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NHL: The Great Schism

Welcome and thank you for visiting the new McKeen’s, I’ll be your host for the next little while.

I did this before back in the day, based around a Leafs event. Somehow, I feel this subject is more appropriate.

Merriam-Webster defines Schism as: division, separation; also: discord, disharmony.

The NHL and NHLPA are in the midst of a Great Schism

Tool defined Schism as it appears below.

****Lyrics and music are copyright of TOOL.

Let’s get it started all up in here.

A special thanks to Ryan Dadoun from Pro Hockey Talk for his help.

I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away

The earliest hope to avoid a lockout next fall was dashed when the NHL filed a notice of termination of its collective bargaining agreement with the NHL Players’ Association on Wednesday morning, THN.com has learned. Article III of the agreement provided a slim hope a lockout could be avoided, as it was when the NHLPA elected to extend the agreement by one year. The article states that the CBA, “shall remain in effect from year to year (after it expires) unless and until either party shall deliver to the other a written notice of termination of the agreement at least 120 days prior to Sept. 15, 2011 or not less than a like period in any year thereafter.”

Which means that if neither side had filed a termination notice before Friday, the agreement automatically would have rolled over for another year. But that will not be the case since the league has already notified the players it intends to terminate the agreement. The players had the same option, but there was little chance the NHLPA would have filed to terminate an agreement that has been largely favorable to them.
****

I would caution anyone following this process to abandon any traditional ideas of what is "fair" or "unfair." In a negotiation of this magnitude, both sides will be looking for the best deal possible for their collective membership. Period. The owners will try to take whatever they think they can get, as is their right, and so should we.

NEW YORK — Gary Bettman says the NHL will lock out its players if a new collective bargaining agreement can’t be reached by Sept. 15.

 

The NHL commissioner delivered that news to the NHL Players’ Association during a bargaining session on Thursday and confirmed it with reporters afterwards.

That leaves just 37 days for the sides to bridge what both consider to be a wide gap in talks.

 

 

 

The Detroit Red Wings announced a significant casualty of the current labor strife on Thursday, canceling their annual prospect tournament in Traverse City.
“Due to the uncertainty surrounding the collective bargaining agreement and the advance commitments required from the various parties including hotels, airlines, teams, players and their families, we have determined that it is in everyone’s best interest to cancel this year’s tournament,” Detroit GM Ken Holland said on the team website

Mildewed and smouldering fundamental differing

With one month to go before the NHL's collective bargaining agreement expires, the league and players seem no closer to a deal than when talks began in June.
In fact, it appears as though the divide may have grown even wider.

After waiting several weeks to receive a proposal from the NHL Players' Association, it took commissioner Gary Bettman less than 24 hours to conclude that the union's initial offering held little appeal for the owners.
"There's still a wide gap between us with not much time to go," Bettman said Wednesday.
"I do think it's fair to say that the sides are still apart — far apart — and have different views of the world and the issues," he added.

Players are not surprised and fully understand what the ramifications of a work stoppage would mean, since most of them either lived through or have teammates who were playing when the NHL shut down in 2004, he said.

"It was interested. It was focused. It was sobered," Fehr said, describing the tone of the meetings.
"Players understand what is going on, understand what the issues are and understand how the owners' proposal will affect them, understand how this compares to what happened seven years ago. ... understand that this will affect their lives if we can't find a way through this in the immediate future."

The league wants the players 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.

“Our fundamental proposal, our initial proposal, relates to the fact that we need to pay out less in player costs,” Gary Bettman said on Thursday in reaffirming the league’s intention to shut down the league on Sept. 15 if the players don’t agree to massive givebacks.

Eight years ago, the NHL mounted a massive public relations campaign to justify its reach into the players’ pockets, much of the appeal to the fans resting on a pledge that a hard cap would result in lower ticket prices.

Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers' souls in motion

“They haven't thrown their weight around; not yet. But Bettman has a track record; he's shut down his sport before and has said here this week that his first priority is getting the deal he feels his owners need rather than starting the season on time.”

One of the things that makes me chuckle is when critics of the NHL owners try to use recent contracts in their argument to support the players

"We felt in order to move the process along and hopefully engage the union in a way that would bring a negotiation that had traction we tried to address what we thought the fundamental issues were that they were raising in a way that was structured to hopefully address the way they're looking at the world," Bettman said Tuesday. "I'm trying to get us onto the same page. I'm trying to get us onto a common language and hopefully this will do that."

Disintegrating as it goes testing our communication

As the reality of the potential of another year without NHL hockey – or at the least, a shortened season – comes into focus, there are a couple of things worth noting.

For starters, if the season does not start on time it will not be because of a strike. Some may suggest it's just semantics, but it drives me nuts when I get asked (almost daily) if there’s going to be another strike?
"Another strike?" I ask.

