February 02, 2005
NHL Lockout Digest
The NHL finally tabled another offer to the NHLPA this morning somewhere in Newark (click here for the details), and the players have rejected it outright:
"The League today presented a written proposal with minor variations of concepts that were presented orally by the NHL last Thursday", Saskin said in a statement released after the meeting. "We told the League last week and again today that their multi-layered salary cap proposals were not the basis for an agreement."
Click here for a full text of the statement, which includes the fact that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA head Bob Goodenow will join the negotiations tomorrow -- which I'm guessing is taking place at some hotel or self-storage facility near Newark Airport.
Like that's going to help. If you're interested in some nightmare legal scenarios, click here.
By the way, though the NHLPA has improved its Web presence markedly over the past few months, the league is still kicking its butt when it comes to online communications with the public. As to what might be behind the firewall here, you probably need to ask some senior member of the hockey press corps North of the border.
Time and again, the league uses the Edmonton Oilers as the poster child for price of the league's economic disparities. Cal Nichols did a dog and pony show for the league not long ago, but as Billy Beane has demonstrated, small-market teams can survive and thrive in professional sports if they make the committment to work harder and smarter than their more freely spending counterparts.
Which has Edmonton-native Colby Cosh near a full boil:
Oilers boss Pat Laforge wants us to believe, after witnessing a month-long orgasm three hours south of us, that our club can't compete in this town under current conditions. Pat--you're a marketing genius who has outfaced his predecessors and colleagues with brilliant Veeckian ideas, and I wouldn't replace you with your weight in gold, and I can even respect what Bettman is trying to achieve, but . . .
Click here to read the rest where Colby calls Laforge and the whole Oilers organization on the carpet. After all, they had Jarome Iginla in their backyard, and they still didn't draft him.
In other news, my friend John Palmer talked with Roy McGregor of the Toronto Globe and Mail, and the two agreed that a larger ice surface would help reinvigorate play in the NHL. As I've said before, I'd love to see it happen, but I'm afraid the window for a change like that passed once the league went through its most recent phase of arena construction.
To do it now, would, as John suggests, require ripping out two rows of seats -- in this case, the two rows of the most expensive sets in the arena. Something tells me that the owners would never go for it, as it would require some investment in infrastructure, as well as significant re-pricing of every seat in the lower bowl of an arena, and perhaps beyond.
Then again, that's just speculation. So here's a project for one of John's econ classes: Reconfigure the lower bowl of the Air Canada Centre for the international ice surface. Calculate construction costs to to expand the ice surface, and then re-price the seats in the arena as necessary in order to minimize disruption to the club's revenue stream. And don't stop at recalculating revenue simply by counting on the increased price of tickets -- make sure you factor in the possibility that a few folks might drop their tickets after a price increasse. Call the Maple Leafs today, and offer to do the study for free in exchange for their cooperation.
Then do it again, but this time, look at a small market club like Carolina or Nashville. If anything, perhaps you could make the case that the NHL ought to take a page from baseball's playbook, and look the other way if there's some variety in rink sizes. You could allow teams to change on their own, or keep the current configuration, or even build something in between. Just issue some rough guidelines, and you might be surprised with what folks come up with.
Besides, everybody knows the old Boston Garden was smaller than most any other arena in the league, and the Bruins were built to take advantage of it. Why not let it happen again?
More later, if warranted.
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Posted by:
at February 2, 2005 05:40 PM
"Outright rejected..." This doesn't surprise me at all.
The NHLPA shows further ineptitutde with negotiating. Bravo, bravo *smacking my forhead with my hand*
Posted by:
at February 2, 2005 05:59 PM
NHLPA ineptitude? May I remind you the past few weeks of roundtable talks is wholely the product of NHLPA player rep pres Trevor Linden.
The players' side of the less of two evils.
Posted by:
at February 3, 2005 11:16 AM
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