Rochester (Buffalo) is moving their Sunday, Oct 21 game vs. Hamilton (Montreal) to First Niagara Center in Buffalo on Tuesday, October 23.

Pretty late to be making a venue change like that. But a Sunday, October game in Rochester would draw about 2,000 fans even with a lack of NHL hockey. I suspect the Tuesday night game in Buffalo will draw 10,000 or more. A near-sellout wouldn't completely surprise me. Rochester's roster includes Cody Hodgson, Luke Adam, Corey Tropp, Brayden McNabb and Marcus Foligno.

Buffalo had 5,000 fans show up at First Niagara for a free Development-Camp scrimmage in July. Yes, it was free. But that's several thousand people heading out for a Thursday, 6:00pm scrimmage to see a bunch of players most of whom will never play for the Sabres....all just because the fans were super-hungry for hockey in July.

He's alternated pretty seamlessly between centering the 2nd line and playing on the wing on the 1st line with Thornton in the middle.

not sure if funny or sad : Martin Havlat to sitout until lockout ends because no insurance company is willing to insure his frail body against career ending injury

Smart companies. The man injured himself on a line change. No contact with anything but the ice. He's impressively frail.

question i was thinking about yesterday, but how much do these NHL kids playing in the AHL this year bc of the lockout get paid?

like you can only play if you're on your rookie deal, or what? and what happens with the bonuses? no idea what any of the bonuses are in these contracts, but like theoretically these top picks can make like $4m/year or something if they hit them all. are they simply voided in the AHL, and you just get your base of $1m or whatever?

I assume they get paid their AHL salary. Which is usually around $50k. Pretty big drop. No idea about bonuses.

are EL contracts 2-way deals?

i would assume not, especially for these 1st rounders.

also isn't the 2-way max closer to $100k?

Eberle will be making 65k this year. A month after signing a 36 million dollar contract.

lolloloollolololol

feel bad for those guys, for real

QUESTION FOR MBOB AS HE PROB KNOWS: has there been much in the way of plans to move teams / games to bigger markets bc of the lockout?

Yakupov has a $70k AHL salary according to capgeek.

Slava Voynov - from top 4 in the Stanley Cup finals, to ahl

Hello everyone, long-time fan of the game of hockey, been a Kings fan for around seven years, was pretty excited when they won the stanley cup, this year.

Anyway, can anyone give any sort of cliffs about this whole lockout, like why is this happening?

Owners want money. Players want money. They disagree on amounts that each side should get.

So pretty much the standard reason on why lockouts happen? Salary agreements? All right, then.

Ya, there's nothing special like the last one where they were trying to get a salary cap in place.

ang,
check back about Christmas time.

Or start following Mora IK

for the Kopitar brothers

the Vancouver one was pretty good too:



then stopping and cheering the Boston players? #classy

wonder how Bettman survived the riot tbh...

all ELCs are two way contracts. players make something between 50k-70k in the AHL + signing bonus which is between 52.5k and 92.5k.

No. That will not happen much. And did not happen very much in 2004-05.

Teams have leases and commitments with the arenas. The team I'm with has a lease that specifically states they can only move one home game elsewhere. The NHL fans and a couple newspaper idiots are guessing we will just bring 5 more games over to their market. Lol. We have a staff going crazy selling tickets and marketing games....here,.not there. The promotional schedule is being put out. It's just LOL. I get that others don't understand it but from the AHL team's perspective it's just eye-roll worthy.

The AHL teams have season ticket holders too who have already paid for their games.

There are maybe 8 or 9 AHL games scheduled to be played in NHL arenas this year...and that was when the schedule was annonced in August. and that is a little more than usual. one more was moved earlier today as I posted earlier but I'm guessing that had been in the works for the last few weeks and wasn't just slapped together last minute. I doubt there will be many more except for possibly some of Toronto Marlies games being played at ACC or something way more simple.

Oklahoma City cares about their own fans, their own market, their own season ticket holders, their own advertising (where the contracts all specify EXACTLY how many games the advertiser's dasherboard or videoboard will be seen). It is their team. In that market. That they are pushing like crazy. They just happen to have an affiliation agreement with the Oilers to be provided with their players.

needless to say, he was fined for this

Sigh...

@DarrenDreger

Sounds like the Red Wings fine for Jimmy D's comments is in the neighborhood of $250,000. Ouch.

yeah it's kinda weird how people don't understand this point:

"I think it should be clear up front that Gary Bettman works for the owners, not the players, and he is now entering his 20th year doing this. The owners direct him on what to do. I was at the meetings last week and I'm here to tell you when there was a call to vote for the lockout, it was 30 to NONE in favour by the owners..."

was pretty funny a couple years back when Ron MacLean was trolling Bettman in that interview by referring to him as "the Owners' Commissioner" the whole time, and Gary got super BH about it for some reason. i mean it's true, they hire, fire, extend him, whatever, he works for them.

"It's very complicated and way too much for the average Joe to understand, but having said that..."

lol, go [censored] yourself, [censored]!

"...Let the players take 43% and let the owners take 57%. Just reverse it from where it is now and let the owners run the rest of their business and manage their expenses...Yes, they are billionaires. Good on them, they deserve it, but they also make their employees millionaires. Not a bad trade off for a guy like Lucic getting what, 6 million dollars a year? I mean good on him too, but he should be grateful...."

and again. if this is seriously the owners' position, yeah goodbye to hockey for this year.

"The players are doing what they have to do, but it's funny, you talk about solidarity and a handful have already bolted. You know who they are...like they need the money...yeah right! But I would caution them to be very careful not to get hurt because as of two days ago, we pulled all their league insurance (dental, medical, player) and all the benefits for each player, so if they get hurt, the NHL will not pay them one dime until they are cleared by league doctors and to the owner's satisfaction that the player is 100% fit and able to perform."

lolollololoolollol, what a douche!

"Remember it is just the NHL that is on strike, not any other league. Fans of the game should go see their AHL, ECHL or other minor pro team, or more importantly, to the best of your ability, support your local junior and minor hockey teams. Show these kids how much you really care for hockey. The NHL situation will get sorted out, but its complicated - I'm in the middle of it and its complicated for me too - and may take some time. Until then, go out and enjoy the game at the grass roots level and have some fun."

FU old man!

is this legit, or someone Onion type article? wow

loved the "it's the owners ranch bull****"
hey guys, time to go find a new ranch. then see how valuable their land is.

Seems like a good, candid interview. Dunno who would fine him for that. He was probably fined by the owners. They are such money hungry mongers.