This is probably what no NHL fan wants to read, let alone hear, but the dreaded "l" word is looming. That "l" word is lockout, and the NHL might be a lot closer to that than dropping the puck on the upcoming 2012-13 regular season.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said that his league is prepared to lock out its players if a new collective-bargaining agreement isn't reached by September 15th, the date the current CBA is set to expire. Bettman said that the owners aren't prepared to enter the upcoming season under the current deal & that time is running out for the NHLPA to reach a new one for the season to start as scheduled.

A key issue is one involving revenue sharing among its teams. Commissioner Bettman & NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr, a man who is no stranger to labor issues dating back to when he ran the powerful MLB Players Association, said the two sides are far apart. How far apart are they? Here's the latest...

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=639507

Should the NHL be locked out, it would be the second such work stoppage since the 2004-05 season cancelled the entire season, including the Stanley Cup Playoffs & Finals that year.

Fuck the owners. They are saying NHL players are making too much money, but just yesterday Taylor Hall gets 7 years and 42 million dollars. Hilarious. They've consistently been paying players unsustainable salaries for years, realize it now and are going to lock the players out and irrevocably damage the league in the process.

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Team Cutler.

The two sides were supposed to resume talks yesterday, but those talks were cancelled until next week.

Meanwhile, just because NBC Sports Group signed a 10-year extension to continue as the U.S. home of the NHL, it doesn't mean that NHL owners will be crying poor. Yahoo! Sports reports that the "Peacock" will still pay the NHL $200 million if the lockout claims regular season games scheduled to air on NBC Sports Network as well as NBC itself.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck- ... --nhl.html

They met this morning. Plenty of info coming out about it, all bad.

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Team Cutler.

What makes this just as sad is that Blackhawks' tickets went on sale this week for games that will likely be cancelled if the two sides don't reach a new deal by September 15th.

As soon as Donald Fehr became involved, you knew this would happen. I never understand the owners. They spend money wildly and then complain about spending money. I usually side with the owners in these disputes because the players are making a ton with little or no risk (i.e. many teams lose money or don't make a good return on their investment), but the owners are very tough to defend.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

So... Leipold signs both Suter and Parise to identical $98 million contracts with a $10 million signing bonus for the 1st two years. Indeed, fuck these NHL owners.

Along those lines, ESPN/ABC's Darren Rovell Tweeted the following...

Rovell: "Donald Fehr has never faced an opponent like the NHL owners. Their weapon is a niche fan base that'll come back no matter what."


Here's more from CSNChicago.com regarding where things stand, or maybe not...

http://www.csnchicago.com/hockey-chicag ... 584140-914

The owners won last time and will win again. There are too many struggling teams for them to give up. Heck, even the Blackhawks don't make money....after their Stanley Cup team, the Tribune article said it would take about 5 years for them to get to break even.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Not having Bill Wirtz I'm sure impacts some of the owner's leverage in this. I'm just waiting for something to come out that says Rocky is not the shiny, happy exec everyone paints him to be.

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I know for a fact that one of this year's NHL Playoff teams that went as far as the Western Conference Finals, the Phoenix Coyotes, were really struggling in regards to their bottom line. I also remember before they opened the Consol Energy Center, the Pittsburgh Penguins were another cash-strapped franchise.

Good businessmen tend to be ruthless negotiators, so you're probably right. But you cannot ever take away the remarkable turnaround instituted by Rocky. First he took over from his brother, then reversed everything his dad did wrong. You know how families tend to stick together and think alike, so I have to figure that was a pretty tough road to travel for Rocky.

The Blackhawks are one of the best sporting events to witness in person now, an all round great experience.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

SHARK, sports teams make most of their money from tv contracts, and the NHL's sucks. The NFL is rich because of its Directv deal and the broadcast rights with various channels. It is the same reason the Yankees are so wealthy- they have their own tv network.

Thus, the NHL is a very poor league financially.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

You have a very valid point, Denis. In MLB, the Yankees have unlimited resources, thanks in large part to their own YES Network, which has been a model for other teams wanting to start up their own regional sports networks across America. The Red Sox have a similar arrangement with NESN.

As far as the NHL is concerned, ESPN wasn't sad to part company with the league when their last U.S. TV deal expired, I think the same year the last lockout claimed the entire season, including the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs & Finals.

Before they signed a 10 year, $2 billion extension last year as the home of the NHL in this country, NBC Sports Group didn't necessarily pay a rights fee in their last national TV deal. They are paying a fee in the current deal.

No surprise, but Rovell's quote is incredibly untrue. Hockey is by far the most reliant sport on gate receipts. A lockout will absolutely pummel attendance except for select markets.

BTW, the NHL signed a great (relatively speaking) TV contract with NBC this past year.

And NBC actually had a ratings increase for its coverage of the Stanley Cup Playoffs & Finals, Rovell mentioned prior to leaving CNBC for ESPN/ABC.

