Here's a good article from Scott Burnside of ESPN.
It's done. As I noted before, this was mostly a ruse by the owners to get to a point where they'd lose the least money possible for this season but salvage the playoff gate (which is generally not shared revenue).
They did an excellent job (aided by Fehr's idiocy) at keeping up appearances of good faith. The bottom line is that this was an owners vs. owners affair and it was going to be near the 11th hour before they ever really were interested in getting a deal done. The players could have forced that hand with an early decertification but it just wasn't worth it I don't think.
The down side is we'll have some extra injuries and weird early games.
There is a serious upside: it's basically 6 months of playoff hockey!! The way the scoring system works, the playoff races and seedings will be insanely close all the way to the end - one hot or cold streak and that could be the season. It will be desperate play all over the place!
FWIW - and I doubt it happens - I think they should switch to a 3 pt regulation win, 2 pt OT/SO win, and 1 pt OT loss system like CCHA uses. At least for this season.
Thank god!!! Finally got it done. You know it's funny. I said three months ago that 50/50 split made sense. Where did it end up? 50/50. Seems like a lot of people being dumbasses just as we suspected. I know there were other items that needed to be worked out too, but 50/50 split was way too easy to argue about for months.
I hate that they did this, but I will be in my seats on opening night.
Frankly after the first lockout back in the 90's I went on strike against the NHL.
When a player, Danton Cole, told me player salaries do not have an impact on ticket prices that was it for me.
Originally posted by Bill From Tampa:
Frankly after the first lockout back in the 90's I went on strike against the NHL.
When a player, Danton Cole, told me player salaries do not have an impact on ticket prices that was it for me.
He's actually somewhat correct, though things have changed in fairness to the owners. I know for a fact of least two recent Cup-winning franchises that could have changed payrolls by 10 million or so and it would only change their break-even by 1 home playoff game.
At least the CBA is for a minimum of 8 years and hopefully we have a new commish and NHLPA director by then.
I honestly think the next step, and one worth looking at, is uniform advertising. The EPL does it and I noticed several teams had it at the World Juniors. If the owners had any real interest in negotiations this deal would have been done in August or September.
all I have to say now is LET"S GO HAWKS!
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