is there anybody else out there as dissappointed as i am about the nhl lockout? i really miss seeing games on tv (not that there were ever many) and im not gonna be able to see my flyers this year . i am hockey depreive dthis year considering im not playing for my school this year either. i want to go out and see the wolves (ahl) sometime but i just havent gotten around to it. maybe now since finals are over...oh well. just needed to get that off my chest

 

Not a Bit.

I have followed Minor,Junior,Senior,Collegiate, Olympic,Pro Hockey for as long as I remember.

I used to welcome NHL stars at this Restaurant I worked winters at & the days of a Player with a conscience toward the fans seem to have disapated.

Since Gretzky singed for a mil a year for 20 years I have said this is going to start getting expensive.

I don't have any respect left for the Owner's or Player's in this dispute.
When I guy making 11 mil a year complains that the owners want the players take a 25% cut (2+ mil) that is nuts.


I coulldn't care less.
Since about 1985 ,This is NOT considered hockey anymore...it is Now Just a SHOW
(Entertainment).

Do yourself a favour, find some Kids or College players to watch.

 

I agree. this whole Hockey thing is getting out of control. I used to live down the road from some D1 college hockey (Union in the ECAC). I'd go to games all the time. A good friend of mine was the team Statistician and got free tickets from him.(otherwise I could've forked over the 5 bucks to see the game) Living in the Albany area was nice for college hockey because a lot of the teams weren't all that far and the playoffs were always within a couple hours away.

 

And this is from the Canadian point of view. Growing up in a union household (UAW and SEIU) I thought I'd never say this - but I think the NHL would do just as good to jettison everyone, dump the NHLPA and start over. You probably remember the years of the "Original 6" maybe that's what the NHL should go back to. For every NHL player in the league now there's probably 5 Canadian kids that are as talented and could take their place.

 

One thing I forgot to mention is ,all NHL players have made deals to get paid in US Currency.
So those Cdn players in the 5 -6 Mil club are actually getting paid about 7.5 - 8 mil Cdn.

This is what has eaten up Small Market Canadian teams > The owners get paid by the fans in Looney bucks & pay the player's in Eagle bucks (that's a 30% increaase to the player's).

In the US,hockey teams get huge revenues from Television stations, in Canada they don't.

Who is to blame
I blame :
Fan's who just keep reaching deeper in their bank accounts to pay Greedy owners to pay greedy player's .
So Owner's,Bettman,Player's,Fan's & TV station's for taking our game away & turning it into something less than it was.


Come on ...2 teams in Florida


I want to see them disolve the NHL and start a Can-Am League.
Base pay $40,000 USD...you want more ? Earn it by winning games & goaler's keep the puck out of the net.

 

i dont know if id go that extreme, but i definentally think its pathetic whats going on. they players just offered up a huge offer, with something like 24% paycuts but both sides are being bullheaded pigs. neither will budge and i think they're going to ruin the league. i dont understand the players' hatred of a salary cap, the nfl has one and if you ask me, they're the most prosperous professional league out there. we already know that the luxury tax doent work (baseball) and the players need to realize that if they dont fix this, the league will run its self into the ground. if the teams are losing more than $250 million a year, they'll all be without a job in a few years.

another rant...why does everybody complain about the goalies being so good? they want to change all these rules to limit their abilities, like not playing the puck anywhere except behind their net. this is ridiclious and it takes away from the goalies who have spent a great amount of time working on this skill. like brodeur and turco. then they complain that goalies dont get scored on enough. its because the goalies have gotten better! not because of their equipment. if you make the pads smaller, the goalies will only get more agile and faster. you wont change a thing. the players have all these advances in their composite sticks that allow them to shoot harder and more acurately. they have had an amazing change over the past ten years while not a whole lot has changed for the goalies. if you want more goals, the players will have to get better. dont punish the goalies for being better than the players

 

Me and a work buddy were talking about that this week. $1000 per game played (not dressed for, except goalies) $100 per legitimate shot on goal. $500 per goal. $250 for an assist. $100 for winning a face off. $100 per hit. $500 per fight. Another $500 for winning that fight. $1000 fine for "turtling". Any player other than a goalie blocking a shot gets $100. And for goalies, they'd only get $1000 for being a backup. The playing goalie doesn't get $1000 base, but $100 per stopped shot. If the backup is required, he'd lose the $1000, and start earning the same $100 per shot.