"Yeah, like the one that wiped out the 2004-05 season."

"That was not a strike. It was a lockout. The owners locked out the players. The owners rolled back the players’ salaries by a whopping 24 per cent and they shoved a salary cap down the players’ throats. Ring a bell?"

"Oh yeah."

If there is no NHL hockey in the winter of 2012 it will not be because the players have gone on strike. It will, once again, be because the owners have locked the players out.

The light that fuelled our fire then has a burned a hole between us so

Lockout chronology

Some of the highlights from the longest lockout in professional sports history
CBC Sports Online

Wikipedia - NHL_Collective_Bargaining_Agreement

 

CHICAGO -- The NHL Players' Association has decided to extend the current collective bargaining agreement through the 2011-12 season.

The agreement was originally set to expire after the upcoming season -- with the players holding the right to extend it for a seventh year. They voted to do that during their executive board meeting in Chicago on Tuesday.
"The NHLPA is pleased to announce to hockey fans that the CBA will remain in effect through the 2011-12 season," the union said in a release. "It is apparent through the operation of the CBA that there are a number of issues that require serious examination. The NHLPA is currently reviewing these issues and will be forming a negotiating committee in the coming months in order to address these matters."


Sports Illustrated - nhl-lockout-timeline

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We cannot see to reach an end

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said on Wednesday that there's a "wide gap" between the owners and the players after the NHLPA's "alternate" proposal was released this week — and he's right

Crippling our communication

tweet_dump_wednesdays_cba_meetings_produced_cold_war_bluster_little_else/

Will the lockout start on Sept. 15?
"It looks like there will be no more negotiations. Owners have already stated that they won't move away from their position. The lockout may be called even earlier than Sept. 15.

"But right now all the guys are already ready for the League to have a work stoppage. The NHLPA is arranging for insurance coverage for everyone, getting ready to make payments. Fehr told everyone in advance, and a lot of players will go to Europe. Maybe to Russia."


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them tumble down

In both leagues, the owners succeeded by taking hard lines, making the players — who have precious little time to earn their money before their careers enter the downside — sweat just enough that they were willing to accept deals that made them bleed rather than face the prospect of an entire missed season.
So, when NHLPA boss Donald Fehr said this week that the NHL was working from a “playbook” that would use a lockout as leveraging tactic in negotiations, he was exactly right. The NBA missed a couple of months, squeezed most of a season into a truncated schedule, and had zero pushback from fans once the games began. There’s your playbook right there.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

No fault, none to blame, it doesn't mean I don't desire

To point the finger, blame the other watch the temple topple over

Most NHL fans despise NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and want him fired, but is that criticism justified?

The current NHL CBA negotiations have once again highlighted the animosity many NHL fans feel toward league commissioner Gary Bettman

For whatever reason, [lockouts] seem to be what Gary likes to do. Whether this time around it’s a negotiating tactic or what, you’d hope that he’s smart enough to realize that as a league, the fanbases, with the momentum that the league has gotten, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a lockout.

To bring the pieces back together

“"We are hoping that our meetings this week can serve as a jumping off point for further discussion and negotiation over the critical economic and system issues that we need to resolve in order to reach an agreement," deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Tuesday in an email.

Essentially, it's time to see how much each side is willing to move off its current position, if at all.”

One of the areas we’ve heard and will hear a great deal about in these negotiations is Hockey Related Revenue (HRR). This is a good time to delve into that definition so we have a better grasp of what the NHL and NHLPA will be wrasslin’ about.

Rediscover communication

If there's a single event that will force the owners to move towards compromise, it's the threat of losing the Toronto-Detroit Winter Classic that includes 100k tickets sold, likely largely to some of the NHL's richest and most loyal fans:

But once December arrives, the players will hold the cards, and the heat will be on the owners. Two months of an interminable season will be gone, and not many will mourn the loss (the European Premiere season openers were canceled last March with nary a tear shed). But the Jan. 1 Winter Classic game will be looming. It’s the N.H.L.’s biggest regular-season spectacle, the linchpin of its new $200 million-a-year contract with NBC and a money-spinning sponsorship bonanza for the league.
Bettman and the owners simply cannot afford to fritter away the Detroit Red Wings-Toronto Maple Leafs game before 115,000 at Michigan Stadium — they would lose everything they have gained in credibility and profitability in recent years, gains that rescued the league from niche status. The N.H.L. is aware of its predicament with the Winter Classic; it signed a contract with the University of Michigan enabling it to delay as long as possible before canceling the game, right up to Jan. 1.

Bettman: "I'm trying to get us onto the same page. I'm trying to get us onto a common language and hopefully this will do that."

