It began with a phone call from NHLPA President Trevor Linden to Flames co-owner (and Chairman of the NHL Board of Governors) Harley Hotchkiss. On Wednesday, representatives from the NHL (Hotchkiss, Bill Daly & a lawyer) & NHLPA (Linden, Ted Saskin & a lawyer) met in Chicago's O'Hare Airport for 5 hours. Afterwards, Hotchkiss flew to Calgary for Flames co-owner Bud McCaig's funeral while everyone else flew to Toronto for more talks which will be conducted today.
It's not really a sign either way. Both sides characterized the talks as productive, but declined to elaborate.
"Illusions, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money...or candy!" - G.O.B. Bluth, Arrested Development
As great of a person as Trevor Linden is, I don't think he can even pull this off. He gets points for putting this together, though, and at least trying.
"When did they pass a law that says the people who make my sandwich have to be wearing gloves? I'm not comfortable with this. I don't want glove residue all over my food; it's not sanitary. Who knows where these gloves have been?" - George Carlin
According to ESPNRadio, there's strong talk Linden, on behalf of the players, has already approached Bettman about accepting a soft cap which would allow big market teams still to spend a little extra. That's what they'll be talking about in the meeting today.
They don't have even a sliver of a mention of this on their website, so I don't know if they've backed off.
the only way the NHL survives is with a HARD cap. It works in the NFL and the NBA wants to move away from their soft cap to a HARD cap. I hate to lose the NHL for a whole year but if it has to be done for the financial future of the league than it has to be done. A HARD cap certainly hasn't hurt the NFL at all.
Golf is harder than Baseball. In Golf you have to play your foul balls.
Originally posted by dunkndollazthe only way the NHL survives is with a HARD cap. It works in the NFL and the NBA wants to move away from their soft cap to a HARD cap. I hate to lose the NHL for a whole year but if it has to be done for the financial future of the league than it has to be done. A HARD cap certainly hasn't hurt the NFL at all.
The question about a hard cap is how teams like Philadelphia, Toronto, and the NYRangers are going to manage getting under a hard cap (at least a reasonable hard cap). I don't recall the distribution of salaries across NFL teams when they implemented the hard cap. It couldn't have been as wide as the NHL's current distribution. I think deciding the mechanics behind this would be the the toughest part of the negotiations.
One other thing...are contracts written so that if they don't play this year then the contract advances (so that all the players who had one year left going into the 2004-5 season will be FAs, or at least without a contract; the guys that had 2 years will only have 1, etc.)? Or, do the contracts count down as seasons count down, so they are (sort of) suspended in time until play resumes? Obviously, maybe it's all negotiable as well.
Originally posted by The GoonYadda yadda yadda...talks are on, talks are off, talks are on, talks are off.
It's ridiculous how much the Canadian media keeps this endless masturbation at the front of the news.
Preach on, Brother!!!
And an extra "Screw you guys. [/Cartman]" from those of us who had perfectly good minor league teams run off by the (ludicrously overpriced) NHL. My closest hockey is the ECHL cities: -- Las Vegas, 4 hours away -- San Diego, 6 hours -- Long Beach, 8 hours -- Bakersfield, ... shudders at the thought ...
(I had a great time at the Gulls game when I was in SD in December though. Maybe I do need to road trip up to Vegas... :-) )
Originally posted by emma My closest hockey is the ECHL cities: -- Las Vegas, 4 hours away -- San Diego, 6 hours -- Long Beach, 8 hours -- Bakersfield, ... shudders at the thought ...
(I had a great time at the Gulls game when I was in SD in December though. Maybe I do need to road trip up to Vegas... :-) )
Fresno is just maybe 90 minutes north of Bakersfield, and a helluva better city.
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