Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘nhl’

The NHLPA rejected 2 more proposals by NHL owners. Yawn.

It’s sad but I hardly even care anymore. This does not bode well for the league’s future, when even fans like me are losing interest.

The NHL has cancelled next year’s draft since there’s still no agreement reached between the players and owners.

Oh well, there goes next season. I can’t even work up anger anymore. Just a kind of frustrated resignation.

The NHLPA swerved first in the salary cap game of chicken that the two sides have been playing for months. But there’s still no deal.

I’d initially been annoyed with the players for refusing to acknowledge that they couldn’t keep earning NBA salaries with NHL revenues. But their willingness – albeit last-minute – to remove their opposition on principle to a salary cap showed clearly that they are willing to compromse. In theory, all that’s left now is haggling over the numbers.

However, the owners’ stubbornness is only an indication that they have no real interest in reviving hockey. This season is a wash no matter what, but next season and beyond will suffer too. The hockey strike has possibly killed – and certainly severely crippled – the NHL. The players today showed for the first time that they are willing to talk seriously about a deal. The owners, on the other hand, seem unwilling to accept any responsibility for the league’s dire financial straits.

What gets me is how unnecessary this whole thing was. Nobody will win with this strike – not the owners, not the players, and certainly not the fans. Everyone loses.

The hockey season is taking longer to be declared dead than Yasser Arafat. It’s enough already. It’s February 15th. Just bury the season and move on. Please.

Things are looking really bleak for the NHL these days, with common ground still eluding the players and owners as the seconds tick down on any chance to save the season:

Last week, the players offered to take an across-the-board 24 per cent pay cut on existing contacts to help settle the stalemate. The league countered Tuesday with a graduated rollback that would see the top salaries cut by as much as 35 per cent while leaving the lowest salaries untouched.

The counter-offer from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was rejected by the union and there are no further talks scheduled.

Sure, life goes on. But without hockey, somehow the winter just seems… bleaker. Luckily I’ve been too busy at work to think about it much.

Please please please let this new NHLPA proposal be a real option, containing some sort of concession towards a salary cap, and not just another political nonstarter. We want our hockey back, not more Movie Night in Canada.

Between the NHL lockout, the SAQ strike, and the UPS strike, to name a few, I’m considering jumping on the strike bandwagon myself – not against my job, but against all the strikes.

Come back, hockey! We miss you!

Yes, believe it or not, there is other news besides the US election. Starting with the fact that nobody can figure out what’s wrong with Arafat. I’ve heard discounted diagnoses ranging from stomach cancer to leukemia to AIDS. If you ask me, what’s wrong with him is a complete, utter lack of a conscience, coupled with a victim mentality that tells him that the best way to get world sympathy right now is to get sick. It seems to be working like a charm.

The NHLPA met again yesterday, supposedly to discuss “strategy” but in reality to browbeat dissenting members into submission (perhaps by tattooing “no salary cap” into their skulls… for any players who might have been confused on that point).

And a suggestion for the SAQ workers planning to strike: consider as an alternative… a drink-in.

The lockout drags on with no progress whatsoever. And I’m starting to miss it. A dinnertime conversation about what baseball team to root for in the World Series underscored that, cause none of us would even be paying cursory attention to baseball if there was hockey to talk about.

Hey players union: get over yoursleves and agree to a damn salary cap already so we can get on with our lives.

We may have beaten them for the World Cup, but when it comes to hockey, the Europeans may have the last laugh:

While hockey has screeched to a halt many of the world’s best players are skating off to Europe where clubs in Russia and Sweden are wooing them with lucrative contracts and expensive perks.

Since the lockout began two weeks ago, close to 180 National Hockey League players have joined European clubs, the International Ice Hockey Federation said on Tuesday.

The figure represents 25 percent of the NHL’s skaters.

So this season, while we in Hockeyland cool our skates, Europeans will get to watch the likes of Markus Naslund, Ilya Kovluchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Joe Thornton, Jaromir Jagr, Patrick Elias, and most of the other league superstars in exciting, action-filled hockey games.

Makes me wonder who the real winners are.

Canada wins the World Cup!

Our team managed to edge Finland in a 3-2 victory that proves that hockey is still our game.

Vinnie Lecavalier won tournament MVP. Marty Brodeur overcame a wrist injury to display some of his sharpest goaltending ever. And this bunch of all-stars really came together as a team to play exciting, unbeaten hockey for the entire tournament.

Now, I guess we will all have to settle in for what looks like it’s gonna be a long lockout.

I can’t resist one more hockey post before the lockout kills next season. Yesterday the NHL awards were handed out. So join me in booing the league’s decision to award the Calder Trophy to Andrew Raycroft instead of to the clearly more-deserving Michael Ryder.