ZOMG league and PA meeting right now!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seattle ONETIME!!! We are the kind of suckers who will take a slimeball like Katz.

oh yeah, i forgot that Geddy is trying to be a lawyer or whatever... lol

and yeah, lol Katz! what a total assclown...

The original deal had taxpayers and ticket-buyers building the rink with the Oilers spending about $15 million a year in lease payments and operating costs and keeping almost all the profits.

It went off the rails a month ago when Katz said he'd had a second look at the numbers and needed millions more, including a $6 million a year in operating subsidies for the arena.

Under the original deal, city taxpayers and ticket buyers would pay to build the arena, which, with land, borrowing costs and surrounding infrastructure factored in, is now effectively at $700 million and rising.

The Oilers would keep all profits from NHL games, trade shows, concerts and other events for 11 months out of the year. The team would also keep naming rights for the building (worth up to $3 million a year), along with $2 million a year from the city for a decade for advertising.

Concession sales alone are pegged at $20 million a year.

In return, the Oilers would pay the city $5.5 million a year for 35 years and pay to operate and run the arena, estimated at $10 million a year.

so basically he's decided "yeahhhhh, i don't really want to pay anything, but gimme dat building", as if the original deal wasn't sweet enough. lol if he gets anything better from Edmonton, and lol if he's allowed to move the team.

Bettman calls today's meeting "step backwards"

Sigh, see you in December.

Lol, that would be pretty hilarious if Edmonton builds this superteam of young stars, and then they up and move and win championships in Seattle.

Poor Quebec City.

yeah i'm sure that's what he would have said about any meeting that didn't feature the PA snap-accepting their offer from the other day.

not sure why they're bothering with the whole dog & pony show.

AI NOU RITE??!?!?!! they should just give award the cup at the KHL final.

also, lol Brent Sopel.

because the NHL just crushed the PA PR-wise and got everyone back on their side. that's big when you're trying to sell tickets.

I don't know, with the NHLPA now coming out and saying all they want is 50/50 and for current inked contracts to be honored (seems about as fair as can be from a layperson's perspective), I'd think the weight of public opinion is going to swing pretty heavily back in favor of the players. The owners were the good guys for all of 2 days.

yeah i said that an hour ago, agreed that proposal #3 sounds pretty close to where they'll have to end up.

the owners doing anything to win the PR war is such a waste of time and money. i mean who cares if public opinion is on your side? also it's not like if you have massive public support it's going to do anything towards pressuring the players into making a deal.

jfc, enough with the posturing, just make a deal you idiots. like seriously, if the players were willing to settle for 50/50 we couldn't have done this 6 months ago?

"Fine we'll take 50-50, but don't touch our contracts that get us 57%!"

Is that the NHLPA's offer or am I not understanding it correctly?

they want current contracts guaranteed, but they'll [censored] over future earnings to get there

so the deal might go 54-52-50-48-46 or something along those lines to make it work

like most pro sports CBA negotiations, sell out the future for yourselves...

Players always look so ****ing awkward standing behind Fehr at those pressers.

Daly said it would be 56-57% in year 1 and would never hit 50% over the length of the CBA. I'm guessing that offer was basically what 72o said, honor the existing contracts and we'll take close to 50/50 down the road. I'm sure their other offers were something like "fine, don't honor the current contracts in full but we want 55% all 6 yrs" or something along those lines.

Also, am I alone in thinking how arrogant it is that both sides are giving proposals that presume 5% growth a year or some s*** and yet at the same time, there's a very real possibility that they're going to wipe out another season? GL continuing to grow your product at a respectable pace when you lose your 2nd season in 7 yrs.

I would expect a marketing campaign on a scale that would be talked about decades later in colleges. They would make social media their bitch.

it kept us from being in the playoffs to last team in the east yes

Guaranteed if the players had a secret vote a majority would take the 50/50 deal.

They are miles apart

so being ****ed is not having the privilege of losing the rangahs in the first round?


speaking of knees.

you're wrong

this isn't how negotiations work. each side is waiting out the other. if one side offers a concession too early, the other side will use that concession against them, figuring they are weak. the classic example was the 24% rollback offered by goodenow in november 2004. the union was stunned when he made that offer, but guess what - every proposal after that one by the NHL had that rollback in it. 'you're willing to give that? fine. what else will you give?'. the NHLPA is not willing to settle for 50/50 - it needs to win that, and the NHL has to realize that they have to win that, if in the long term they end up with 50/50.

btw 2005 CBA is a great example of when futures aren't sold out. UFA age decreased and second contracts exploded. meanwhile, current players took a 24% paycut. someone like john madden definitely lost compared to someone like james van riemsdyk.

The NHL has officially folded

RIP NHL 1917-2012

you say this like collective bargaining can't happen without work stoppages

fair and equitable deals can't be reached otherwise? this never happened in the past, and can't happen in the present or future? you have to play some MAD game of chicken, to see who will blink first?

how is baseball managing to be the lone exception (as far as NA pro sports go)?

i mean i'm obv no expert on negotiation theory, but this is total AIDS, and there has to be a better way. you might be right in practice, as it pertains to Gary and whoever the current PA head is when negotiating. if one says they're open to something, or makes it part of a proposal, then it gets locked in going forward. maybe this is why the last CBA was supposedly settled largely through negotiations by Daly & Saskin (was gonna say Bill & Ted, but that might have been confusing), rather than Gary & Bob.

in any case, Gary sucks at this job. Lockout #3 now, GJ GE. we lost a season last time, Gary thought he killed it in the end and it was worthwhile to do that, butnahhhhh. the players won, but they still lost bc that's a year of salary they're never getting back. these guys are [censored] idiots, who cares? [censored] 'em! i'm like this close to doing basically everything i can to never spend another dime on this league. watch the games on TV, and that's about it.

Because every negotiation involves the owners leaning on the players for more money because they have the leverage to do so. MLB learned how awful a work stoppage really was for them. The NHL did not, because NHL fans came right back.

I don't really think who negotiated the deal matters.

Bettman is great at his job. He has people eating out of his hand that 50/50 is a fair split. He'll be getting more and more back out of the players which are profits for his big-market teams. He's not going anywhere.

And yeah, he killed it last time, but he didn't kill it hard enough. Why settle for less when you can get more?

Bettman is very good at his job problem is so id Fehr. They both rarely lose. Last time the owners pressured Bettman this time no way.

Hockey Before Christmas??? I say no