The poetry that comes from the squaring off between

Love Loss and the lockout qasaid for hockey fans/

Qasa’id
Cut the bond
with one you cannot reach!
The best of those who make a bond
Are those who can break it.
- Labid, The Mu’allaqa

As a fan, it’s hard to see any good guys in the NHL-NHLPA confrontation. In a down economy, when unemployment, underemployment, debt and forfeiture are rampant, it’s difficult to muster much sympathy for either millionaires or billionaires. It’s tempting to respond to any PR gesture with contempt: Oh, poor baby, you’re only going to be able to get $8 million per year for five years, not ten? Cry me a fucking river. Oh, you spent a kajillion dollars to buy a shiny hockey toy and now it’s not giving you enough kajillions more? Sell it, princess, and buy yourself another Pacific island.

And the circling is worth it finding beauty in the dissonance

CBC VS NHL Goes Into Overtime

A friend of me recently asked whether I thought the media was doing a better job covering the CBA negotiations than they did in 2004. “The players seem to be winning the PR war,” he said, “And the hockey reporters seem to be a lot more sympathetic to the plight of the players.”

“They are winning the the PR war because Gary isn’t bothering to fight,” I replied. “And the sympathy for the players stops short of opposing Bettman on the only issue that matters.”

There was a time that the pieces fit but I watched them fall away

 

Toronto, ON -- The National Hockey League Players' Association ratified the new collective bargaining agreement Thursday afternoon, bringing the NHL one step closer to officially re-opening its doors for business.

The 228 players who attended the NHLPA's meetings on Wednesday and Thursday first reviewed the new CBA before holding a ratification vote. Those who did not make the event in person were able to view the document and vote on the union's secure Web site.
"After two days of thorough discussion and analysis, the players voted in favor of ratifying the new collective bargaining agreement," NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow said. "We expect the owners will ratify the agreement as well. Once the ratification process is complete, the focus of everyone can turn to the 2005-06 season."

NHL CBA FAQ

The most important issue in the CBA negotiations

Mildewed and smouldering strangled by our coveting

National Hockey League Fans Association

The people who run the NHL aren’t romantics, but they understand desire as it applies to marketing.

There is no reason for Gary Bettman to fear a lockout, or even the loss of an entire season.History has already taught him that a year off is good for business.

A year off reminds his captive audience what they’re missing.

 

For the “crime” of loving the game too passionately and supporting the 30 NHL clubs too enthusiastically in the wake of the last lockout, NHL fans and customers will now pay the price of watching the league and players demonstrate once more they care more about the business of the game than the sport or the fans.

 



Twitter: @JanneMakkonen1

You Say You Want a Revolution
The rhetoric surrounding the ongoing CBA negotiations stepped up another level recently. This time, however, it wasn’t the NHL or NHLPA attempting to win the PR battle. This time it was the fans. There’s talk of revolution in the air: anger, protests, boycotts, and letter-writing campaigns. Slogans like “Occupy NHL,” “Unfollow NHL” and “No Lockout” are spreading on Twitter and Facebook

I've done the math enough to know the dangers of our second guessing

The gist: The players are offering to delink their salaries from hockey related revenue (HRR) for the next three seasons and take a smaller share of league revenues over that period than the loathsome (from the owners point of view) 57 per cent they get under the current CBA, which expires Sept. 15. All the other stuff – free agency, salary arbitration, entry level contracts, contract lengths – the owners want to clamp down on would stay the same.

It’s a move that gives the owners the ultimate in cost-certainty, which they love. They will pay the players $1.91 billion in 2012-13; $1.98 billion in 2013-14 and $2.10 billion in 2014-15. Only if league revenues grow at more than 10 per cent a year would it be any more.

Those figures represent raises of two, four and six per cent from the $1.87 billion the players got as their 57 per cent share of the $3.3 billion of HRR in 2011-12.

The Canadian to US dollar exchange rate in September 2004, when the last CBA expired, was 0.8014.

Today, the CAD to USD exchange rate is 0.9784. As Galatioto pointed out, the NHL’s record rise in revenues over the last three years has coincided with a weakening US dollar.

“Show me the …. Money?”
Following the Money: The Effect of the 2005 CBA on Forward Salaries
Follow the Money II: Electric Boogaloo


Revenue Sharing Insiderr

Doomed to crumble unless we grow and strengthen our communication

Gary Bettman's language of NHL labour talks, then & now
Examining the NHL commissioner's words in 2004 vs. 2012

During a two-day information session with union leaders at an upscale Toronto hotel, National Hockey League players were shown graphs, given handouts and asked to absorb some of the data culled from the more than 76,000 pages of financial documents provided by the league last month.
Max Talbot took notes.

“It is scary, as a whole, but it is way simpler than most people think,” the Philadelphia Flyers forward said. “And Don is such a good communicator. You should see a room when he talks. He keeps our focus for four hours straight.”


 
 
 
 
 
 

( cold, cold ) Cold silence has

NEW YORK (AP) -- NHL labor negotiations hit a standstill after talks broke off on Friday, two weeks before the league has threatened to lock out its players.

