Official 2012 Labor Dispute Thread

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Teagz

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Post any labor dispute/lockout news and discussion here.
 

Teagz

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The way Scott Hartnell sees it, the biggest difference between this (impending) lockout and the one that wiped out the 2004-05 season is simple:
The players’ union is better than it’s ever been.
“There’s a lot more communication than there was during the last lockout. I remember not really hearing a thing and being uninformed,” Hartnell told USA Today. “This time, every meeting we’re getting calls from player reps, union heads…we’re having conference calls.
“A lot of different guys are showing up to meetings and it’s great to be apart of it. It’s fun. It’s interesting. You’re going against some very powerful people that own multimillion-dollar companies and hockey teams.”
The NHLPA does appear to be much more organized than the last lockout.
The creation of the 31-player Negotiating Committee plays a big role in that — comprised of players from 19 of the league’s 30 teams, it includes a wide range of tenured players like John Tavares (21 years old) all the way up to 38-year-old Adrian Aucoin, the oldest committee member.
There’s also a handful of Ivy Leaguers — George Parros and Kevin Westgarth went to Princeton, Dominic Moore and Craig Adams went to Harvard, Douglas Murray went to Cornell — and reps from both the Ukraine (Ruslan Fedotenko) and Sweden (Murray, Henrik Zetterberg).
Hartnell says the way in which NHLers have rallied around each other during this difficult time is a positive sign for the future.
“The strength and the solidarity is absolutely awesome to see,” he said. “We want to play. The fans want to see us play.”
If a lockout shortens the 2012-13 season, a tough question might emerge: should the NHL “compress” its schedule to squeeze in as many games as possible?
Lance Hornby reports that Gary Bettman says the league hasn’t run through that scenario just yet.
“We haven’t even focused on what the timing should be, because my hope is we make a deal on a timely basis,” Bettman said.
The NBA’s 2011-12 season kicked off on Christmas Day 2011 with a compressed schedule of 66 games.
Bruce Arthur discussed the challenges that came from doing so.
Due to the shortened season, teams played an average of 3.9 games per week this year instead of 3.5. That might not sound like a huge difference, but not only does it mean more games, it also means fewer practices and weight-lifting sessions throughout the year. Throw in a shortened training camp and the inability for players to work with their teams’ strength-and-conditioning coaches during the lockout, and players came into this season in wildly varying degrees of shape. Strength coaches tried to develop a plan for this during the lockout, but NBA teams have a routine that is based on playing 82 games over 5½ months.
One can only imagine the impact it could have in a physical sport like hockey.
NHLPA chief Donald Fehr spoke to reporters Friday in Toronto, and while he reiterated his optimism that a lockout can still be avoided before the CBA’s expiration on Sept. 15, he also sent a message to the owners that if it’s a game of chicken they want, it’s a game of chicken they’ll get.
“Look, the players aren’t afraid of a lockout, let me start with that,” Fehr said, as per the National Post. “You’d have to have had your head in the sand not to remember what happened seven years ago, and not to understand what happened with football and basketball. Everybody understands what can happen.”
So far, the players have been universally and enthusiastically supportive of Fehr’s leadership.
“Don is such a good communicator,” said Flyers forward Max Talbot. “You should see a room when he talks. He keeps our focus for four hours straight.”
“As smart as Don is, he does a good job of explaining it in a not-so-smart-kind of way,” Phoenix forward Paul Bissonnette said. “He uses simple words, and he’s not going all hardcore lawyer on us.”
Bissonnette added: “And he just talked about, basically, what they want, and showed us that they pretty much have no backup for what they’re talking about. He gave us a lot of information. He’s on the ball. He’s pretty witty. He’s funny. So he keeps us engaged.”
Of course, what will be interesting to see is how supportive players remain of Fehr should paychecks start getting lost. Google “NHLPA” and “mutiny” and you get quite a few results from 2005.
At this point, all we can hope is the union’s resolve won’t have to be tested like last time.
If it is, Fehr better hope it doesn’t result in comments like this one from an unnamed player in 2005:
“I am thoroughly embarrassed with the union. We’ve been preaching for five months that we’re not going to accept a cap and then we have the rug pulled out from under us at the end.
“How the hell do you think I feel? What did we go through all this for? We come out and propose a hard cap at the end. That was something we said we would never accept. I just can’t believe it.”
(Yeah, the PA was a bit of a mess back then.)
 

Teagz

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Yep, such bullshit. This league is just terrible.
 

H-MYK

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I can't wait until Bettman finally steps down or gets fired.
 

RipCity32

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Yep, such bullshit. This league is just terrible.
It really is. Terrible management.
The previous lockout destroyed their fan-base. And they just now started to become as popular as they were before, and now they are about to go through yet another lock-out.
 

Mooche

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There's really one key problem in the NHL..

Gary fucking Bettman.
 

Rios15

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3 lockouts under his name now? Wow. The NHL is really hurting itself like this. Just makes me lose my interest even more in hockey. Used to be like a diehard fan... couldn't miss a game growing up but I've lost quite a bit of interest in the sport... maybe its because the Leafs have sucked for awhile now, I don't know.
 

Rios15

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RipCity32

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3 lockouts under his name now? Wow. The NHL is really hurting itself like this. Just makes me lose my interest even more in hockey. Used to be like a diehard fan... couldn't miss a game growing up but I've lost quite a bit of interest in the sport... maybe its because the Leafs have sucked for awhile now, I don't know.
I used to be the same way. At one point I was a bigger hockey fan that I was anything else. That last lockout really ruined my passion for it.
 

snipezo

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Donald Fehr and Buttman can eat a dick. What a pathetic bunch.
 

Teagz

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Right now we seem to be stuck in limbo as far as the CBA talks are concerned, but things can change quickly. The question is: Do they need to in order to save the season?
Although we’re only in mid-October, a team executive recently told Pierre LeBrun that there won’t be a 2012-13 season if we don’t get a new CBA within the next week.
That sentiment might be overly pessimistic, but at the same time, the odds of us getting a full 82-game season will be extremely remote if a new CBA isn’t finalized very soon. It has been indicated that the season needs to start by Nov. 2 in order to preserve a full schedule.
The NHL seems to be standing by their most recent offer, which would have given both sides half of hockey-related revenues.
“We think there’s a framework of a deal on the table,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a Globe & Mail report.
They don’t feel the same way about the union’s three counter-proposals, which they quickly rejected.
After that, NHLPA boss Donald Fehr warned that we could be in for a “fairly long road.”Right now we seem to be stuck in limbo as far as the CBA talks are concerned, but things can change quickly. The question is: Do they need to in order to save the season?
Although we’re only in mid-October, a team executive recently told Pierre LeBrun that there won’t be a 2012-13 season if we don’t get a new CBA within the next week.
That sentiment might be overly pessimistic, but at the same time, the odds of us getting a full 82-game season will be extremely remote if a new CBA isn’t finalized very soon. It has been indicated that the season needs to start by Nov. 2 in order to preserve a full schedule.
The NHL seems to be standing by their most recent offer, which would have given both sides half of hockey-related revenues.
“We think there’s a framework of a deal on the table,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a Globe & Mail report.
They don’t feel the same way about the union’s three counter-proposals, which they quickly rejected.
After that, NHLPA boss Donald Fehr warned that we could be in for a “fairly long road.”
Really hope they can get something done this week, another lost season would be horrible for the league.
 

iInsulin

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Not looking good at all. Really praying the mediators will help show one of the sides they need to give more so we have a season.
 
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