Well, the NHL rejected the NHLPA’s offer and in turn had it’s offer rejected. Any hope there might have been for an NHL season was obliterated by these words from Billy Guerin: “We put forth our best offer last week. We couldn’t be [further] apart.” It’s no wonder. Anyone who’s taken a look just at the NHL’s proposed salary roll-back structure could tell you that. Even without a cap, the League’s proposal would have been insulting. There was no compromise from the NHL. None. Apparently, all the give must come from the players, who at least seemed willing to meet in the middle. I don’t think we can expect that any more.

Read these:
Globe and Mail article
Bettman’s comments
The NHL’s proposal
NHLPA press release

I am completely disgusted, too much so to even say any more. Maybe later today I’ll write up a rant. No promises though. Finals start tommorrow and with this news, I’m really starting to question the importance of the NHL anymore. Should I really be wasting my time on this? I used to think so. Now I’m not so sure.

Based on an eight-page memorandum the NHL has sent to all teams, mysteriously obtained by TSN, the NHL has rejected the NHLPA offer and is poised to issue its own counter-offer at a 1 pm meeting with the NHLPA on Tuesday. The memo reads:

“In sum, we believe the Union’s December 9 CBA proposal, while offering necessary and significant short-term financial relief, falls well short of providing the fundamental systemic changes that are required to ensure that overall League economics remain in synch on a going-forward basis. While the immediate ‘rollback’ of 24 per cent offered by the Union would materially improve League economics for the 2004-05 season, there is virtually nothing in the Union’s proposal that would prevent the dollars ‘saved’ from being re-directed right back into the player compensation system, such that the League’s overall financial losses would approach current levels in only a matter of a couple of years.”

The memo follows that the NHL counter-offer “will be an appropriate response to the Union’s offer and will ensure the League’s future stability and long-term health.” This means player salaries directly tied to revenue, in the form of a salary cap or by some other means.

The NHLA would not comment on the leaked memo, which goes on to say:

“We believe the Union’s offer was more about trying to unify the players and ensure player solidarity with what they would perceive as a very substantial proposal than it was about making a good faith effort to reach agreement us…The Union needed the ‘rallying point’ that it felt this offer would provide with the players to effectuate this strategy. Under this scenario, the Union will likely (and quickly) break off negotiations.”

A reaction to the 24% rollback followed:

“…(while) the Union’s offer in this regard was significant in the same approximate range of magnitude that will be necessary, we believe the ‘rollback’ should be structured among the players in a more equitable manner than the Union’s current proposal envisions.”

A reaction to the luxury tax system:

“…the Union’s actual proposal on Thursday demonstrated its continuing objective to avoid at all costs placing meaningful restraints on a Club’s ability to spend excessively on player salaries…we remain firmly opposed to any new economic system that is premused on salary restraints encouraged by a luxury tax…The League’s economic problems are too significant, and the future success of this sport too important, to accept a system based on projections and guesswork, particularly when we believe that the underlying dynamics of operating af team will not have been addressed.”

There were other reactions to specific points of the NHLPA offer, but the above two were the main ones in play. So basically don’t expect NHL hockey for a long, long time. No more analysis is needed.

You probably have seen Lance Armstrong’s yellow “LiveStrong” wristbands designed to help raise money for cancer research. Other organizations have made their own wristband for causes like AIDS and muscular dystrophy.

The Detroit Red Wings organization has created a wristband of their own. The red rubber wristband has the word “Believe” on the front and “DRW est. 1926″ on the back. Proceeds go to Ilitch Charities for Children, which benefit children mainly stricken with cancer or AIDS in this area in education, health, and recreation.

To pre-order, visit DetroitRedWings.com. You have to purchase a minimum of 5 bands at the cost of $12 (including shipping).

For those of you craving some hockey action, download NHL.com’s Highlight Machine here. It’s a database of highlights from the 2003-2004 NHL season, categorized by player, team, goal, save, and hit. During the lockout, NHL.com is offering this highlight database free of charge. You can even string together highlights and create your own highlight reel. And, for those of who think NHL.com is useless (which is true most of the time), they have been offering some really great downloads during the lockout, including full game streaming broadband downloads.

My dad took a ton of pictures at the Charity hockey game last Thursday in Ann Arbor. I have edited the nicer pictures and posted 55 of them on the web.

To see the pictures, just click this link: http://community.webshots.com/user/behindthejersey/

Enjoy!

With the unofficial mid-December deadline nearing, the NHL and NHLPA have resumed negotiations in a last ditch effort to save the 2004-2005 NHL season. It would be the first NHL season cancelled if negotiations are unsuccessful.

