If a new CBA can be sorted out by Sept. 15 the following TV Schedule will be in place, it was announced today. The television schedules for national partners NBC, NBC Sports Network, CBC, TSN, TSN2, RDS and NHL Network-U.S. for the 2012-13 regular season. In the U.S., NBC and NBC Sports Network enter the second season of the 10-year agreement with the NHL, the largest media rights deal in League history. It also is the eighth consecutive season both networks have served as a national television partner of the NHL in the U.S. In Canada, CBC's Hockey Night in Canada begins its 60th regular season of NHL broadcasts. TSN, whose relationship with the NHL dates back to 1987, continues as the League's national English-language cable partner. French-language telecast partner RDS has been televising NHL games since its inception in 1989 and enters its 10th consecutive season presenting every Montreal Canadiens game.
NBC Sports Group
Throughout the season, NBC Sports Group once again will offer hockey fans in the U.S. more than 100 games across NBC and NBC Sports Network. NBC Sports Network will air NHL games three consecutive nights each week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday nights will be exclusive, and in January, NBC Sports Network will add a second exclusive night on Sundays, giving NHL fans four straight nights of hockey action. The network will include a live pre-game (NHL Live) and post-game (NHL Overtime) show before and after every telecast. NBC Sports Network also will televise NHL All-Star Weekend live from Columbus, Ohio, Jan. 25-27, 2013. Coverage includes the NHL All-Star Player Fantasy Draft, NHL All-Star Skills Competition and the NHL All-Star Game. For the second consecutive season, NHL on NBC broadcast coverage launches on Thanksgiving Friday, with the 2012 Discover NHL Thanksgiving Showdown featuring the Boston Bruins playing host to the New York Rangers at 1:00 p.m. ET. NBC will follow up that broadcast with the 2013 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic on Tuesday, Jan. 1, at Michigan Stadium on the campus of the University of Michigan, before airing the weekly "Game of the Week" beginning Jan. 20. On Feb. 17, Hockey Day in America will be expanded to a triple-header, with two afternoon games on NBC followed by evening game on NBC Sports Network.
CBC
CBC's Hockey Night in Canada returns for is 60th season, marking a new milestone for one of the longest running and most iconic programs in Canadian television history. The 60th anniversary season is highlighted by 101 regular-season games, including a special Thursday, Nov. 1, match-up between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs, just as it did in 1952 when Hockey Night in Canada first took to the TV airwaves. The 2013 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic and the 60th NHL All-Star Game also return exclusively to CBC this season. Hockey Night in Canada on CBC will continue to honor Canada's pastime as Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada celebrates its 13th annual broadcast from Lloydminster AB/SK, Canada's only border town, on Feb. 9, 2013. All Canadian teams will be featured on the day-long broadcast, which commemorates and highlights local hockey heroes. With CBC's Hockey Night in Canada continued commitment to connect Canadians to the NHL and the sport of hockey no matter where they are on game night, all 101 regular-season games will be streamed online as well as available for iPad and iPhone users.
TSN
TSN platforms will broadcast 237 NHL regular-season games during the 2012-13 season, its most extensive broadcast package ever. TSN will broadcast 88 regular-season games nationally, including 74 games featuring Canadian teams. TSN2 will air 63 games. Highlighting TSN's 2012-13 NHL regular-season broadcast schedule is the Hockey Hall of Fame Game, airing for the first time on TSN. Featuring New Jersey at Toronto on Friday, Nov. 9, the Hockey Hall of Fame Game honors 2012 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees Pavel Bure, Adam Oates, Joe Sakic and Mats Sundin. In addition, TSN has exclusive Canadian coverage of the NHL Draft, NHL Draft Lottery and the Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Celebration while retaining the English-language exclusivity of "Wednesday Night Hockey" during which there is no other national or local NHL telecasts.
RDS
RDS will once again have French-language coverage of all 82 regular-season Montreal Canadiens games. RDS and RDS INFO also will broadcast a package of games featuring other NHL teams, including the 2013 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic and full coverage of the NHL All-Star Weekend.
NHL Network-U.S.
NHL Network-U.S. will televise 78 live games for its American audience this season, focusing on Thursday nights and Saturdays, including 14 doubleheaders and three tripleheaders. Regular-season coverage on NHL Network-U.S. gets underway on Friday, Oct. 12, at 7:30 p.m. ET and features Nashville at Detroit. The Red Wings will begin their quest for a 22nd consecutive postseason berth against captain Shea Weber and the Predators, the very team that eliminated them from the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs. On Saturday evenings, NHL Network-U.S. will continue to incorporate the highly acclaimed CBC programming "Coaches Corner" and "Hotstove" into intermission content for American fans. Other highlights include eight appearances by the current Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings and Zach Parise's return to New Jersey when the Minnesota Wild take on the Devils on Sunday, Nov. 11, at 5:00 p.m. ET. NHL Network's signature show, NHL Tonight hosted by Kathryn Tappen and featuring a rotating cast of analysts, returns across North America, providing highlights and analysis of every NHL game on a nightly basis. In addition to NHL Tonight, the network also will feature live original programming each evening with Cisco NHL Live and NHL On the Fly. As always, NHL Network will continue to bring fans exclusive coverage from all of the NHL's signature events throughout the season. Information on the dates and times of the NHL Network live-game schedule for Canadian viewers will be released in the near future.
2012-13 Regular Season
The NHL's 2012-13 regular season is scheduled to commence on Thursday, Oct. 11, with a quartet of games. The following night, Friday, Oct. 1 the Los Angeles Kings will raise the first Stanley Cup Championship banner in franchise history in front of a national audience on NBC Sports Network.
Opening night will feature nationally televised double-headers in both the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S., NBC Sports Network will air the 2011 Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins visiting the Philadelphia Flyers at Wells Fargo Center as well as the St. Louis Blues taking on the Colorado Avalanche at Pepsi Center. In Canada, CBC and RDS will televise the Montreal Canadiens playing host to the Ottawa Senators at Bell Centre and the Calgary Flames battling the Vancouver Canucks at Scotiabank Saddledome. Under the NHL scheduling matrix, each team plays six games against each team in its division (24 games), four games against the non-division teams within its conference (40 games) plus 18 non-conference games, including at least one game against each club in the other conference (15 games) and three other games against select teams. The 2012-13 NHL regular season will conclude on Saturday, April 13, with 28 teams competing in what promises to be a thrilling 14-game fight to the finish.
Thursday, 30 August 2012
Lockout - Promising News
National Hockey League Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said Thursday he is hopeful the forthcoming proposal from the National Hockey League Players' Association's negotiating committee will lead to further progress being made toward establishing a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The NHL's negotiating committee expects to receive a response Friday to the six-year counterproposal it presented earlier this week. The two sides are scheduled to meet Friday morning at the League office.
The NHL's counterproposal came in response to the Union's initial offer, which was presented Aug. 14. The League made the first formal proposal of these negotiations July 13.
The current CBA expires Sept. 15. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman previously said the owners will not operate under the current agreement.
"We feel like we made a good step in that direction (toward progress) earlier this week and we hope that they would take a step forward as well," Daly said.
When compared with the terms of its initial offer of July 13, the six-year deal the League tabled Tuesday proposed an increase of approximately $460 million to the total amount that would be paid to players during the life of the agreement -- including $120 million in Year 1 alone.
The proposal was based on a phase-in approach that would contemplate fixed-dollar amounts for the players' share in each of the first three seasons, with respective reductions during those seasons of 11 percent, 8.5 percent and 5.5 percent compared to what the players received in 2011-12.
Beginning in the fourth year of the deal, and in each of the years thereafter, the players' share would return to a percentage of hockey-related revenues and would feature a 50-50 split of revenues between players and owners.
The NHL's projections indicate that the players' total dollars share by that point should be restored fully to the previous levels and will again begin growing in relation to the growth in League-wide revenues.
The Union took Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to analyze the proposal before the sides got back together Wednesday afternoon. The Union held a conference call with its executive board and negotiating committee Wednesday night, and was spending Thursday framing its response.
Daly said NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr outlined some of the areas that the Union intends to focus on in its response and some of the issues it had concerns with during Wednesday's 90-minute negotiating session between Commissioner Bettman, Daly, Fehr and NHLPA Special Counsel Steve Fehr.
"So, I have some basis of understanding of some of the things of what they propose to us may focus on, but I don't want to speculate as to what [Donald Fehr] might come back with," Daly said.
Daly added that the NHL's negotiating committee is open to further negotiation on its counterproposal, but the nature of those negotiations will be based on what the Union presents Friday.
"We're not married to the structure, so if it's a good proposal [from the Union] and takes a different route, we're open to that," Daly said.
The NHL is planning to take time to analyze the Union's proposal, and it is possible the sides continue to negotiate through the holiday weekend.
"Obviously the first proposal they made on Aug. 14, we took the night to analyze it and break it down and figure it out," Daly said. "Depending on what this is, we may need to take time as well, but certainly there is nothing that would preclude us from meeting on Saturday if there is a reason to meet on Saturday."
The League remains hopeful a new CBA will be in place by Sept. 15, but Daly conceded that "obviously the clock is ticking."
"We're almost into September now," he continued. "I would say the positive thing is I think both parties are committed, if there are reasons to meet and continue to move forward, to meet as often as it takes to get a deal done. But, obviously every day that goes by it's less and less likely that we'll be able to come to closure on all of the issues we need to come to closure on."
The NHL's negotiating committee expects to receive a response Friday to the six-year counterproposal it presented earlier this week. The two sides are scheduled to meet Friday morning at the League office.
The NHL's counterproposal came in response to the Union's initial offer, which was presented Aug. 14. The League made the first formal proposal of these negotiations July 13.
The current CBA expires Sept. 15. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman previously said the owners will not operate under the current agreement.
"We feel like we made a good step in that direction (toward progress) earlier this week and we hope that they would take a step forward as well," Daly said.
When compared with the terms of its initial offer of July 13, the six-year deal the League tabled Tuesday proposed an increase of approximately $460 million to the total amount that would be paid to players during the life of the agreement -- including $120 million in Year 1 alone.
The proposal was based on a phase-in approach that would contemplate fixed-dollar amounts for the players' share in each of the first three seasons, with respective reductions during those seasons of 11 percent, 8.5 percent and 5.5 percent compared to what the players received in 2011-12.
Beginning in the fourth year of the deal, and in each of the years thereafter, the players' share would return to a percentage of hockey-related revenues and would feature a 50-50 split of revenues between players and owners.
The NHL's projections indicate that the players' total dollars share by that point should be restored fully to the previous levels and will again begin growing in relation to the growth in League-wide revenues.
The Union took Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to analyze the proposal before the sides got back together Wednesday afternoon. The Union held a conference call with its executive board and negotiating committee Wednesday night, and was spending Thursday framing its response.
Daly said NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr outlined some of the areas that the Union intends to focus on in its response and some of the issues it had concerns with during Wednesday's 90-minute negotiating session between Commissioner Bettman, Daly, Fehr and NHLPA Special Counsel Steve Fehr.
"So, I have some basis of understanding of some of the things of what they propose to us may focus on, but I don't want to speculate as to what [Donald Fehr] might come back with," Daly said.
Daly added that the NHL's negotiating committee is open to further negotiation on its counterproposal, but the nature of those negotiations will be based on what the Union presents Friday.
"We're not married to the structure, so if it's a good proposal [from the Union] and takes a different route, we're open to that," Daly said.
The NHL is planning to take time to analyze the Union's proposal, and it is possible the sides continue to negotiate through the holiday weekend.
"Obviously the first proposal they made on Aug. 14, we took the night to analyze it and break it down and figure it out," Daly said. "Depending on what this is, we may need to take time as well, but certainly there is nothing that would preclude us from meeting on Saturday if there is a reason to meet on Saturday."
The League remains hopeful a new CBA will be in place by Sept. 15, but Daly conceded that "obviously the clock is ticking."
