Terrible apology.

First, they never say “I’m sorry”.  In order to express remorse, you MUST say “I’m sorry”.  If you say “I apologize”, you simply acknowledge a wrong, but without expressing remorse.

Secondly, even if you want to accept “apologize”, they don’t even mention their culpability.  They say “for the time we’ve missed”.  That’s like coming home late for dinner because of bad traffic.  Like, it couldn’t be helped.

“I apologize for being late, as the traffic was terrible.” That’s what the NHL just said.

But, the NHL is the one that caused the accident!  They locked out the players.  They can’t even acknowledge it.  They’re hoping by not saying it, people will forget about who to blame!  Even some of their NHL.com “reporters” go out of their way to not say “lockout”.

Anyway, after that complete opening fail, they want to earn your trust by… having someone else play their hearts out for you!  The players were willing to play with an expired CBA.  They were always ready to play their hearts out. 

So, the NHL caused an accident, made you late for dinner, and is going to get their mechanic to work extra hard on your car, and even though the mechanic was going to do that anyway.  And for this, they expect absolution.

Does the NHL offer you free NHL Center Ice?  No, of course not, because their “partners” wouldn’t allow it.  Some of their partners (Comcast, Cablevision) happen to own the Flyers and Rangers.  And I think inDemand is owned by Comcast.  Anyway, I understand that Cablevision still wants their 49$ cut out of the 99$ they’d otherwise charge for a 48-game season.  But, why is the fan paying that 49$?  Why can’t the NHL give the fans a rebate on that?  So, you pay the 49$ to Cablevision, and then you fill out the rebate form at NHL.com, and the NHL gives you back 49 NHL bucks, which you can apply to tickets, concessions, or merchandise.  Instead, Bettman goes on the radio and now makes his partners complicit in the idea that the fans can’t get a free NHL Center Ice package.

Finally, they end their apology letter by asking us to forget everything and focus on the players.  This is like Congress blocking aid to Sandy for two months while eventually agreeing to the proposal all along.  It was a ridiculous wait.

The only apology I’d like to see is Bettman/Daly’s performance in early December following Fehr’s pronouncement that they had agreement on the dollars, and were right on top of each other everywhere else, while they were talking about hills to die on and comparing Fehr’s statements to being a billion dollar apart the last time.  The deal they eventually agreed to was pretty much what Fehr was talking about in December.  It was five weeks lost, for no other reason than whatever motivates Congress: talk loud and hope no one notices that you are saying nothing.

And if someone from the NHL happens to read this: if you have taken offense to what I just said, then I apologize.  Dinner will be waiting.

On NHLPA’s site, they have the 24-page MOU.  Right there, on the first line, it says either side can opt-out after 8 years. And yet, right there, on the second line, it says the opt-out period is Sept, 2019. Since the first season of the CBA ends June 2013, that would mean the seventh season ends June 2019. In any case, they also said the agreement terminates Sept 2022, which is three years after the opt-out, not two. I can’t believe that everyone who read this has signed off on it.

Ten-Year Agreement with mutual right to terminate after eight (8) years.

NHL shall have the first option to terminate, exercisable by no later than September 1, 2019. NHLPA shall have the second option to terminate, exercisable by no later than September 15, 2019.

Expiration date on September 15, 2022 unless otherwise terminated in accordance with the terms set out in this Agreement.

UPDATE: Looks like I fail basic inference.  The opt-out DECLARATION is after seven years, with the actual ending of the CBA after eight years.  So, gives everyone a one year lead time to play under the soon-to-opt-out CBA.

I also changed the title of the thread, but not the URL of the thread.

So says this study.

I still remember in Moneyball the little story of Beane talking to Dykstra, asking him how he approached hitting.  Dykstra’s approach of just hitting seems to have won the day there.

If it’s to the advantage of management that a union exists, and if said management goes so far as to file a lawsuit to get the courts to force the union to exist, that seems to me to be a pretty good reason to not have a union.

I vote: chaos.

Every now and then, a bloodless revolution is good, and hopefully, that’s where we’re heading with the NHL.

This is really simple.  Change to MVP-style voting, where you list players 1 through 10.  First place guy gets 14 points, second gets 9, third gets 8, down to tenth gets 1.  You don’t even need to fill out every slot if you don’t want.  Points are tallied, and the top two votegetters are elected to Hall of Fame. That’s it.  This is a real easy change, and the voters are used to this kind of voting anyway.

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Then you have the issue of returning players.  You could make it that the top 20 returning players (those who end up #3 through #22) get back on the ballot the next year, plus the next year’s rookie class, so you always have some 30-40 players to choose from.  Not really much different than what we have now, but instead of the 5% rule (which can’t apply here any more), we just go with a straight count.  There’s some flexibility here.  We can look at the last 5-10 years to see how many returning players there have been and use that as a guideline.  Someone else can look into that.

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Drop off players?  You could drop off players after 10 years on the ballot.  After that, you still have a veteran’s committee, maybe have them around every 5 years, and THEY vote in exactly one guy, in the same MVP-style voting.  This way, all those guys that drop off the ballot have one last chance to get in.

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This means that every 10 years, 22 players get elected, which is about the “right” number.  How do I know that?  Because that’s what the Straight Arrow readers said.  When asked in a vaccum, it was about 21 players.  When asked specifically for players born 1962-1971, it was 23.

I asked that question, and a reader went through and came up with his list.  (See comment #1 below.)

Here’s a recap of a recap.  The two compliance buyouts is only common sense.  NHL was at zero, and now accepted two.  I doubt any team would buyout three of their players.  So, that’s a good number.

That buyout amount is not going to count against the cap (that is the reason for having the buyout in the first place, to get yourself under the cap), and… big news… will count against the 50/50 split… as it should.  I’ve never understood the player position on this.  If DiPietro has 30MM$ in salary left, then that’s going to count against the player share over the remaining years.  If Islanders buy him out at 20MM$, then, of course that has to count as well.  Now, it obviously should not count all in the same year, and if that’s the sticking point, then I’m with the players there.  But, it has to count within the 50/50 at some point.

The other one is the 20% variance (meaning 20% of the first year to establish the variance AMOUNT).  As a practical example, if you want to sign someone for a 6 year 42MM$ deal, you can pay him at 12MM$ the first year, then 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 for the final five years.  The best players won’t get that flexibility.  Those guys would say sign a 6 year 60MM$ deal, and the most front-loading would work is: 12MM$ for each of the first three years, then 10, 8, 6 for the next three.  Which, honestly, is fair.

Therefore, all those things seem reasonable and fair to me.

I didn’t hear anything about the CBA length other than it’s 10 years with some contingency.  My guess is that the reopener is either 8 years or 5 billion$ in revenue, whichever comes first.  Something like that.  If league grows at 8% each year, then it hits the 5 billion$ level after six years.  Considering that it might take a year or two for NHL to recover to it’s 3.3 billion$ base of last season, it’s probably going to happen in year 8 anyway.  But, it protects either side if they see revenues go up like crazy.  But, like I said, players should accept a 20 year CBA because there’s nothing stopping owners from bringing it to a 45/55 split.  Players have no leverage, not unless the league is so profitable that the league will finally decide to stop with the lockout business.

The outstanding issue is pensions, and, I’m not in a position to understand it.  And, my guess is that 95% of the players aren’t either.  Maybe George Parros understands it.  Of all the issues to leave unresolved at the end, this should not have been it.  The players are going to rely on the experts, and the experts are probably going to have a very hard time explaining it.

NHL is going to make their final proposal next week, and Fehr is going to take it to the players, and no matter how bad the pension plan is, the players will vote to accept.