Of course, the better the performance, the better the pay. Any time off, the players can go on E.I., or disability, just like the rest of us.

 

Not a bit, not a hockey fan really either. I jumped on the bandwagon when Calgary was in the playoffs, mostly because it was a reason to party and socialize but that's it. The players are a bunch of overpaid, whiny cry-babies.

If they ruin the league it may not be such a bad thing, then they'd have to start over from scratch. The players won't have to be concerned with how much of a cut they are taking because all the old records will be moot and should be burned.

 

It figures that when the Tampa Bay Lightning won the cup, this would happen (I live near Tampa). I predicted in fact that this could be the end of the world= the Buccaneeres won the SuperBowl, then the Lightning won the Stanley Cup! If the Devil Rays win the next World Series, it's definitely Armegeddon. Wait a minute, BOSTON won... That might be enough for the end times; I'll have to look it up.

Seriously, when these overpaid brats go on strike for more money while I'm trying to get by on $30K a year, I lose all interest. Years ago, when baseball went on strike, I threw out my Red Sox stuff and vowed never to return, and I haven't. I couldn't even enjoy their victory this year, because I'm done with baseball. Now hockey, too. I wasn't a huge fan, but i went to a few games a year. Now, forget it!

 

to clear things up...the players arent going on strike. it is a lockout placed by the owners. they have been losing money and they want a salary cap. it is not the player's greediness that is stopping the season.

with that said, both sides are definetally at fault for not comming to some conclusion yet. both sides are too set in their ways to compromise, but what ive learned from school is that compromises dont seem to work very well. oh well, ill still be a die hard flyers fan when this is all over (if there is still a flyers team)

 

Ive been trying to look on the bright side about this....its been hard but Ive thought of somethin. If the NHL is tossed away (heaven forbid ), then that will possibly raise the value of memorabilia...I hope? But, even if it did, I still would never sell all of my Dallas Stars memorabilia.

 

Eh! Don't care. They can stay locked out and tear down the stadiums as far as I'm concerned.

 

I think theres plenty of blame to go around. As for the players, the bottom line is they are being paid very well to PLAY A GAME! I'm sure most of the players at one time loved the game so much that they'd start putting on their gear in July (I know when I played pee wee hockey I did). As for the owners, you are the ones that started this whole mess by overpaying players. I can understand that they want to make a change now, but they are the ones that created the mess to begin with. As for Gary Bettman, you must realize that hockey is niche sport. Not every kid in this country (USA) grew up playing hockey. You can't force people that have never been exposed to the game to be fans. Some will, but probably not enough to support a pro franchise. The fact that there are teams based in warm weather cities doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and it has diluted the quality of the game. A while ago I said in a post that the best hockey only happens every 4 years in the olympics. Some agreed, some disagreed. For me it's a no-brainer. You have the best players on a bigger rink with the rules being called as they are written in the book, and every single game counts. In my opinion it's certainly better than the NFL on ice that pro hockey has become (if they ever get their heads out of their butts and start playing again). Not that there's anything wrong with football, it's just that there isn't supposed to be tackling in hockey.

Matt

 

Personally i could care less about the lockout. The NHL has gone downhill for a while. The only NHL hockey I watch is the playoffs becuase it's exciting and there's no friggin trap.
As for two sides, I'm with the owners, the players get paid way to much for what they do (this goes for almost all pro sports)

 

Salary Cap is what is needed.. Same thing for Baseball. It has worked well in Football.

Im tired of All the WHINY Millionaires!