on the 2012-13 season — and with a lockout looming, who knows when that will be — the advances made by teams can be graded merely on paper. Or as digital images on a screen.
Here’s a quick look at what the 30 teams in the NHL did over the summer. For fun we decided on a playoff format, including awarding the Summertime Stanley Cup to the Carolina Hurricanes — the team that did the most to help its cause next season.
So we’re not saying the Toronto Maple Leafs — whom we give the eighth-seed in the East — are a better team than the New Jersey Devils or Philadelphia. We’re saying the Leafs had a better summer than the Devils or Flyers. On paper, anyway.
Read More: Which NHL teams made the best moves this summer? - thestar-com
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said last month that the league was able to rebound from the canceled 2004-05 season because "we have the world's greatest fans." Those fans are attempting to unite through social media to protest the fact that owners and players seem to be heading toward a third lockout since 1994.
An impressive eight-minute YouTube video, by 21-year-old Finnish freelance editor Janne Makkonen, also makes a case for no lockout.
Though fans have more outlets for a voice than they did in 2004, the league and the NHL Players' Association will be the ones who ultimately decide if they can bridge the gap in time to prevent a loss of games.
But the video at least provides enough hockey memories to tide fans over in case they can't.
With the NHL’s contract deadline less than two weeks away and no talks scheduled, many workers who count on the Canucks for their paycheck could be hit hard by a lockout.
Although people may not feel sorry for rich players and owners, plenty of other people’s livelihoods may be at stake.
“It is the part-time employees, those who are relying on a little bit of an extra bump to meet ends on their a car payments or on their mortgages,” sports business commentator Tom Mayenknecht said
“We’re talking about waitresses, bartenders in pubs that have a big spike when there is NHL hockey being played.”
Shark Club owner John Teti said his business will suffer as a result of a NHL lockout.
“Hockey in this market in Vancouver, in Canadian cities, is a tremendous economic generator, especially for the hospitality industry. So it’s a major setback,” he said.
On game nights Teti has about 30 people on shift, while on other nights he has less than ten.
“In our situation we obviously aren’t going to be hiring, like we would normally be bringing on some extra people. And plus our regular staff, there’ll be cut backs now in their hours. There’ll just be less work, less days,” he said.
Read more: Bar, arena workers more vulnerable to NHL lockout | British Columbia
The NHL and NHL Players Association have not scheduled further talks regarding a new collective bargaining agreement, both sides confirmed, according to an ESPN report.
Neither side speculated yesterday as to when talks could resume. Labor negotiations recessed Friday.
Both the league and the players’ union said before the holiday weekend that they are open to resuming discussions should either side have something new to offer. Neither camp has picked up the phone. The league intends to lock out the players if no deal is reached by Sept. 15, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires. The sides remain at an impasse on the core economic issues.
While the owners have requested the players take a decreased share of revenue, the union is reluctant to consent to anything that will result in an “absolute further reduction in salary.”
Talks broke down last week after the union countered the league’s second proposal with what the NHL found to be an unsatisfactory response.
For now, anyway.
“Obviously, I’m hoping there’s a season,” said Simmonds, who hasn’t yet looked into any NHL alternatives for the coming year. “I’m sure as it comes closer, I’ll speak to my agent about [other places to play], and see where things go from there.”
Simmonds, who agreed to a six-year extension with the Flyers late Wednesday.
Read More: Simmonds hopeful NHL can avoid lockout