"We're almost into September now," he continued. "I would say the positive thing is I think both parties are committed, if there are reasons to meet and continue to move forward, to meet as often as it takes to get a deal done. But, obviously every day that goes by it's less and less likely that we'll be able to come to closure on all of the issues we need to come to closure on."
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
NHL News
Ottawa Senators: GM Bryan Murray announced today that the club has signed center Kyl Turris to a five-year contract extension through the 2017-18 NHL season. Turris, 23, recently completed his third full season in the NHL and played 49 of his 55 regular season contests in 2011-12 as a member of the Senators. He was originally acquired by Ottawa from the Phoenix Coyotes on Dec. 17, 2011, in exchange for defenceman David Rundblad and a second-round draft pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. A native of Burnaby, B.C., Turris concluded the 2011-12 campaign having established new career highs in goals (12), assists (17), points (29) and penalty minutes (27). He recorded 3 points (1+2) and 2 penalty minutes while skating in each of Ottawa’s 7 post-season contests against the New York Rangers. In 186 career NHL contests with Phoenix and Ottawa, he has recorded 75 points (31+44) and 70 penalty minutes. On April 18, Turris became the 13th player in franchise history to record a playoff overtime-winning goal, when he helped lift the Senators to a 3-2 win over the Rangers at Scotiabank Place in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference quarter-final series. Turris was Phoenix’s first-round pick (third overall) in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.
Talks are set to continue between the NHL and NHLPA today, obviously with the time difference here in the UK I will aim to get further updates as and when possible.
Talks are set to continue between the NHL and NHLPA today, obviously with the time difference here in the UK I will aim to get further updates as and when possible.
Stars making plans in event of lockout
Evgeni Malkin has stated he plans to play in the KHL in the event of a lockout, but he also indicated that teammate Sidney Crosby might join him overseas. With pessimism surrounding the NHL labor negotiations and a lockout looming, star Pittsburgh center Malkin has indicated he'll play overseas in Russia if a work stoppage does occur. Malkin, the 2012 points leader and Hart Trophy winner, said he would play for Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the KHL if a lockout occurs. Malkin played with Metallurg for 3 seasons prior to joining the Penguins. Both sides have reportedly already engaged in discussions about a potential week-to-week contract in the event of a lockout. Malkin also dished an update on his superstar teammate, Sidney Crosby. The Russian said Crosby may play in the KHL in the event of a lockout., but he would not play there in 2012. Malkin told Lynsenkov that Crosby wouldn't come over to Russia unless the entire season was canceled, and that the Pens captain would wait until after Christmas to make that move.
If the NHL lockout threatens to cancel the entire 2012-2103 season, New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist wants to play in the Swedish Elite League. There seems to be a real possibility that the entire season could be lost just like the NHL lockout of 2004. If that is the case, Lundqvist has expressed a desire to play for Frölunda of the Swedish Elite League. The problem with Lundqvist making a move like this is the Swedish Elite League won't allow players to sign short-term lockout contracts. If they come, it's for the full season. This is similar to when several NBA players elected to compete in China due to the lockout and were forced to sign contracts for the entire season.
There was more than just talking going on when the NHL and NHLPA met in New York yesterday. A fresh proposal was slid across the table by the league in an effort to reach an agreement before the Sept. 15 deadline. That the league backed off their initial stance has to be seen as a positive, but were the changes in this new offer "meaningful" as Commissioner Gary Bettman stressed in a post-meeting press briefing?
If you believe that the NHL's first proposal, the one that slashed the player's take from 57 to 43 percent while redefining Hockey-Related Revenue (HRR), crushing free agency and arbitration rights and extending the length of entry-level contracts, among other things, was a serious bargaining position. Then yes, but it wasn't, of course. From the perspective of the players it was a non-starter, and while it would be nice to think otherwise, so was yesterday's offer. At least there is movement instead of a full-on frontal assault from the owners, this proposal is more like a flanking maneuver. The end result, though, remains the same.
According to multiple sources, the new proposal features a six-year term. That's the easy part. After that, the math gets a little dense. Next season, the players would receive a 51.6 percent share of HRR. The cut would drop to 50.5 percent and 49.6 percent the following two seasons. For the final 3 years, the split would be 50/50. On the surface, those numbers look pretty fair, especially when you consider that the players would also get a share in any revenue growth that exceeded 10 percent in each of the first 3 years. But then you remember that the term "Hockey-Related Revenue" is being redefined essentially, the owners have decided to bake a smaller pie from which the players will get their slice. Those percentages over the first 3 years come with the caveat of a fixed cap that is detached from HRR. In 2012-13, it would be set at $58 million, then rise to $60 million and $62 million over the following 2 seasons. The players had a similarly delinked three-year starting period, but their fixed numbers were considerably higher: $69 million in the first year, followed by $71 million and $75 million. There's traction on the concept, but the distance between the numbers is staggering. Under the current CBA, the cap was projected at $70.2 million for the 2012-13 season. At this new rate, 16 teams (more than half the league) would be over the $58 million proposed cap. There was no mention of a salary rollback, like the 24 percent the players had to cough up in the 2005 settlement, but there's still a significant haircut to be taken. They can call it escrow, but by any name it means giant piles of money are being yanked back from the players. And so, despite Bettman's claim, this proposal is not different in any meaningful way from the first. A new approach, yes, but it's not progress. Bettman can suggest that revenue sharing 'will not make or break' these negotiations, as he did in a post meeting press briefing yesterday. But since that's the main plank in the NHLPA platform, it illustrates that the 2 sides are not even close to speaking the same language. The players are willing to take less money, but for their sacrifice they want a new system in place, a more effective revenue sharing model among the teams. The owners want to guarantee that they retain more revenue through a significant diminishment of salaries. There isn't any reason to expect that to change before Sept. 15. The reality is that the owners have no motivation to make 'meaningful' concessions at this point. They'll continue to play their game of cat and mouse in a way that makes their offer seem more palatable to the public while the clock ticks down and the pressure begins to weigh on the union. The NHLPA took the offer home last night to mull over. It's likely that much "meaningful" laughter ensued, but they have to know they're up against it. Their response when the 2 sides meet again today will be telling.
There was more than just talking going on when the NHL and NHLPA met in New York yesterday. A fresh proposal was slid across the table by the league in an effort to reach an agreement before the Sept. 15 deadline. That the league backed off their initial stance has to be seen as a positive, but were the changes in this new offer "meaningful" as Commissioner Gary Bettman stressed in a post-meeting press briefing?
If you believe that the NHL's first proposal, the one that slashed the player's take from 57 to 43 percent while redefining Hockey-Related Revenue (HRR), crushing free agency and arbitration rights and extending the length of entry-level contracts, among other things, was a serious bargaining position. Then yes, but it wasn't, of course. From the perspective of the players it was a non-starter, and while it would be nice to think otherwise, so was yesterday's offer. At least there is movement instead of a full-on frontal assault from the owners, this proposal is more like a flanking maneuver. The end result, though, remains the same.
According to multiple sources, the new proposal features a six-year term. That's the easy part. After that, the math gets a little dense. Next season, the players would receive a 51.6 percent share of HRR. The cut would drop to 50.5 percent and 49.6 percent the following two seasons. For the final 3 years, the split would be 50/50. On the surface, those numbers look pretty fair, especially when you consider that the players would also get a share in any revenue growth that exceeded 10 percent in each of the first 3 years. But then you remember that the term "Hockey-Related Revenue" is being redefined essentially, the owners have decided to bake a smaller pie from which the players will get their slice. Those percentages over the first 3 years come with the caveat of a fixed cap that is detached from HRR. In 2012-13, it would be set at $58 million, then rise to $60 million and $62 million over the following 2 seasons. The players had a similarly delinked three-year starting period, but their fixed numbers were considerably higher: $69 million in the first year, followed by $71 million and $75 million. There's traction on the concept, but the distance between the numbers is staggering. Under the current CBA, the cap was projected at $70.2 million for the 2012-13 season. At this new rate, 16 teams (more than half the league) would be over the $58 million proposed cap. There was no mention of a salary rollback, like the 24 percent the players had to cough up in the 2005 settlement, but there's still a significant haircut to be taken. They can call it escrow, but by any name it means giant piles of money are being yanked back from the players. And so, despite Bettman's claim, this proposal is not different in any meaningful way from the first. A new approach, yes, but it's not progress. Bettman can suggest that revenue sharing 'will not make or break' these negotiations, as he did in a post meeting press briefing yesterday. But since that's the main plank in the NHLPA platform, it illustrates that the 2 sides are not even close to speaking the same language. The players are willing to take less money, but for their sacrifice they want a new system in place, a more effective revenue sharing model among the teams. The owners want to guarantee that they retain more revenue through a significant diminishment of salaries. There isn't any reason to expect that to change before Sept. 15. The reality is that the owners have no motivation to make 'meaningful' concessions at this point. They'll continue to play their game of cat and mouse in a way that makes their offer seem more palatable to the public while the clock ticks down and the pressure begins to weigh on the union. The NHLPA took the offer home last night to mull over. It's likely that much "meaningful" laughter ensued, but they have to know they're up against it. Their response when the 2 sides meet again today will be telling.
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Teams affected most by a lockout
There are 3 teams that have the most to worry about any potentional NHL lockout.
New York Rangers: Losing an entire year would halt the progress that Rangers general manager Glen Sather has made in developing an incredible roster for a Stanley Cup run this season. The Rangers have the goaltending, defensive depth, goal scoring and leadership needed to win a Cup. Since Ryan Callahan, Marian Gaborik and Henrik Lundqvist have just 2 years left on their current contracts, the Rangers might have two chances to make a run with their current roster. In two years' time, the Blueshirts will have quite a few players needing raises in their new deals. Keeping everyone and meeting their demands may be difficult, so New York needs to make the most of its opportunities over the next couple of years. The playoff experience that the team gained last season plus some improvements made this summer have made the Rangers the favorites to win the Eastern Conference next year. With that said, it's not hard to understand why losing a season would be devastating to the franchise.
San Jose Sharks: A lost season could trigger a rebuild in San Jose—the team cannot afford to wait an entire year before making another playoff run since the roster is already full of aging stars. Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Martin Havlat Michal Handzus, Dan Boyle and Brad Stuart make up most of the star talent on the Sharks roster, and each of these players is over 30 years old. Losing a season and having these players age another year wouldn't be ideal for the Sharks. If San Jose is determined to make one last run at a Stanley Cup title with its current group of veterans, it needs a season to happen. A canceled season could force the team to build for the future around star center Logan Couture.
Vancouver Canucks: The Canucks are a team of aging stars that has just a few more years as a top contender in the Western Conference. Winning two straight Presidents' Trophies is proof that the Canucks are still a top team despite their disappointing playoff results in recent seasons. Of the four best forwards on the Canucks roster (Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Ryan Kesler, Alexandre Burrows), only Kesler is under the age of 30. Defenseman Kevin Bieksa, one of the team's best players and a leader, is 31 years old. Vancouver needs to win now before its best players exit the prime of their careers. The Canucks also spent a lot of money to sign free-agent defenseman Jason Garrison to help the team win now. Vancouver is the team with the most to lose if there is a canceled season because of a lockout. Its time to contend for the Stanley Cup is right now.
New York Rangers: Losing an entire year would halt the progress that Rangers general manager Glen Sather has made in developing an incredible roster for a Stanley Cup run this season. The Rangers have the goaltending, defensive depth, goal scoring and leadership needed to win a Cup. Since Ryan Callahan, Marian Gaborik and Henrik Lundqvist have just 2 years left on their current contracts, the Rangers might have two chances to make a run with their current roster. In two years' time, the Blueshirts will have quite a few players needing raises in their new deals. Keeping everyone and meeting their demands may be difficult, so New York needs to make the most of its opportunities over the next couple of years. The playoff experience that the team gained last season plus some improvements made this summer have made the Rangers the favorites to win the Eastern Conference next year. With that said, it's not hard to understand why losing a season would be devastating to the franchise.