The NHLPA’s recent proposal is a promising sign that a new CBA is on the horizon. The offer includes a one-time 24% roll back in player salaries and a luxury tax system whereby payrolls over $45 million trigger a 20 cent tax, over $50 million a 50 cent tax, and over $60 million a 60 cent tax. The NHLPA boasts that their proposal could save the league up to $600 million, with owners saving around $200 million in absorbed salaries. Thursday’s meeting came three months after the last day of negotiations, September 9. The meeting ran between 11:23 am and 3:20 pm, with a lunch break at 1:45.

Coming short of approval, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has recognized the offer as both “significant” and “serious,” in that it showed that the NHLPA was beginning to recognize the league’s financial troubles. The offer puts the ball in the league’s court, and also gives the NHLPA a healthy shot of PR, after weeks of bad press that the players were the ones responsible for the lockout based on their greed. Players as well as fans were shocked by the generosity of the offer. Says goaltender Martin Brodeur, over in Europe for the Primus Worldstars Tour:

“‘It was surprising for everybody. We knew something was coming up but we didn’t know exactly how much. So everyone kind of said ‘Whoa, that’s steep,’ but if it gets a deal done, good…The players are doing this in good faith. We’re making a statement to the NHL and the people that we want this resolved.”

Under the proposal, Brodeur will lose $2 million in rolled-back salary.

The sides will meet on Tuesday to discuss the offer, and the NHL is likely to present a counter-offer that includes a clause to link player income and league revenue. The league has also insisted on a salary cap system in the new CBA, but the NHLPA’s latest offer and the desperation to save the season might be enough for Bettman to accept the proposal. For a league plagued by bad press and a limited American fan base, it is quite presumptuous and plain suidical for the league to assume that it can keep its foot down for too long.

The lockout has lasted 86 days and cancelled over 382 regular-season games, in addition to the 2005 All Star Game.

Brendan Shanahan’s summit of players, coaches, general managers and referees has ended, producing ten recommendations for the improvement of hockey for the NHL to consider.

The first on the list was a recommendation for the creation of a permanent competition committee which would include the same groups that were in the summit. Shanahan said in the news conference today, “The idea of the competition committee is that in the future we all have a voice on these matters.”

Besides the idea for a committee, the summit group came up with suggestions such as:

– Streamlining goalie equipment. This would be accomplished by a committee of nine goaltenders, six of whom would be current players and elected by the rest of the league’s goalies, while the other three would be retired. They would worked together with the NHL staff and manufacturers to safely reduce pad size across the board.

– Reducing obstruction. This, like the goalie equipment, is hardly a new idea but their suggestion is to have the players and the officials work together rather than have one side impose difficult rules on the other.

– Using a shoot-out to decide a game still tied after a five-minute overtime period. Shanahan said, “The group felt very strongly that with what fans are paying to see a game, they deserve to see a winner.”

– Reducing minor penalties from two minutes to one minute during overtime. They want to take the awaythe responsibility of the referee of essentially deciding the game in overtime by making it 4-on-3 for two minutes, even if their call was right. This way the refs will not feel so pressed to not make the call.

– Adopting the rules currently being experimented with in the AHL: tag-up offsides, wider bluelines, putting the net back where it was, and placing restrictions on goalie movement behind the net. Wings number one goalie Curtis Joseph said, “It’s going to limit the amount that the goalie can play the puck, but I’ve learned that it’s working in the American Hockey League and it’s creating offense.”

– Instituting automatic, no-touch icing. The numerous injuries caused by touch icing over the years were the main reason for this suggestion. There is a catch though. They want to have a rule prohibiting the defending team from changing after the puck. That way a team will not be able to simply ice the puck after a tough defensive-zone struggle in order to get new bodies out there. As Dallas Stars head coach said, “It promotes skill.”

– Making any puck shot directly into the stands from the defensive zone a two-minute penalty for everyone, not just the goalie. It’s just not safe for players to do that and if they cannot get away with it, they’ll do it a lot less.

– Improving broadcaster’s access. This is an obvious attempt at spicing up the televised product, one which is generally agreed to be the worst presented of the major sports. This way, there could be live, in-game interviews of coaches and players on the bench, much like what ESPN/ABC has tried at times.

– Improving communication and partnership at all levels. This is a blanket suggestion much in line with the first one.

Shanahan will meet with Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow to discuss what happens next. He said he will wait a while though since “they’ve got some things to do,” meaning Thursday’s labor talks. He hopes NHL director of hockey operations Colin Campbell will listen to the summit group’s recommendations as well as take part in the competition committee, if it is in fact created.

Obviously most of these recommendations are not very original but I think the fact that they come from the real workers in the league says a lot. These guys are not a group of NHL bureaucrats working on solutions to a game they are too far removed from to appreciate. These are men who know the game and have opinions that the NHL should take into consideration. I can’t say I have very much confidence in the League, though, since they seem to be mainly concerned with keeping that employer-employee relationship they have going instead of at least a nominal partnership. (via. TSN)