I'd watch ****ty 700-1400th best players NHL because maybe the Leafs would be able to win a cup.

I mean that's all I care about. I don't care if there are 2 teams in the NHL by the end of this. I just want to see the Leafs win a RANG.

NHL in Seattle?

Also, be sure to stop by and get your beer, sylar:

Sorry but this just isn't true. A player's value is what the market says. Why do UFAs get paid so highly? Because there is a both an artificial talent shortage (because of RFA/UFA status) and an actual one (there's simply not enough talented players to go around, so being able to add a player without giving up a tangible asset is valuable).

The NHL has a salary cap - this can't be an excuse anymore. An owner can't spend whatever he likes. And yet salaries continue to go up.

So I saw the new Terrence Malick movie at the Toronto Film Festival and while there were problems with the movie there are 0.3-0.8 seconds of

HYFR

a full Toronto experience

JUSTIN BIEBER OFFERED CONTRACT IN ECHL

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=641260

NOT A JOKE

BIEBER!!!!

not surprised he has soft hands and good wrists

I would bet kirby's roll my wrister is better than Bieber's.

bahahahahahah

you train everyday at home, he's a natural

Maybe the Oilers can sign him. Bieber Nuge Yakupov. The Baby, Baby, Baby Line.

I'm not proud of this post.

Nvm, we don't want him. Everyone knows that if you touch it before you win it, you'll never win it.

Sounds like an easy opportunity for you to double your roll then

notsureifsrsanddoesntgetthejoke.jpg

Also, it is creepy as **** that that picture is called "dreamy bieber" considering he is about 11 there. No 11 year old girls know photoshop.

I didn't get it at first because I don't listen to Bieber.

Bieber was not even well known at all until he was 15 years old. Born March '94. First single One Time in summer 2009.

So no he was not 11 years old there.

Wow crazy to think he's been around 3 years though. I remember hearing One Time for the first time and jamming to it on the shores of Georgian Bay like it was yesterday.

Oh how time passes

I don't even know how we're getting to the point where you feel the need to explain UFA to me - I've had to defend Jay Bouwmeester's situation for 3 seasons, I don't need a remedial lesson in open market dynamics.

At the same time, we've seen ELC kids contribute to clubs at unprecedented levels since the lockout, spending next to no time in the minors before they do it, which is a huge shift in the professional paradigm from decades past. This is probably the youngest the league has ever been (need to run the numbers on average age to confirm that). The talent pool is increasing every year. And it bewilders me to no end when idiotic teams like mine decide they'd rather give Dennis Wideman $5.25 mil/yr to make the same mistakes over 23 minutes a night that T.J. Brodie could do at a fifth of the price. To me, that's hefty compensation but not proper valuation, and there are plenty of examples to go around.

Well, the cap's gone up just a li'l bit since the lockout too.

Bieber looks very small.

He clearly just won it, he still has his gear on.

It is true that the league is younger than it ever has been. Still, teams are making the calculus to sign UFAs - there aren't a huge block of unsigned guys. Either A: owners don't care about money or B: they're profitable despite making these moves. Why should salary have to be lower if despite a salary cap a lot of teams are making money?

Now I agree that this isn't true for mid-market teams and that a lot of teams have seen a salary cap as a reason to go hog-wild, and I agree that the salary floor has to come down.

True, but there are still gobs of owners trying to spend up to it, trying to get the best talent available. Imagine a world where all players are on 1 year contracts and are UFA at the end of the season - do salaries go up or down in this world?

Anyone know if the league as a whole was profitable?
Is it a case of a few teams making all the money and the rest struggling?

I mean, the league as a whole has to be profitable, right? Player salaries are 57% of revenue, so the other 43% would have to be expenses for the league not to be profitable. The issue is that a huge portion of the league's profit is from the Maple Leafs and other big market teams.

What is there to do in Ontario? Gonna be there in december for 5 days...

Watch hocke.... O ya...