San Jose Sharks: A lost season could trigger a rebuild in San Jose—the team cannot afford to wait an entire year before making another playoff run since the roster is already full of aging stars. Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Martin Havlat Michal Handzus, Dan Boyle and Brad Stuart make up most of the star talent on the Sharks roster, and each of these players is over 30 years old. Losing a season and having these players age another year wouldn't be ideal for the Sharks. If San Jose is determined to make one last run at a Stanley Cup title with its current group of veterans, it needs a season to happen. A canceled season could force the team to build for the future around star center Logan Couture.
Vancouver Canucks: The Canucks are a team of aging stars that has just a few more years as a top contender in the Western Conference. Winning two straight Presidents' Trophies is proof that the Canucks are still a top team despite their disappointing playoff results in recent seasons. Of the four best forwards on the Canucks roster (Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Ryan Kesler, Alexandre Burrows), only Kesler is under the age of 30. Defenseman Kevin Bieksa, one of the team's best players and a leader, is 31 years old. Vancouver needs to win now before its best players exit the prime of their careers. The Canucks also spent a lot of money to sign free-agent defenseman Jason Garrison to help the team win now. Vancouver is the team with the most to lose if there is a canceled season because of a lockout. Its time to contend for the Stanley Cup is right now.
Saturday, 25 August 2012
3 Shaun Kippin
Shaun was one of the many Whitley Players who started off their hockey careers at the now defunct Durham Wasps. It was while playing for one of the many junior teams at the Riverside Rink that he first got the nickname 'Skippy'. With his next door neighbour being former Wasps captain Paul Smith, his younger brother Damian spotted that a letter was missing from the back of his shirt, so instead of reading S.KIPPIN it actaully read S.KIPPI, the name stuck before he re-located to Whitley Bay. Shaun made his debut for the Warriors at 16 during the 2003-04 season. Sadly for Shaun this coincided with one of the worst seasons in the clubs history as they failed to make the play-offs. Over the next 3 season's Shaun seemed to want to improve the teams fortunes all by himself, playing with a determination that he also demanded of his team mates, which heaped added pressure onto the shoulders of someone so young. If his team faced difficulties on the ice, he certainly proved to be popular off it, especial amongst the female fans who loved his cheeky persona. He was also a bit of a joker in the dressing room with his teammates so it was a shock that he left over the summer of 2006.
Wanting a fresh challenge he moved to the Solway Sharks, based in Dumfries. Considering his job was still based on Tyneside his 4 hour round trip each weekend just for a home game or travelling the length of Scotland before returning home showed great levels of commitment and determination for his love of the game. As Solway and Whitley continued to face each other in the Northern League it meant Skippy would always receive a warm reception on his return to the Hillheads Ice. Shaun wore the maroon & gold of Whitley once again in 2008, proving he had grown even more as a player and proved to be an excellent addition to a side that had won the Championship playoffs just a few weeks earlier. He formed a very successful line with his best friend Mark Good and pacy winger Nathan Taylor. Even though Taylor might have grabbed the headlines with his goalscoring prowess, people should never forget just what a part Shaun played in supplying the bullets from center for Nathan to fire home.
For the next 4 years Shaun had many roles for the team starting as a great line mate for Nathan Taylor before becoming an enforcer, protecting some of the younger players and then into a goalscorer. Many things stand out for me watching Shaun over the years, but probably the fact that he would run through a brick wall for the good of the team is the most special part of his game. During the 2009 play-offs in Nottingham a bench clearance occurred (due to the poor officialling of the game) Shaun despite playing with a very badly injured shoulder was one of the first players onto the scene to help out his team mates and ended up doing further damage to his shoulder while roughing up his opponent.
This is not to say he was ever a goon, he was anything but. A really nice lad off the ice, but a bit of a bad-ass on it. I would say he was a lot like Darren McCarty in that he could fight and protect his team mates but also score some really important goals. His skating style is much like Scott Hartnell of the Philadelphia Flyers. In his final season as a Warrior in 2011-12, he celebrated the fact he was made alternate captain by having a career-year and being the leading goal scorer for the team. He might even have added to his tally had it not been for an injury.
It says a lot about the man that Shaun is, that after signing for his new team, the Deesside Dragons (due to work commitments), he has taken a lot of the training sessions at Whitley as an acting coach while, the real coach has been unavailable. Deesside (formerly the Flinthsire Freeze) are getting a really gifted hockey player, who is in the form of his life and I for one fully expect him to lead them to promotion at the end of this season.
PS: On a personal note, over the last few years I have got to know Shaun quite well. Firstly as a friend through the Ice Hockey, then as a work colleague and finally as my line manager. He shares such excitement and knowledge about the game as I do, that even though we follow rival NHL sides can still have some good-natured banter about it. He will be missed on the Whitley team, both from a friend's and supporter's perspective.
Wanting a fresh challenge he moved to the Solway Sharks, based in Dumfries. Considering his job was still based on Tyneside his 4 hour round trip each weekend just for a home game or travelling the length of Scotland before returning home showed great levels of commitment and determination for his love of the game. As Solway and Whitley continued to face each other in the Northern League it meant Skippy would always receive a warm reception on his return to the Hillheads Ice. Shaun wore the maroon & gold of Whitley once again in 2008, proving he had grown even more as a player and proved to be an excellent addition to a side that had won the Championship playoffs just a few weeks earlier. He formed a very successful line with his best friend Mark Good and pacy winger Nathan Taylor. Even though Taylor might have grabbed the headlines with his goalscoring prowess, people should never forget just what a part Shaun played in supplying the bullets from center for Nathan to fire home.
For the next 4 years Shaun had many roles for the team starting as a great line mate for Nathan Taylor before becoming an enforcer, protecting some of the younger players and then into a goalscorer. Many things stand out for me watching Shaun over the years, but probably the fact that he would run through a brick wall for the good of the team is the most special part of his game. During the 2009 play-offs in Nottingham a bench clearance occurred (due to the poor officialling of the game) Shaun despite playing with a very badly injured shoulder was one of the first players onto the scene to help out his team mates and ended up doing further damage to his shoulder while roughing up his opponent.
This is not to say he was ever a goon, he was anything but. A really nice lad off the ice, but a bit of a bad-ass on it. I would say he was a lot like Darren McCarty in that he could fight and protect his team mates but also score some really important goals. His skating style is much like Scott Hartnell of the Philadelphia Flyers. In his final season as a Warrior in 2011-12, he celebrated the fact he was made alternate captain by having a career-year and being the leading goal scorer for the team. He might even have added to his tally had it not been for an injury.
It says a lot about the man that Shaun is, that after signing for his new team, the Deesside Dragons (due to work commitments), he has taken a lot of the training sessions at Whitley as an acting coach while, the real coach has been unavailable. Deesside (formerly the Flinthsire Freeze) are getting a really gifted hockey player, who is in the form of his life and I for one fully expect him to lead them to promotion at the end of this season.
PS: On a personal note, over the last few years I have got to know Shaun quite well. Firstly as a friend through the Ice Hockey, then as a work colleague and finally as my line manager. He shares such excitement and knowledge about the game as I do, that even though we follow rival NHL sides can still have some good-natured banter about it. He will be missed on the Whitley team, both from a friend's and supporter's perspective.
NHL News
Phoenix: Shane Doan will make a decision where he'll play in 2012-13 by Sept. 15, Sarah McLellan of the Arizona Republic reported Thursday night. Doan, who turns 36 in October, became an unrestricted free agent July 1. He has been waiting to see if Greg Jamison can close a deal to purchase the Coyotes. The Winnipeg/Phoenix franchise is the only one Doan has played for since being selected by the Jets in the first round (No. 7) at the 1995 NHL Draft. The power forward has reportedly received multiple offers this summer to play elsewhere. "Shane is going to sign a contract before the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) expires on the 15th," Doan's agent, Terry Bross, told McLellan. "(Ownership 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. "I guess from that respect, time is ticking."
NHL Lockout 2004 v 2012
As the calendar nears the Sept, 15 expiration of the NHL's Collective Bargaining Agreement, it's starting to look, sound and feel a lot like the dark fall of 2004. Despite record revenues ($3.3 billion, a 33 percent increase from 2005-06), a 10-year TV deal worth approximately $2 billion with the NBC Network for U.S. broadcasts, money-printing innovations such as the Winter Classic and its HBO 24/7 lead-in series, and all the "cost certainties" that team owners got after the last lockout, here we are again talking about another delayed or completely lost season.
THEN vs. NOW: Fehr has offered to keep playing beyond the CBA's expiration date, but Bettman insists a lockout will begin that day if no agreement is reached. Though friction, frustration and disappointment seem to be increasing as talks progress, the harsh rhetoric of eight years ago has largely been absent as both sides express a desire to reach a deal. Most meetings have been characterized as cordial and businesslike -- though that could change. Abruptly cancelled bargaining talks after a meeting between Fehr and Bettman on Aug. 22 followed by a mere 90-minute session on the 23rd was cause for concern, especially when Bettman kept citing the "wide gap" between the two sides.
THEN vs. NOW: While tensions may rise between Fehr and Bettman, it seems doubtful they'll ever come close to the mutual loathing between the league and Goodenow. Also, methods for the accounting of hockey-related revenue are, while not without some controversy, now more transparent and agreeable to both sides.
THEN vs. NOW: The hard cap is now in place, of course, but the team salary ceiling for 2012-13 is set at $70.2 million -- a stark difference from $39 million in 2005-06 -- so it seems that the biggest fight will be over revenue share percentage. Just as Goodenow predicted, the owners want to reduce that magic number.
SUMMER 2004
CBA negotiations had begun in October 2003, but by the following August, the two sides had met only four times. Among the issues were higher player fines, the schedule, playoff bonuses, free agency, salary arbitration, and revenue sharing. The owners were demanding a $35 million salary cap and "cost certainty" that gave players a 50 percent share of league revenue. In February, the NHL had unveiled a controversial report by former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Arthur Levitt, who'd been hired by the league. Called a "super-audit" it declared that players were receiving 76 percent of the league's $1.9 billion revenue while owners had lost $273 million during the 2002-03 season. (NHL revenue wasn't as well tabulated as it is today, but it was probably still over a $1 billion. Meanwhile, the average salary of $730,000 in 1994-95, the year of the previous lockout, had risen to $1.8 million by 2003-04.) NHLPA boss Bob Goodenow disputed Levitt's findings, issuing a report of his own that claimed $100 million of unreported hockey revenue had been uncovered by the NHLPA's examination of the books kept by four teams. The players offered a five-percent rollback in salaries, a return to 1995 entry-level contracts, and a luxury tax on payrolls topping $50 million to be shared among all teams. Bettman vowed the owners would wait as long as necessary to get what they wanted. Goodenow, who had been warning players to prepare for a lockout that could last as long as two full seasons, said they would not agree to a hard or soft cap. "Bottom line, if they want a hard cap, we'll sit out the rest of our lives," Maple Leafs union rep Bryan McCabe told The Toronto Star.
THEN vs. NOW: Fehr has offered to keep playing beyond the CBA's expiration date, but Bettman insists a lockout will begin that day if no agreement is reached. Though friction, frustration and disappointment seem to be increasing as talks progress, the harsh rhetoric of eight years ago has largely been absent as both sides express a desire to reach a deal. Most meetings have been characterized as cordial and businesslike -- though that could change. Abruptly cancelled bargaining talks after a meeting between Fehr and Bettman on Aug. 22 followed by a mere 90-minute session on the 23rd was cause for concern, especially when Bettman kept citing the "wide gap" between the two sides.
SEPT. '04: LET THE MISERY BEGIN
On Sept. 15, one day after Canada won the World Cup of Hockey, Bettman formally announced a lockout -- the second of his tenure that began in 1993. The NHL's financial model was "broken," he said. The stalemate began in earnest as the calendar turned to October. Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider summed up his colleagues' animosity toward Goodenow by saying, "I might jump over the table and choke him to death. That would not be good. That's why they keep me out of the negotiations."THEN vs. NOW: While tensions may rise between Fehr and Bettman, it seems doubtful they'll ever come close to the mutual loathing between the league and Goodenow. Also, methods for the accounting of hockey-related revenue are, while not without some controversy, now more transparent and agreeable to both sides.