Gary Bettman is THE worst commissioner in the history of professional sports. It's that simple. While it's my favorite sport, hockey doesn't register, for whatever reason, with the majority of the sports consumers in the United States. To take what's basically a niche sport and expand it into areas like Atlanta (which has now lost 2 franchises), Columbus, Nashville, Florida, Arizona, et al was a classic case of not seeing the forest thru the trees. The owners got their quick cash infusion from franchise fees but are now crying poor and how so many teams are losing money. The product on the ice would be so much better if the teams I listed were folded.

None of those places are hockey hotbeds, and while some may have decent attendance, they can't or won't compete with the big time teams even with a salary cap given the market they're in. There's too big of a difference between the salary cap ceiling and the floor, which causes smaller market teams to spend just enough to not get in trouble with the league but not enough to attrace top level talent. Then, when an owner like the one in Minnesota spends crazy money for Parise and Suter, months later the owners make it known they want a rollback on player salaries. What?! It's ridiculous. I'm completely on the players' side on this. The NHL owners can blow me.

Ed, The SCORE's own Les Grobstein refers to the Rowan Atkinson ("Mr. Bean")-looking Gary Bettman as "Beavis" from MTV's "Beavis & Butt-Head". He's been awful as the NHL Commissioner. Allan H. "Bud" Selig, the "Commissioner" of Major League Baseball since 1992, has been nothing special either.

Yeah, asslicker Rovell got it completely wrong. The owners have never reckoned with a negotiator like Fehr. The owners won in large part because Bob Goodenow was such a bumbling idiot.

Rovell is kidding himself if he thinks fanbases in marginal NHL markets will come back as strong as ever after a second lockout in eight years. Like, yeah, there are probably about 7,500 degenerates out of 1.8 million who live and die with the Carolina Hurricanes, but you're really risking your larger revenue streams--luxury suites, advertising partnerships, etc--if you keep shutting down your business every few years.

The problem is that the NHL doesn't have central revenue the way other leagues do. There are about ten out of thirty organizations which operate successfully in their own markets, and from there they're expected to pay for their own expenses and everybody else's. One way (relocation) or another (contraction), the fact that so many teams can't make money has to be addressed.


This is completely wrong, too. The problem is the opposite: the discrepancy between ceiling and floor isn't enough. It's only $16 million. At a cap of $64 million, the cheapest team still has to spend at least $48 million. Last year, you had teams that didn't even crack $20 million in ticket sales.

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Donald Fehr is no stranger to such sports labor issues. Some might say the MLB Players Association Fehr ran for many years might be stronger than MLB Commissioner Selig himself.

Shit's fucked. The players are firmly behind Fehr. The NHL is negotiating with an actual adult. God dammit.

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Team Cutler.

Right now, it'll be an upset if the NHL starts as scheduled.

Should the Bears implode and this lockout become further entrenched, we may have only shitty Bulls basketball to watch. God help this city.

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Too bad the NHL has the exclusivity agreement on the Stanley Cup. Would love to see another league awarding it this year.

I'd be contented with a January 1 start... that should give Brown enough time to recover.

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

Someone posted that the NHL was targeting the Winter Classic to kick-off the season, kind of similar to how the NBA used the Christmas day marathon to start last season.

Among the 4 ostensibly major sports, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, the NHL has benefited the most from everyone having a large screen HDTV in their home. NFL probably next, MLB--a slow-paced sport many still enjoy listening to on the radio--the least.

The NHL's problem--even/especially in major markets like Chicago and Boston, which both have had renewed interest in hockey in recent seasons--is how to grow the TV audience for a sport that, as much improved the viewing experience is on HDTV, still needs to have fans experience the game live at least one time to truly become hooked on the sport.

But the pricing of tickets and monopoly of season-ticket holders keeps down the turnover in attendance from home-game-to-home-game.

Showcases like the Winter Classic do a lot to bring in new fans (e.g., Wrigley a few seasons ago couldn't have been better timed).

Not sure how to target virgin fans with ticket deals without pissing off season ticket holders or having the cheap seats deals bought up by the existing fan-base. Maybe a showcase game in each city per season, to bring in new fans, who then become regular tv viewers of the
sport.

I'm not at all surprised that there's yet another lockout in the NHL. I don't think Commissioner Gary Bettman was bluffing when he threatened to impose this lockout if the two sides didn't come to terms on a new CBA by last Saturday's deadline.

What is really sad about this is that the two sides didn't seem to be in a hurry to get a new CBA squared away over the weekend, and that the two sides might be digging in for the long haul. Will the NHL shutdown the entire season like they did in 2004? I hope not, but I know that NBC Sports will be paying the league, even if they don't play a single game.

The blackhawks training camp thing has been cancelled.

They all have.

Bummer. There isn't much hope here is there. I need them to get it together by Oct 27.