NHL Players' Association executive director Don Fehr announced that the NHL asked that talks be ''recessed'' after the union presented its latest proposal during negotiations held at the league's headquarters in New York.
Fehr said the union's latest proposal ''did not bear fruit.''

A tendency to


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Atrophy any

What’s not to like about this?
The proposal that the NHL submitted to its players’ association (NHLPA) during their meeting Tuesday in New York is stunningly generous.

Herewith, from an insider source, are the most important details it contains.

Sense of compassion

TORONTO - One day after hearing NHL commissioner Gary Bettman say a "wide gap" remained in collective bargaining negotiations, players were still upset the owners quickly dismissed their initial proposal this week.

"The industry's grown a billion dollars since (the lockout) and basically they just want more money," Chris Campoli, a member of the NHLPA's negotiating committee, said Thursday.

Between supposed brothers

“We hear it a lot - the NHL owners and players are partners. We know the players get a share of revenue. The better the league does the more the players get paid. That linkage is the primary reason the relationship is often characterized as a partnership.

But is it a partnership? Short answer is of course no.”

One day after hearing NHL commissioner Gary Bettman say a “wide gap” remained in collective bargaining negotiations, players were still upset the owners quickly dismissed their initial proposal this week.

“The industry’s grown a billion dollars since (the lockout) and basically they just want more money,” Chris Campoli, a member of the NHLPA’s negotiating committee, said Thursday.

“I thought in our proposal we made a step and considerable concessions to them,” he added. “Frankly, it was a little disappointing to see the response yesterday and the view they have on it.

 

AHL effect of NHL CBA

 

Between supposed lovers

The "partnership" with the players that Commissioner Gary Bettman once trumpeted as working "for everybody...most importantly for our fans"

Comparing CBAs
Read about some of the key differences between the Collective Bargaining Agreements for the NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB.
In a 4 part series, we look at how they are different from the standpoint of lunch money, revenue sharing, salary cap and quirky clauses. Here are the articles:

The last deal between the league and its players had unintended consequences that hurt the college game, coaches say

Twitter players and fan reactions

I know the pieces fit

THE ISSUES

THE AGENTS
Allan Walsh
Pulver Sports

I know the pieces fit

THE CURRENT CBA BANKRUPTS SMALL MARKETS FOR THE BENEFIT OF BIG MARKETS
As revenues grow in places like Toronto and Montreal, so too does a salary cap linked to HRR. That means that teams like Phoenix are required to spend more money based on what Toronto earns. Nothing in the NHL's proposal changes that in any way. The NHL has chosen a CBA model that ties each teams' spending to the other teams' revenues. Without significant revenue sharing this is always going to be a problem unless the players' share of HRR is reduced to something absurd like 10%.

I know the pieces fit


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I know the pieces fit


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I know the pieces fit

The National Hockey League's counterproposal to its players on Tuesday included a reduction of the salary cap from its expected $70.2 million for 2012-13 down to $58 million for next season. It would slowly creep up over the six-year term to $71.1 million in the final season.

This was expected.

That there wouldn't be a rollback on existing contracts, as the NHL stated in its proposal, was a shocker.

Well, perhaps the easiest way to look at this is in terms of the salary cap. If this deal proceeds as planned, then the 2012-13 cap would be $58 million. Which, by the way, if there’s no rollback of current salaries or other adjustments, would mean that 16 teams are over the proposed cap based on the current figures from Cap Geek. The Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild are currently exceeding the proposed salary cap by more than $10 million.

The USA Today speculates that because the NHL isn’t asking for salary rollbacks as far as existing contracts are concerned that “the adjustment could be made through changes in contracting practices, increases in league-wide revenue and contributions to player escrow.”

This proposal would also mean that the salary cap is projected to reach roughly $71 million in 2017-18. In other words, it might take six seasons before the proposed cap reaches the levels that the current CBA would set the cap at for 2012-13.

I know the pieces fit

We previously have called upon Justin Hunt, our sports collective-bargaining guru, to put in context the negotiations between the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association. Today, we again confer with Hunt, a local sports attorney who’s an expert in the field of major sports league financial models and player compensation. We are here to help.

NHL owners and players have been talking for 10 weeks, and progress has been dilatory. League commissioner Gary Bettman and union chief Donald Fehr have yet to agree on how to cut and distribute a $3.3 billion pie. Today, we offer a framework.

I know the pieces fit


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I know the pieces fit (crescendo)

“The following is one that I’d suggest might hit enough common ground to be an acceptable compromise for both sides; it does handle some of the NHLPA’s concerns while providing the NHL with a vastly better deal than they currently have.”


Song begins at about the 4 minutes mark ..

Twitter: @KatsHockey
Twitter: @mckeenshockey