DECEMBER '04: THE GIVEBACKS
It seems hard to believe, but there were no formal negotiations through October and November. By December, players were starting to grumble to Goodenow that he should at least try to get things moving. So the NHLPA made its first formal offer to the league since the summer: a dramatic 24 percent rollback in existing salaries, a 20 percent tax on team payrolls that exceed $45 million, and some concessions on rookie contracts and arbitration. In a press conference, Goodenow called them "significant, significant changes" and optimism ran high among players that a deal would get done in time to salvage part of the season. But after five days of studying the proposal, which Bettman had called "a big time move", the verdict came back: no deal. Without a hard cap of some kind, he said, a CBA couldn't be consummated although he was willing to give players a 54 percent cut of revenue. Goodenow told his ranks that once a hard cap was in place, it would never come off and the dollars would always go down from there.THEN vs. NOW: The hard cap is now in place, of course, but the team salary ceiling for 2012-13 is set at $70.2 million -- a stark difference from $39 million in 2005-06 -- so it seems that the biggest fight will be over revenue share percentage. Just as Goodenow predicted, the owners want to reduce that magic number.
Friday, 24 August 2012
Lockout 2012 Update Thursday 23rd August
Toronto Sun
Three weeks shy of an NHL lockout, the two sides can’t agree what ingredients are in the pie, much less how to slice it. Perhaps the small group of four executive chefs gathering in New York early next week will have more success. Two days of owners and players butting heads in Toronto this week did very little, except to sniff at the other’s recipe for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Brief discussions in Toronto ended Thursday with the owners hearing full formal details of the players’ proposal on economic systems and contracts, a plan the owners already had panned in large part last week. So the 4 principals in the talks, Bettman, deputy commissioner Bill Daly, union executive director Donald Fehr and brother Steve his lieutenant, will meet alone in New York on Tuesday in what was originally to be the start of marathon bargaining with all big guns from both sides. Bettman said the intervening four-day lull in talks would provide “homework” time for both sides. The current CBA expires Sept. 15 and the owners are ready to chain the dressing room doors, to the chagrin of players and fans who lost the entire 2004-05 season to the labour war. But a wide gap in philosophy remains. The players have agreed to reduce their 57% share of revenues closer to the 50% range that was accepted by the other three major sports. The owners want that as low as 43%, but there are conflicting beliefs on how hockey related revenues are calculated in the first place. Yet owners are still offering mega-dollar contracts, some longer than the five-year maximum they’ve demanded the union now accept. The one good thing from the two days of Toronto meetings, both which lasted just half a day, were that the sides are still cordial, compared to the personal acrimony that marked 2004’s showdown between Bettman and union head Bob Goodenow.
Donald Fehr Quotes: “Hopefully it will be productive when we get to (Tuesday), I still believe there’s enough time, if there’s a mutual will (to avoid a shutdown).”
Gary Bettman Quotes: “It’s fair to say we’re far apart in that regard. We’re at a point where it’s difficult to move this process along until we deal with fundamental economic issues. We believe we are paying the players more than we should. The union is looking for a system with more flexibility and we’re looking for one with less, more akin to what we envisioned eight years ago (heading into the last CBA). It would be difficult to move anything else along (the many outstanding CBA issues). So we’ll each do some homework in the next few days, hopefully to find a way to get on the same page. It’s a good idea to get together with just the four of us. Big group, small group, the tone has been businesslike and courteous. Even though we’re in negotiation and far apart, there is recognition of our issues from a union standpoint and that is a positive. It was clear we understood (the players’ offer). We went back and suggested a framework using some elements of the proposal to try and form a basis to go forward.”
Calgary Herald
Fehr quotes: "Everybody understands that every employer would like to pay less. That's not a surprise. It is a disappointment sometimes, but it's not a surprise. If there's going to be a lockout, that's something the owners will choose or not choose, you would have missed games, you would have lost revenues, you would have missed paycheques. But that doesn't mean the parties don't understand going into it that would be the case. We will meet on tuesday to focus on core economic issues going forward."
Bettman quotes: "One, we're focused on trying to make a deal. We don't want a work stoppage. But obviously, if we don't have a deal, we feel we have no choice. And two, we recovered well last time because we have the world's greatest fans. There is a wide gap between us."
Three weeks shy of an NHL lockout, the two sides can’t agree what ingredients are in the pie, much less how to slice it. Perhaps the small group of four executive chefs gathering in New York early next week will have more success. Two days of owners and players butting heads in Toronto this week did very little, except to sniff at the other’s recipe for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Brief discussions in Toronto ended Thursday with the owners hearing full formal details of the players’ proposal on economic systems and contracts, a plan the owners already had panned in large part last week. So the 4 principals in the talks, Bettman, deputy commissioner Bill Daly, union executive director Donald Fehr and brother Steve his lieutenant, will meet alone in New York on Tuesday in what was originally to be the start of marathon bargaining with all big guns from both sides. Bettman said the intervening four-day lull in talks would provide “homework” time for both sides. The current CBA expires Sept. 15 and the owners are ready to chain the dressing room doors, to the chagrin of players and fans who lost the entire 2004-05 season to the labour war. But a wide gap in philosophy remains. The players have agreed to reduce their 57% share of revenues closer to the 50% range that was accepted by the other three major sports. The owners want that as low as 43%, but there are conflicting beliefs on how hockey related revenues are calculated in the first place. Yet owners are still offering mega-dollar contracts, some longer than the five-year maximum they’ve demanded the union now accept. The one good thing from the two days of Toronto meetings, both which lasted just half a day, were that the sides are still cordial, compared to the personal acrimony that marked 2004’s showdown between Bettman and union head Bob Goodenow.
Donald Fehr Quotes: “Hopefully it will be productive when we get to (Tuesday), I still believe there’s enough time, if there’s a mutual will (to avoid a shutdown).”
Gary Bettman Quotes: “It’s fair to say we’re far apart in that regard. We’re at a point where it’s difficult to move this process along until we deal with fundamental economic issues. We believe we are paying the players more than we should. The union is looking for a system with more flexibility and we’re looking for one with less, more akin to what we envisioned eight years ago (heading into the last CBA). It would be difficult to move anything else along (the many outstanding CBA issues). So we’ll each do some homework in the next few days, hopefully to find a way to get on the same page. It’s a good idea to get together with just the four of us. Big group, small group, the tone has been businesslike and courteous. Even though we’re in negotiation and far apart, there is recognition of our issues from a union standpoint and that is a positive. It was clear we understood (the players’ offer). We went back and suggested a framework using some elements of the proposal to try and form a basis to go forward.”
Calgary Herald
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. The National Hockey League and its players are headed for a lockout on Sept. 15 because of leverage . The two sides have exchanged opening proposals, but NHL commissioner Gary Bettman came out of their meeting Thursday and said: "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 . And certainly as it relates to the fundamental economic issue, we are far apart both in terms of magnitude and structure."
At its cold beating heart, this is about money. Players currently make 57 per cent of hockey-related revenues . The owners have proposed 43 per cent. As Bettman put it when asked why a league whose revenues have risen to $3.3billion US per year needs to alter its fundamentals: "We believe that we're paying out more than we should be, and it's as simple as that."
It is probably not fair that the NHL's billionaire owners all but wrote the last collective bargaining agreement at the point of a gun, and are coming back now for more because they didn't write it terribly well, and that a league that has over-expanded and crammed franchises into all kinds of unprofitable sinkholes is now trying to fix itself by taking money back from the players and laying off employees as business booms. But it worked in the NFL, which wasn't even pretending to lose money. It worked in the NBA, which was. Antipathy, rancour, missed games, missed paycheques, lost revenues, a shortened season, a storm of condemnation, and, in the worst-case scenario, lasting damage to the game. The owners, like every set of owners in every CBA negotiation of the modern era, are counting on the players missing paycheques. The owners that lose money playing hockey are counting on losing less money while not playing hockey. The rich teams are most likely gritting their teeth and counting on making back any money they lose over the course of a more favourable agreement. If the sides were close, perhaps clear heads would prevail. They aren't. So in football parlance, that's what will move the pile. Until then, there is no pressure except for the big one: Losing a significant amount of revenue to fan anger and damaging hockey. In a league with so many struggling markets, that could be a worry. But the most important leverage may be the leverage hockey has over its fans . Asked Thursday if the way the game recovered from the 2004-05 lockout gave him confidence it would recover again. There it is. People will come, Ray. That is where the NHL is negotiating from, and that is why these kabuki negotiations aren't even foreplay; they're text messages, setting the basic parameters for interaction. For the owners the pressure points are not now, and they are not later. Any deal they sign will presumably be worth more to the league's struggling markets than they will lose, or near enough. And that is why the battle for public opinion in this lockout won't matter unless fan anger is actually carried over when they actually start playing games again - and last time that didn't happen. One of the chief problems the NHL had with the last CBA is that it linked player salaries and revenues, and revenues skyrocketed from $1.8billion US to $3.3-billion US in seven years. Part of that was the Canadian dollar, but not all of it. The owners believe the dollars will come back again, even if another Stanley Cup is wasted, because it has happened before. There was essentially no way to avoid this. The union did not open negotiations until the end of June, in part because Fehr had a lot of catching up to do after coming from baseball, which he did because this union was broken, which was in large part the result of the last lockout. This is all history, coming to a head. The two sides will meet in New York on Tuesday.
At its cold beating heart, this is about money. Players currently make 57 per cent of hockey-related revenues . The owners have proposed 43 per cent. As Bettman put it when asked why a league whose revenues have risen to $3.3billion US per year needs to alter its fundamentals: "We believe that we're paying out more than we should be, and it's as simple as that."
It is probably not fair that the NHL's billionaire owners all but wrote the last collective bargaining agreement at the point of a gun, and are coming back now for more because they didn't write it terribly well, and that a league that has over-expanded and crammed franchises into all kinds of unprofitable sinkholes is now trying to fix itself by taking money back from the players and laying off employees as business booms. But it worked in the NFL, which wasn't even pretending to lose money. It worked in the NBA, which was. Antipathy, rancour, missed games, missed paycheques, lost revenues, a shortened season, a storm of condemnation, and, in the worst-case scenario, lasting damage to the game. The owners, like every set of owners in every CBA negotiation of the modern era, are counting on the players missing paycheques. The owners that lose money playing hockey are counting on losing less money while not playing hockey. The rich teams are most likely gritting their teeth and counting on making back any money they lose over the course of a more favourable agreement. If the sides were close, perhaps clear heads would prevail. They aren't. So in football parlance, that's what will move the pile. Until then, there is no pressure except for the big one: Losing a significant amount of revenue to fan anger and damaging hockey. In a league with so many struggling markets, that could be a worry. But the most important leverage may be the leverage hockey has over its fans . Asked Thursday if the way the game recovered from the 2004-05 lockout gave him confidence it would recover again. There it is. People will come, Ray. That is where the NHL is negotiating from, and that is why these kabuki negotiations aren't even foreplay; they're text messages, setting the basic parameters for interaction. For the owners the pressure points are not now, and they are not later. Any deal they sign will presumably be worth more to the league's struggling markets than they will lose, or near enough. And that is why the battle for public opinion in this lockout won't matter unless fan anger is actually carried over when they actually start playing games again - and last time that didn't happen. One of the chief problems the NHL had with the last CBA is that it linked player salaries and revenues, and revenues skyrocketed from $1.8billion US to $3.3-billion US in seven years. Part of that was the Canadian dollar, but not all of it. The owners believe the dollars will come back again, even if another Stanley Cup is wasted, because it has happened before. There was essentially no way to avoid this. The union did not open negotiations until the end of June, in part because Fehr had a lot of catching up to do after coming from baseball, which he did because this union was broken, which was in large part the result of the last lockout. This is all history, coming to a head. The two sides will meet in New York on Tuesday.
Fehr quotes: "Everybody understands that every employer would like to pay less. That's not a surprise. It is a disappointment sometimes, but it's not a surprise. If there's going to be a lockout, that's something the owners will choose or not choose, you would have missed games, you would have lost revenues, you would have missed paycheques. But that doesn't mean the parties don't understand going into it that would be the case. We will meet on tuesday to focus on core economic issues going forward."
Bettman quotes: "One, we're focused on trying to make a deal. We don't want a work stoppage. But obviously, if we don't have a deal, we feel we have no choice. And two, we recovered well last time because we have the world's greatest fans. There is a wide gap between us."
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
CBA Talks cancelled
Formal meetings between the NHLPA and commissioner Gary Bettman were cancelled today. Bettman, along with deputy NHL commissioner Bill Daly, spoke informally with NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr and his brother, NHLPA advisor Steve Fehr in an attempt to "chart a way forward in talks." The Fehrs requested to delay further discussions to tomorrow. The 2 sides of the CBA disagreement are discussing how to divide up the hockey-related revenue. Revenue sharing and rules regarding player contracts are also key issues in these negotiations. Both sides appear to be miles apart at this stage of the negotiations and the players have already said that they will not play if a new CBA is not in place. In addition, Bettman has already announced that the owners will lock out the players if a deal is not reached by September 15. The regular season is tentatively scheduled to begin on October 11.
The NHL decided to dismiss the NHL Players Associations initial proposal today, then the NHLPA boss, Donald Fehr, set off to Chicago for pre-scheduled meetings with players. Fehr will not return to Toronto in attempts to resolve a future CBA until Aug. 22. Fehr did indicated that he and Bettman will be talking by phone during his trip. It still only gives the two sides 24 days to reach a new agreement, find common ground, and avoid another lockout. To most, that's a grim outlook to the future of the NHL, the current CBA expires on Sept. 15. When 2 sides have such different views, less than a month doesn't seem like even close to the amount of time needed to reach an agreement. Yesterday the players were responsible to offering fans a more optimistic outlook on possibly getting a deal done. That's what the players have been responsible for doing throughout this entire process. If anyone has shown they want a deal done, it's the players. Their initial proposal they presented to Gary Bettman and the NHL was not a one sided deal. If anything, it tailored more to the owners than it did to the players. But, the League shot that down immediately less than 24 hours later. From today's standpoint, if the league shuts down for the 2012-2013 season, blame should be on anyone but the players. The players are the proactive ones in this process. They have showed more flexibility to get a deal done and to avoid a lockout. The players did that in the 2004-2005 lockout. They gave in to the owners, just to make sure there was a season in 2005-2006. All fans can do is wait nervously to see if it gets resolved.
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
NHL Lockout - Opinion
Some rumurs doing the rounds, will Jaromir Jagr retire if there is a lockout?
Joe Nieuwendyk has already made some tough decisions to since taking on the role of Dallas Stars GM in 2009. The non-trade of Brad Richards, letting Mike Modano walk away to the Red Wings, trading for Alex Goligoski, trading away Steve Ott and having to deal the Tom Hicks mess. The moves he made this past offseason really signaled the changing of the guard and the beginning of the Nieuwendyk stamp on the team as the young players on the team would be brought in under his tenure. This looked like the critical year in his plans and a lockout could blow all that away. What happens in the next couple of seasons will determine whether the team extends him or whether his time is up as GM of the Stars.
From the Regina Leaderpost and the Edmonton Journal
Joe Nieuwendyk has already made some tough decisions to since taking on the role of Dallas Stars GM in 2009. The non-trade of Brad Richards, letting Mike Modano walk away to the Red Wings, trading for Alex Goligoski, trading away Steve Ott and having to deal the Tom Hicks mess. The moves he made this past offseason really signaled the changing of the guard and the beginning of the Nieuwendyk stamp on the team as the young players on the team would be brought in under his tenure. This looked like the critical year in his plans and a lockout could blow all that away. What happens in the next couple of seasons will determine whether the team extends him or whether his time is up as GM of the Stars.
From the Regina Leaderpost and the Edmonton Journal
So who blinks first if there’s an NHL lockout in less than 30 days? The billionaires or the millionaires? The NHL owners or the hired hands?
If we don’t have hockey in October or November or into December, we all know the owners win because they’re not forking over any salaries. But we also know when the NHL home office will get very, very nervous — Jan. 1, 2013.
“I don’t think it’s going past the outdoor game,” said agent Igor Larionov, the Hall of Famer who now represents Nail Yakupov and was in Edmonton the last few days.
With NBC giving the NHL $200 million in that long-term arrangement, the Winter Classic is the league’s great advertising baby to showcase their product to U.S. folks who wouldn’t know Evgeni Malkin was if he was in their soup.
This year, the event is at the University of Michigan’s football stadium that seats 100,000-plus, with the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs on the marquee.
So while NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who does the owner’s bidding, says the league is locking out the players on Sept. 15 when the current collective bargaining agreement ends and there’s no new deal with the players, it seems inconceiveable that we’ll get another season where NHL rinks are dark throughout the winter as it was in 2004.
In 1994, we got 48 games after another lockout, with players risking life and limb to play about every second night from Jan. 11 on.
Larionov says Yakupov will either play in the Kontinental Hockey League for his hometown Russian team Niznekamsk, or possibly in Sweden or Finland if there’s an NHL lockout, for however long it takes. He won’t be returning to junior in Sarnia, even though he has junior eligibility left.
But playing in the KHL is a more convenient pit stop for Yakupov than with North Americans, and 25 of the team’s league games will be played in the first two months, which would be a boon for KHL teams who could get Malkin and other Russians back.
There are limits on imports in the KHL, though.
“KHL teams can only have five imports, although I guess (KHL president Alexander) Medeved could change that. And in Sweden and Finland, there’s only two imports a team,” said Larionov.
How soon before NHLers look abroad if there’s a lockout Sept. 15?
“Sept. 16,” said Larionov, who didn’t go back to Russia or anywhere else in Europe to play league hockey during the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season, when he was with the San Jose Sharks. He played a few exhibitions and hung around, but it was boring. He was used to be at a hockey rink, like all players. Practising, playing.
“But at least I didn’t have (former Soviet national team coach Viktor) Tikonov in my ear,” said Larionov.
The NHL is a $3.2-billion business right now, admittedly about a third of the NFL and less than the NBA (two leagues that recently hammered out new 10-year CBAs).
“The game then (in 2004-05) wasn’t in such a good position as it is now. I’m an optimist, more than some people (that it won’t be long lockout),” said Washington Capitals forward and former Oilers winger Jason Chimera, referring to the season eight years ago when the players flat-out refused to entertain a salary cap before capitulating; also giving up 24 per cent of their salaries in a rollback.
If we don’t have hockey in October or November or into December, we all know the owners win because they’re not forking over any salaries. But we also know when the NHL home office will get very, very nervous — Jan. 1, 2013.
“I don’t think it’s going past the outdoor game,” said agent Igor Larionov, the Hall of Famer who now represents Nail Yakupov and was in Edmonton the last few days.
With NBC giving the NHL $200 million in that long-term arrangement, the Winter Classic is the league’s great advertising baby to showcase their product to U.S. folks who wouldn’t know Evgeni Malkin was if he was in their soup.
This year, the event is at the University of Michigan’s football stadium that seats 100,000-plus, with the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs on the marquee.
So while NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who does the owner’s bidding, says the league is locking out the players on Sept. 15 when the current collective bargaining agreement ends and there’s no new deal with the players, it seems inconceiveable that we’ll get another season where NHL rinks are dark throughout the winter as it was in 2004.
In 1994, we got 48 games after another lockout, with players risking life and limb to play about every second night from Jan. 11 on.
Larionov says Yakupov will either play in the Kontinental Hockey League for his hometown Russian team Niznekamsk, or possibly in Sweden or Finland if there’s an NHL lockout, for however long it takes. He won’t be returning to junior in Sarnia, even though he has junior eligibility left.
But playing in the KHL is a more convenient pit stop for Yakupov than with North Americans, and 25 of the team’s league games will be played in the first two months, which would be a boon for KHL teams who could get Malkin and other Russians back.
There are limits on imports in the KHL, though.
“KHL teams can only have five imports, although I guess (KHL president Alexander) Medeved could change that. And in Sweden and Finland, there’s only two imports a team,” said Larionov.
How soon before NHLers look abroad if there’s a lockout Sept. 15?
“Sept. 16,” said Larionov, who didn’t go back to Russia or anywhere else in Europe to play league hockey during the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season, when he was with the San Jose Sharks. He played a few exhibitions and hung around, but it was boring. He was used to be at a hockey rink, like all players. Practising, playing.
“But at least I didn’t have (former Soviet national team coach Viktor) Tikonov in my ear,” said Larionov.
The NHL is a $3.2-billion business right now, admittedly about a third of the NFL and less than the NBA (two leagues that recently hammered out new 10-year CBAs).
“The game then (in 2004-05) wasn’t in such a good position as it is now. I’m an optimist, more than some people (that it won’t be long lockout),” said Washington Capitals forward and former Oilers winger Jason Chimera, referring to the season eight years ago when the players flat-out refused to entertain a salary cap before capitulating; also giving up 24 per cent of their salaries in a rollback.
The owners are giving the players 57 per cent of revenue now. They would likely settle on a 50-50 deal.
“We (NHLPA) put together a good proposal where the profitable clubs could help the little clubs (in better revenue sharing; right now the maximum is $10 million per club to the weak sisters) to sustain their spot in the league. It’s good for teams like Nashville and Florida. I’d have to think some of the owners looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, that’s a pretty good proposal.’ We’re still keeping the cap,” said Chimera. “First, the owners have to agree on something (from the players), though, and then maybe things will fall into place.
“They gave us a proposal where they wanted us to take another 24 per cent off after doing it before. Last time, we kept saying no cap, no cap. This time, there’s things to work off.”
Chimera said he doesn’t have the stomach for another lockout, like a lot of older players.
“I lost a whole season once before and I don’t want it to happen again. I’m 33 years old,” he said.
“Their first proposal, though, also had a player having to play 10 years before he was a free agent. That’s fine for guys who start at 18, but how many of those are there? Bouw (Jay Bouwmeester), Sidney Crosby, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Not many. Lots of guys aren’t getting to the NHL until they’re 24,” Chimera said.
The hard thing for players to get their heads around is the misdirection from owners.
They proposed a five-year limit on salaries, yet the Philadelphia Flyers just signed Wayne Simmonds and Scott Hartnell to six-year deals and the Montreal Canadiens (with Max Pacioretty) and Carolina Hurricanes (with Jeff Skinner) just did the same. Plus, Philadelphia made that wildcat long-term offer sheet on Nashville Predators’ Shea Weber. Throw in Minnesota Wild owner Craig Liepold luring Ryan Suter and Zach Parise for 13 years and about $100 million each in free-agent deals, and many players shake their heads at the apparent hypocrisy.
“I know Philadephia has lost some players and I can see why they did it (tried to get Weber), but 14 years? And (Nashville) matched it and are paying him, what? Twenty-seven million the first (calendar) year?” said Oilers defenceman Ladislav Smid.
Chimera admits the hockey fan has a tough time watching an owners versus players fight.
“What gets lost in all of this is the people who work at the rinks, who work the (game-night) parking ... we don’t want those people to lose their jobs,” said Chimera. “There’s other people’s livelihood’s in mind.”
“We (NHLPA) put together a good proposal where the profitable clubs could help the little clubs (in better revenue sharing; right now the maximum is $10 million per club to the weak sisters) to sustain their spot in the league. It’s good for teams like Nashville and Florida. I’d have to think some of the owners looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, that’s a pretty good proposal.’ We’re still keeping the cap,” said Chimera. “First, the owners have to agree on something (from the players), though, and then maybe things will fall into place.
“They gave us a proposal where they wanted us to take another 24 per cent off after doing it before. Last time, we kept saying no cap, no cap. This time, there’s things to work off.”
Chimera said he doesn’t have the stomach for another lockout, like a lot of older players.
“I lost a whole season once before and I don’t want it to happen again. I’m 33 years old,” he said.
“Their first proposal, though, also had a player having to play 10 years before he was a free agent. That’s fine for guys who start at 18, but how many of those are there? Bouw (Jay Bouwmeester), Sidney Crosby, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Not many. Lots of guys aren’t getting to the NHL until they’re 24,” Chimera said.
The hard thing for players to get their heads around is the misdirection from owners.
They proposed a five-year limit on salaries, yet the Philadelphia Flyers just signed Wayne Simmonds and Scott Hartnell to six-year deals and the Montreal Canadiens (with Max Pacioretty) and Carolina Hurricanes (with Jeff Skinner) just did the same. Plus, Philadelphia made that wildcat long-term offer sheet on Nashville Predators’ Shea Weber. Throw in Minnesota Wild owner Craig Liepold luring Ryan Suter and Zach Parise for 13 years and about $100 million each in free-agent deals, and many players shake their heads at the apparent hypocrisy.
“I know Philadephia has lost some players and I can see why they did it (tried to get Weber), but 14 years? And (Nashville) matched it and are paying him, what? Twenty-seven million the first (calendar) year?” said Oilers defenceman Ladislav Smid.
Chimera admits the hockey fan has a tough time watching an owners versus players fight.
“What gets lost in all of this is the people who work at the rinks, who work the (game-night) parking ... we don’t want those people to lose their jobs,” said Chimera. “There’s other people’s livelihood’s in mind.”
NHL News 21st August 2012
Philadelphia
- On Monday, Scott Hartnell announced he had signed
a multi-year contract extension. Terms of the deal were not released,
but it is reported the deal is for 6 years, worth around $28.5
million. The new contract takes affect with the 2013-14 season, and
will keep Hartnell with the team through the 2018-19 season. Hartnell
had a career-best totals of 37 goals, 67 points and 16 power-play
goals last season. He was 6th in the NHL in goals and 2nd
in power-play goals, while he played in his first NHL All-Star Game.
He also played all 82 games last season, and has missed just three
games in five seasons with the Flyers. Hartnell started last season
slowly, with just 2 assists in his first 6 games, and was skating on
the fourth line with limited power-play time. Things changed,
however, on Oct. 22, when coach Peter Laviolette placed Hartnell on a
line with Claude Giroux and Jaromir Jagr. Jagr has sinced signed with
the Dallas Stars last month, but Hartnell believes that with Jakub
Voracek getting first cracks on filling Jagr's top-line role, the
chemistry Hartnell, Giroux and Jagr had last season can be recreated
with Voracek. In 5 seasons with the Flyers, Hartnell has 129 goals
and 263 points. He's also become one of the more popular players in
team history for his outgoing personality, out-sized hair and
"Hartnell Down" charity, which turned a fan's joke about
his lack of skating ability into a popular fund-raising cause. He
also does an interesting impersonation of Hulk Hogan. Hartnell is
entering the final season of the 6 year deal he signed after being
acquired by the Flyers in June 2007. Rather than wait and examine
things as an unrestricted free agent next July, Hartnell said all he
really wanted to was stay in Philadelphia. Originally drafted by the
Nashville Predators with the sixth pick of the 2000 Entry Draft,
Hartnell has 222 goals and 474 points in 843 games with the Predators
and Flyers.
Paul
Holmgren (Flyers GM) - "We are pleased to announce that we
have agreed with Scott on a multi-year extension, Scott has been a
very good player for us over the last five seasons and we look
forward to many more good years to come."
Hartnell
- "I'm
pleased to stay in Philadelphia, Mr. Snider (Flyers Chairman) and Mr.
Holmgren made a commitment to me five years ago to be a Flyer and
I've absolutely loved every second of it. We've got a great team, a
great bunch of guys and a great future chance to win a Stanley Cup.
That was a big part of it. I want to win, I play hockey to win and I
think we've got a good thing going. I think [Holmgren] saw something
in me a little different than in years past, I had a lot of
confidence in myself. I'm 30 years old now, and who knows when a
player slows down, but the way we talked and the way I believe I can
play, hopefully I can keep up the pace I had last year for a bunch of
years. Being focused more on hockey, getting upstairs in the gym,
being prepared for practice. … I was more in tune and more focused
with practicing with him than I have been in my career. I'm going to
take a lot of what I learned last year and the success that we had
last year and continue that going forward. I give Jaromir Jagr a lot
of credit for my success, I think Jake got stronger as the year went
on, Every game he felt more confident with the puck, and he had a
great playoffs. He played his heart out. He has a lot of speed. …
He's another left-handed shot who plays the right side like Jags
[Jagr] does. I don't think it'll be too hard to find chemistry. I
love the way [Laviolette] coaches, He's an offensive-minded coach, he
loves to get on the forecheck, he loves guys that hit. He's a real
motivator for me. That "24/7" [Road to the Winter Classic
HBO] series last winter did a good job of how he can call you out in
a particular group, call you out in front of everyone, or sit you
down if you need a spanking to get going again. I really love the
fact that Lavi re-signed as well. Hopefully we can continue that
chemistry and build on bigger and better years for the Flyers. I
haven't had better times than I've had in Philly, The fans are
awesome and I'm really Flyer-ed up to keep it going."
Nashville – Mike Fisher signed a 2 year contract extension yesterday, the team announced at its annual "Skate of the Union" town hall-style meeting. The deal is for $8.4 million, ($4.2 million per season). Fisher would have been an unrestricted free agent after the 2012-13 campaign. Fisher, acquired from Ottawa before the 2011 trade deadline, had 24 goals and 51 points in his first full season with the Predators. He has 196 goals and 411 points in 774 career games.
Nashville – Mike Fisher signed a 2 year contract extension yesterday, the team announced at its annual "Skate of the Union" town hall-style meeting. The deal is for $8.4 million, ($4.2 million per season). Fisher would have been an unrestricted free agent after the 2012-13 campaign. Fisher, acquired from Ottawa before the 2011 trade deadline, had 24 goals and 51 points in his first full season with the Predators. He has 196 goals and 411 points in 774 career games.
4 Andrew Carter
Andrew Carter was part of the famous Durham Wasps, coming through their various junior teams before being a part of the last ever 'kid-line'. With the Wasps getting bought out by Newcastle United owner Sir John Hall in 1996, and re-locating to Newcastle, the old Riverside Rink was sold off meaning hockey in County Durham had died. The club carried on playing for 1 more year in Sunderland before finally disbanding, but Durham's loss was certainly Whitley's gain in more ways than one. With so much home grown talent the former Wasps players moved to either Whitley or to the Sunderland Chiefs, which is where Andrew ended up. With Whitley dropping down the leagues over the next few years Whitley and Sunderlad would end up playing in the same division (the English National League) and along with a third North-east side the Billingham Eagles/Bombers would dominate the honours list. Sunderland and Billingham faced each other in the play-off final of 1999 and Andrew was leading goalscorer in the league that season, which alerted Whitley to sign him. So with Andrew in place for the millenium season Whitley dominated the championships for the next 3 years (1999-2002). With the Vipers recruiting all local players from Whitley, Andrew teamed up with Karl Culley but after playing the first few games couldnt agree terms of a contract with the BNL club and so returned to Whitley and helped lend some experience to a very youthful side and make the 2003 playoffs. Andrew continued to play the following season but with the team in fast decline he called it a day after a bizarre game in Bradford in February 2004. With the return of Simon Leach to Whitley in 2006, Andrew decided to make a return in the spring of 2007, but as he hadn't played the whole season coundnt compete in the playoffs. (there was a rule stipulating that you had to play a certain percentage of regular season games to qualify to play in the playoffs, this was to stop teams that had a link up to a senior side in a higher league from using their players and dominating the championship) If it was hard to accept losing Andrew for the playoffs the upside was that he was fresh and raring to go in the Northern league finals weekedn in Dundee, where such rules did not apply. Andrew helped lead the side to victory and end our 5 year trophy drought. With player-coach Simon Leach leaving for Australia, Andrew and best friend Culley teamed up to co-coach the team during the 2007-08 season. It would prove to be his last as a player, but what a season it was, as the pair rolled back the years linking up with some very fast paced hockey and great inter-changing plays between the 2. Sometimes it made you think if they had some sort of telepathic sense, as they knew exactle where the other would be and how to play the puck to each other. Ending on a high Andrew helped to win the ENL Championship playoffs in Coventry then made his final appearance in his testimonial later that month.
5 Karl Culley
Karl Culley, was possibly the most gifted goal scorer I can remember in the maroon & gold of Whitley. A local lad he worked his way up through the junior teams before being a part of the team during the last days of the old Heineken Premier League days and year at the Arena. With the end of imports at the bay, Karl became a very important player for the side over the next few years. With the arrival of Andrew Carter in 1999, Karl's game went from strength to strength. The 2 of them were best friends off the ice, and on it developed a very good partnership not unlike the dual goalscorers of Alan Shearer and Les Ferdinand at Newcastle United. With Simon Leach returning to Whitley around the same time it meant the Warriors had a really strong top line that would certainly have been good enough to grace the top 2 divisions in Britain at the time. With the formation of the Vipers in Newcastle, in 2002, Karl was one of a number of Whitley players who made the move along the Coast Road. Despite not being fully appreciated by the fickle Vipers fans, Karl worked hard and eventually started seeing more ice time. How we missed him during those barren years of 2002-2006 where someone of his quality would have made a huge difference to the team. In 2007 he decided to leave the Vipers and return to Whitley so that he could play his last season back at his old club and end his career there. He combined playing with co-coaching the team with his good friend Andrew Carter. The season ended in style with the Warriors winning the ENL Championship Playoffs in Coventry, beating the Peterborough Islanders. The coaching duo had watched the team the week before on a scouting mission so as to learn how they would play and that paid off as Whitley won the trophy comfortably. Having announced his retirement and then played in his and Carter's joint testimonial, he hinted that his retirement might only last a year before returning. He would return in 2009 forming an effective top line with Adam Reynolds and Paul Windridge, clinching 2 more league titles along the way before retiring once again in 2011. Karl has been a part of every single championship success Whitley have had since 1999 and only missed out on one trophy win (the Northern League Finals in Dundee 2007, a matter of weeks before he returned to the team).
Karl's Honours while at Whitley
League Winners: 2002, 2011
Play Off Winners: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2010, 2011
Anglo-Scottish Cup: 2001
ENL Cup: 2002
Karl's Honours while at Whitley
League Winners: 2002, 2011
Play Off Winners: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2010, 2011
Anglo-Scottish Cup: 2001
ENL Cup: 2002
Monday, 20 August 2012
NHL Lockout update
Nothing to really report in terms of an update, as talks are not set to resume until wednesday. However Don Cherry, speaking to the Toronto Sun believes it is looking likely there will be at least a 2 month lock out. If this is the case it means my planned trip will be cancelled.
For the record this was my planned schedule. If by some stoke of luck the lock out is avoided I will continue with this original plan, but as is more likely I will either have to go in the spring or next year. I would rather I didnt put off my trip as I have planned a second hockey trip for Fall 2013.
Nov 1 Minnesota v LA Kings
Nov 2 Chicago v Nashville
Nov 5 Chicago v Pittsburgh
Nov 7 Toronto v Pittsburgh
Nov 10 Pittsburgh v Edmonton
Nov 13 Detroit v Dallas
Nov 23 St Louis v NY Islanders
Nov 25 St Louis v Washington
Nov 27 Colorado v Anaheim
Nov 29 Dallas v Edmonton
Dec 1 Dallas v Pittsburgh
Dec 5 Phoenix v Minnesota
Dec 8 Tampa Bay v Colorado
Dec 11 Florida v Colorado
Dec 13 Florida v New Jersey
For the record this was my planned schedule. If by some stoke of luck the lock out is avoided I will continue with this original plan, but as is more likely I will either have to go in the spring or next year. I would rather I didnt put off my trip as I have planned a second hockey trip for Fall 2013.
Nov 1 Minnesota v LA Kings
Nov 2 Chicago v Nashville
Nov 5 Chicago v Pittsburgh
Nov 7 Toronto v Pittsburgh
Nov 10 Pittsburgh v Edmonton
Nov 13 Detroit v Dallas
Nov 23 St Louis v NY Islanders
Nov 25 St Louis v Washington
Nov 27 Colorado v Anaheim
Nov 29 Dallas v Edmonton
Dec 1 Dallas v Pittsburgh
Dec 5 Phoenix v Minnesota
Dec 8 Tampa Bay v Colorado
Dec 11 Florida v Colorado
Dec 13 Florida v New Jersey
Friday, 17 August 2012
NHL News 17th August 2012
NY Rangers: Tortorella,
known for his no-nonsense approach and competitive nature of his
teams, is confident Nash will fit in despite never winning a Stanley
Cup Playoff game (he played just 4 games in 9 seasons with the Blue
Jackets, getting swept by Detroit 4-0 in 2009). Nash was acquired in
a trade July 23, with New York sending Brandon Dubinsky, Artem
Anisimov, Tim Erixon and a first-round draft pick to Columbus.
Tortorella coached the Rangers to the best regular-season record in
the Eastern Conference last season and led them through 2 rounds of
the playoffs before they were eliminated by New Jersey in the Eastern
Conference Finals. Nash is expected to help an offense that struggled
to score at times during the regular season and the playoffs; the
Rangers were 11th in goals per game in the regular season at 2.71,
but averaged just 2.15 goals per game in the playoffs.
John
Tortorella speaking to the Bluehshirts United website: "The
thing I like about Nash, and I haven't even met him face to face, in
one conversation with him, he's all business. Everyone I have talked
to about him says he's not a real high-maintenance guy [he] wants to
play hard, wants to play every day and practice every day. I think we
have him at a really good time in his career, and I think he's going
to fit in with us tremendously. We did some homework on Nash (Brad
Richards knows him a little bit), I talked to other players in the
League and to coaches that have coached him, and it is the right fit,
it is the right time of his career to be here. I think he has the
hunger to get there and become that go-to guy in the playoffs. In
Nash you are bringing in one of the top power forwards in the
National Hockey League, We're very excited to have picked up a player
that we think is just going to bust out and get to the next level of
his career coming to the Rangers."
Nashville:
The Predators today signed veteran defenseman Scott Hannan to a
one-year, $1 million contract. Hannan, 33, has amassed 197 points
(33+164) as well as 522 penalty minutes in 908 regular-season games
with San Jose, Colorado, Washington and Calgary. He entered the NHL
in 1998, as a first-round pick (No. 23) for the sharks. Hannan scored
12 points (2+10) in 78 games with Calgary last season. Hannan leads
all defensemen in games played in the last 10 seasons with 798. He
averaged 20:21 of ice time last year and has averaged at least 20
minutes in nine of the last 10 seasons. The Richmond, B.C., native
was part of the gold medal-winning Canadian squad at the 2004 World
Cup of Hockey. He joins captain Shea Weber as a former member of the
Kelowna Rockets of the WHL in the Predators organization. With
Hannan's signing, the Nashville now have 2 defensemen with more than
800 games of NHL experience for the first time in franchise history,
Hal Gill the other with 1,070.
Lockout Day 4
After 2 days of negotiations focused on the core economic issues that are essential to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the negotiating committees from the NHL and the NHLPA spent several hours yesterday discussing topics not related to economic issues. Among the hockey issues discussed in subcommittee sessions were regulations on training camp, discipline, ice conditions, and travel. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly also said the lawyers for both sides met to discuss ongoing information requests and they held a brief meeting on legal issues involved with a new CBA.
"We've been making progress on those issues from the start, I don't think that's where this CBA is going to get cut or not. We have a lot of common ground in those areas and we've been talking about that for a while now."
Unrestricted free agent defenseman Chris Campoli, who spoke on behalf of the Union, said the negotiating session was cordial and included a good discussion.
"There is so much to cover and there are different subcommittees to hit every area if you will," Campoli said. "So, this is a different area. They're all important equally. Every issue is important to the players and we're involved in them all. As you can see, we're here today working with them again and things went well."
The negotiations on the core economic issues are expected to resume in Toronto next Wednesday, when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr return to the bargaining table. Neither was present Thursday as Fehr travelled to Chicago for regional player meetings and Commissioner Bettman returned to New York. The Union made its initial economic proposal Tuesday, approximately a month after the NHL owners made their initial economic proposal. Bettman said Wednesday that after analyzing the Union's proposal it is clear that a wide gap still remains on where the two sides stand on the economic issues, which include hockey-related revenue, revenue sharing, and rules governing player contracts. The current CBA expires Sept. 15. Bettman has stated that the owners are not prepared to operate another season under the terms of the current CBA.
"I don't think anybody is looking forward to a work stoppage and we want to do everything we can to avoid it," Daly said. "I think we're committed to doing everything we can and working hard to avoid it. That's where we are."
"We've been making progress on those issues from the start, I don't think that's where this CBA is going to get cut or not. We have a lot of common ground in those areas and we've been talking about that for a while now."
Unrestricted free agent defenseman Chris Campoli, who spoke on behalf of the Union, said the negotiating session was cordial and included a good discussion.
"There is so much to cover and there are different subcommittees to hit every area if you will," Campoli said. "So, this is a different area. They're all important equally. Every issue is important to the players and we're involved in them all. As you can see, we're here today working with them again and things went well."
The negotiations on the core economic issues are expected to resume in Toronto next Wednesday, when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr return to the bargaining table. Neither was present Thursday as Fehr travelled to Chicago for regional player meetings and Commissioner Bettman returned to New York. The Union made its initial economic proposal Tuesday, approximately a month after the NHL owners made their initial economic proposal. Bettman said Wednesday that after analyzing the Union's proposal it is clear that a wide gap still remains on where the two sides stand on the economic issues, which include hockey-related revenue, revenue sharing, and rules governing player contracts. The current CBA expires Sept. 15. Bettman has stated that the owners are not prepared to operate another season under the terms of the current CBA.
"I don't think anybody is looking forward to a work stoppage and we want to do everything we can to avoid it," Daly said. "I think we're committed to doing everything we can and working hard to avoid it. That's where we are."
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Winter Festival 2012 - Comerica Park
The
Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs have announced today the
addition of 7 players who will participate in the festivities
surrounding the 2012 Maple Leafs vs. Red Wings Alumni Showdown on
Dec. 31 at Comerica Park as part of the 2012 SiriusXM Hockeytown
Winter Festival. Detroit has added defenseman Aaron Ward as well as
forwards Red Berenson, Jimmy Carson and Dennis Polonich. In addition
to having suited up for the Red Wings, all four of these players were
members of either minor league or collegiate teams in Michigan during
their respective careers; Berenson and Ward both attended the
University of Michigan prior to turning pro while Carson – a
metropolitan Detroit minor-hockey product – and Polonich each
competed in the International Hockey League for various
Michigan-based clubs.
Toronto,
meanwhile, have added former enforcers Tie Domi, Brad May and Dave
'Tiger' Williams(the NHL's all-time leader in penalty minutes
with 3,966) to their alumni roster. Between the three of them, Domi,
May and Williams spent nearly 10,000 minutes in the penalty box over
the course of their 3,023 combined regular-season games.
Selected
by Winnipeg with the fifth pick of the 1991 draft, the Red Wings
acquired Ward in a trade with the Jets on June 11, 1993. The Windsor,
Ont. native skated in 276 regular-season games for Detroit, as well
as 30 playoff games. Ward was a part of the Red Wings' Stanley Cup
championship teams in 1997 and 1998. Traded to Carolina on July 9,
2001, Ward won another championship with the Hurricanes in 2006. The
6-foot-2, 209-pound blueliner had 44 goals and 107 assists over 16
seasons in the League.
Domi,
third all-time with 3,515 penalty minutes, spent 12 of his 16 NHL
seasons with the Leafs. A 1988 second-round pick (No. 27) of Toronto
played two games with the Leafs in 1989-90, then after playing with
the Rangers and Jets, returned to the Leafs in 1994-95 for the final
11 seasons of his career. Domi is 11th on the Leafs' all-time list
with 777 games played, and first with 2,265 penalty minutes.
May
played 38 games for the Leafs in the 2008-09 season, totaling two
points and 61 penalty minutes. The Toronto native then spent the
following season, his 18th and last in the NHL, with the Red Wings.
He had one assist and 66 penalty minutes in 40 games for the Wings,
bringing his final career totals to 288 points and 2,248 penalty
minutes in 1,041 games.
Updated
alumni rosters for Toronto and Detroit can be found below. Further
roster additions for both teams will be announced in the coming
weeks.
DETROIT
RED WINGS ALUMNI:
Forwards: Red Berenson, Jimmy Carson, Dino Ciccarelli, Alex Delvecchio, Kris Draper, Sergei Fedorov, Joe Kocur, Martin Lapointe, Igor Larionov, Ted Lindsay, Kirk Maltby, Darren McCarty, John Ogrodnick, Dennis Polonich, Mickey Redmond, Luc Robitaille
Defensemen: Chris Chelios, Paul Coffey, Mathieu Dandenault, Viacheslav Fetisov, Mark Howe, Vladimir Konstantinov, Larry Murphy, Aaron Ward
Goaltenders: Chris Osgood, Mike Vernon
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS ALUMNI
Forwards: Dave Andreychuk, Wendel Clark, Russ Courtnall, Vincent Damphousse, Bill Derlago, Tie Domi, Ron Ellis, Doug Gilmour, Gary Leeman, Kevin Maguire, Brad May, Lanny McDonald
Defensemen: Dave Ellett, Jim McKenny, Bryan McCabe, Bob McGill
Goaltenders: Johnny Bower, Curtis Joseph, Mike Palmateer, Felix Potvin
Forwards: Red Berenson, Jimmy Carson, Dino Ciccarelli, Alex Delvecchio, Kris Draper, Sergei Fedorov, Joe Kocur, Martin Lapointe, Igor Larionov, Ted Lindsay, Kirk Maltby, Darren McCarty, John Ogrodnick, Dennis Polonich, Mickey Redmond, Luc Robitaille
Defensemen: Chris Chelios, Paul Coffey, Mathieu Dandenault, Viacheslav Fetisov, Mark Howe, Vladimir Konstantinov, Larry Murphy, Aaron Ward
Goaltenders: Chris Osgood, Mike Vernon
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS ALUMNI
Forwards: Dave Andreychuk, Wendel Clark, Russ Courtnall, Vincent Damphousse, Bill Derlago, Tie Domi, Ron Ellis, Doug Gilmour, Gary Leeman, Kevin Maguire, Brad May, Lanny McDonald
Defensemen: Dave Ellett, Jim McKenny, Bryan McCabe, Bob McGill
Goaltenders: Johnny Bower, Curtis Joseph, Mike Palmateer, Felix Potvin
2012 Lockout Day 3
The
first tense moments of the NHL's collective bargaining negotiations
have arrived. With
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Players' Association head
Donald Fehr not scheduled to sit across from one another until the
middle of next week and the sides unable to even agree on the core
issues that need to be addressed, a sense of uneasiness has suddenly
enveloped the talks.
Proposal breakdown
Here's a look at how the salary cap and salary floor would be impacted by the current CBA along with proposals from the NHL and NHL Players' Association for the 2012-13 season (assuming a fixed $16-million gap is kept in place):
Current
system
Salary
cap: $70.2 million
Salary
floor: $54.2 million
NHL's
proposal
Salary
cap: $55.3 million
Salary
floor: $39.3 million
NHLPA's
proposal (assuming a fixed $16-million gap is kept in place)
Salary
cap: $69 million
Salary
floor: $53 million
— The
Canadian Press
After
Wednesday's session, in which the NHL dismissed the union's initial
proposal, Fehr set off for pre-scheduled player meetings in Chicago.
The union boss will also oversee a session with players in Kelowna,
B.C., before returning to Toronto and resuming CBA discussions on
Aug. 22. At that point, the league and its players' association will
have just 24 days left to reach a new agreement and avoid a lockout.
There is very little common ground between the proposals each side
has put forth and neither seems particularly willing to move off its
current position.
"What
the issues are and how they get solved and how deep the issues go are
something that we're not yet on the same page," Bettman said
Wednesday.
In
simple terms, the owners want to pay players less — much less.
Despite the fact the NHL's revenues grew from $2.2 billion before the
2004-05 lockout to $3.3 billion last season, a number of teams are
still struggling. The financial success of the wealthiest franchises
over the last seven years ended up hurting the poorer ones. That's
because the salary cap was tied to overall hockey-related revenues
and rose dramatically from $39 million in 2005-06 to $64.3 million
last season, bringing the salary floor (the minimum teams must spend)
up along with it. If next season was played under the current system,
the cap would have been set at $70.2 million and the floor would have
been $54.2 million. However, a new deal needs to be put in place
before the NHL resumes operations.
Under
the proposal put forward by the owners in July, the players' share in
revenue would be cut from 57 per cent to 43 per cent — meaning the
salary cap would drop to roughly $55 million next season, or just a
little above where the floor currently rests. The league also called
for the elimination of salary arbitration, contract limits of five
years (with equal money paid each year, essentially eliminating
signing bonuses) and 10 years of service before unrestricted free
agency kicks in. All of those proposed changes are designed to slow
the increase in salaries. The NHLPA estimated the league's proposal
would cost players approximately $450 million per season. Rather than
making a direct counter-offer, Fehr elected to design his own system.
He attempted to appease owners by keeping the hard salary cap in
place and putting a drag on salaries by delinking them from overall
revenues, but called for an expanded revenue-sharing plan that would
see the wealthy teams distribute more than $250 million per season to
the poor. Under the union's plan, the salary cap would fall at
roughly $69 million next season. It would increase to $71 million in
2013-14 and $75 million in 2014-15. In other words, the owners would
only turn significantly more profit if the league continued to grow
at a level beyond the seven per cent it averaged since the lockout.
The offer was designed on the premise that the players would give up
revenue for three years — the system would revert back to the
current rules in the fourth — so that the NHL could work on getting
its struggling teams on stable footing.
"If
there are issues remaining, they are club-specific issues," said
Fehr. "And that if the clubs that don't need assistance are
willing to partner with the players to help get at the issues of the
clubs that may need it we're prepared to do that. But it's not a
circumstance in which the players are just going to say 'OK, take
everything from us."'
The
players are still smarting after being locked out for an entire
season in 2004-05 before eventually accepting a 24 per cent rollback
on salaries and a salary cap. At the time, Bettman repeatedly talked
about the need for "cost certainty" to keep the league
healthy — something the union eventually capitulated to. Now in the
next round of negotiations, the sides appear to be back where they
started and the threat of yet another lockout seems very real. The
league is contending the players need to give up a significant amount
of salary to stabilize the industry while the union maintains that
goal would be best accomplished with the wealthy teams doing more to
help their struggling counterparts. Against that backdrop, the first
signs of animosity are beginning to surface. After
talks wrapped up Wednesday, Fehr hinted the NHL was working from a
"playbook" that involves using the lockout as a negotiating
tactic and called for the owners to present an offer that moved in
the players' direction. Bettman, meanwhile, seemed to suggest that
this wasn't a good time for Fehr to step away from talks and hold
regional player meetings.
"Where
we go from here is I come back next Wednesday to resume negotiations
when the union's ready," said Bettman.
Fehr
contends that he doesn't need to be present for talks to continue.
"As
we go forward ... what we have to do is sit and negotiate until we
get the deal done," he said. "It doesn't mean that every
single person has to be in the room on every single meeting, but the
parties have to be going at it regularly."
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Labor strike update
The
NHLPA have made their first proposal in the lastest rounds of
bargaining takls with the NHL. Their proposal to the league includes
a smaller percentage of revenues for players and an expanded revenue
sharing program to help struggling teams.
Donald
Fehr (NHLPA executive director) believes the proposal could stabilize
the industry, with players set to surrender up to $465 million in
revenue if the league continues to grow at its current rate. Fehr has
said the players are willing to work past Sept. 15 if an agreement
hasn't been signed, as long as one is on the horizon. The NHL is
prepared to lock out its players if no deal is reached by then. Talks
have been under way for 7 weeks now with as yet neither looking like
backing down. The regular season is due to get under way on Oct. 11.
“We
do believe that the proposal the players made today, once implemented,
can produce a stable industry... that can give us a chance to move
beyond the recurring labor strike that has plagued the NHL the last 2
decades. The players did not believe the owner's initial proposal was
appropriate. In essence, when you boil it all down, what we're
suggesting is that the players partner with the financially stronger
owners to stabilize the industry, and assist the less financially
strong ownership groups.”
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Among
the 23 players who were present at the meeting were Pittsburgh's
Sidney Crosby and Washington's Alex Ovechkin.
Crosby
added “I like it a lot, I think, as Don said, it's addressing the
issues that the league has. Making sure as players that we do our
part to help those teams out, but also holding the teams accountable.
At the end of the day, it's going to take both to do that.”
The
NHL made a proposal of introducing new contract restrictions, with a
5 year cap on deals. The NHLPA countered that by suggesting a 3 year
deal for a CBA with an option for a fourth. This would meant the
players excepting a lower percentage of the revenues over the firs 3
years. The fourth year would see the CBA revert to its current terms.
Gary
Bettman (NHL commissioner) said he received the union's proposal
yesterday (Tuesday) and hopes to continue talks Wednesday. Adding he
his hopeful they can take care of business in the next month, and the
owners would carefully consider the latest proposal.
“It's
clear to me that the didn't put it together in an hour or two, and as
a result we're going to need to take a little bit of time to evaluate
it, understand it. If we're going to respond, we want to respond
appropriately”
The
NHL has been down this road twice before in the last 18 years, losing
the whole 2004-05 season and half the 1994-95 season due to a labor
dispute. Training camps are due to start on Sept. 16, one day after
the current CBA ends.
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
NHL Latest News 14th August 2012
Philadelphia
Flyers – Announced on Monday (13 Aug) that defenseman
Andreas Lilja had surgery on his left hip in mid-July and is likely
to be out for up to 4 months (anytime between October and December).
This comes on the back of losing fellow defenseman Andrej Meszaros
less than a week ago after sustaining an Achilles injury during the
offseason. Losing 2 important D-men along with team captain Chris
Pronger, who missed most of last season, and suddenly the Flyers have
a serious problem on the blue line.
Lilja
was quoted in the Swedish newspaper Helsingborgs Dablad as having a
degenerative hip condition that has plagued him for a few seasons
now. When the pain in the joint didn't subside this offseason, he
went for a consultation and surgery was recommended. The 37 year old
said that by missing part of the 2012-13 season he could extend his
career by a further 5 years.
"I've
had problems with my hip for a couple of years and usually the pain
goes away during the offseason, but not this year, that's why it had
to be operated. Now I have a new hip and the difference is going to
be huge when I hit the ice again, especially mentally, because I'll
be able to play without the pain. This can mean that my career got
five seasons longer."
With
Lilja now missing following his surgery it presents some short-term
issues for the Flyers, who enter the 2012-13 season with a patchwork
defense featuring Kimmo Timonen, Braydon Coburn, Nick Grossman, Erik
Gustafsson, Luke Schenn, Marc-Andre Bourdon and Bruno Gervais.
Colorado
Avalanche – Veteran goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere
(35) has signed a one-year contract extension through to the 2013-14
season with the Denver-based side. Making 32 appearances last season,
his first for the franchise, he posted a 15-11-3 record with a 2.27
goals-against average and .919 save percentage. He was 9th
overall in the NHL in GAA and posted the best numbers by an Avalanche
Goaltender since David Aebischer in the 2003-04 season (the last of
the golden era). The Montreal native's finest hour was while playing
for the Anaheim Ducks and leading them to the 2007 Stanley Cup
championship. Four years previously, he became only the fifth player
in NHL history to win the Conn Smythe Trophy while playing for the
losing team when he led Anaheim to Game 7 of the 2003 Stanley Cup
Final, losing to the New Jersey Devils.
Avalanche
GM Greg Sherman said: "J.S. provided leadership, stability
and a veteran presence to our team last season, he helped solidify
our goaltending position and we are pleased to have J.S. under
contract for the next two seasons."
Giguere's
Stats
Career
Record: 246-206-70
GAA:
2.52
Save
Percentage: .913
Shutouts:
36
Games
Played: 557
8th
among active goaltenders
10th
in wins (246).
246
career victories tie him for 46th place on the all-time list.
Giguere's
36 shutouts rank 41st in NHL history, and his 557 appearances place
him 49th in games played by a goaltender.
Montreal
– Max Pacioretty (23) has signed a 6 year contract extension with
the Canadiens it was announced Yesterday. The deal is rumoured to be
around the $4.5 million a year mark and comes into effect for the
2013-14 season. Having completed his 4th NHL season last
year he had a career-best season of 65 points (33+32) and does having
1 year left on his current deal.
Pacioretty
speaking to the Montreal Gazette last night: "This is
something I wanted to get done, I think once the team knew I wanted
to get it done, they jumped on the opportunity as well. The biggest
thing for me is, my career has been maybe plagued by instability and
just to be able to call Montreal home for seven years is such an
honor. I want to do whatever I can to help this team win and this
will help me focus on that for years to come. It’s always been my
mentality that I want to focus on winning hockey games right now, I
think when you’re playing for yourself and playing for your
contract, you kind of get away from the team mentality. So just being
locked up for six years, I feel at home. The organization has taken a
chance on me and now my job is to prove to them that I can help this
team win games and I hope to do that for seven more years."
Pacioretty
received the Bill Masterton Trophy last season for perseverance,
determination and dedication to the game. He missed the last 15
regular-season games and the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2010-11 with a
fractured neck and a concussion after a hit by Boston's Zdeno Chara
in March of that year. Scoring 114 points (53 goals, 61 assists) in
202 NHL regular-season games the New Canaan, Conn. native was chosen
in the first round (No. 22) of the 2007 NHL Draft. He is the first
American-born player in Canadiens history to score at least 30 goals
in a season.
Canadiens
GM Marc Bergevin told TSN: "Max is one of the best players at
his position in the league, he's got size, he's a power forward, he's
got determination. For us he's a key element in this organization.
He's shown Montreal fans that this is the place he wants to play for
a long time and be successful, and that's huge."
Meanwhile
Restricted free agent defenseman P.K. Subban also wants to remain in
Montreal, even though he still does not have a contract for next
season, he remains optimistic he can prolong his Canadiens career.
Subban is eligible to sign an offer sheet with another club. Under
the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Canadiens would
have seven days to match the offer sheet. If they opted not to, they
would receive a draft compensation package based on the terms of the
offer sheet.
"There's
no question that people know that I enjoy playing (in Montreal), I
grew up a Montreal Canadiens fan. I love playing there and I want to
play there for the rest of my career. Ever since that first playoff
run (in 2010), the message to me has been they've wanted me there for
a long time, at the end of the day it's about your relationship with
the team and if they want to do that. Maybe a lot of people were
expecting me to have (the contract) done by now, but I know that it's
a process, when it's going to happen I'm not sure. I mean, it could
happen next week; it could happen a couple of weeks from now. I just
hope it gets done sooner than later, when you're comfortable in a
place, everybody would like a long-term deal. That's why I have my
agent, Don Meehan. I have a lot of confidence in him. I don't think
there is any doubt in anybody's mind that I want to be a Montreal
Canadien, so hopefully it gets done soon. My job is to get myself
ready for training camp, I could be sitting around on pins and
needles waiting for it to happen, and then it happens and I'm not
ready for training camp. I have to get myself ready for training camp
and a good season. I've gotta be ready to play."
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