Gretzky: NHL Lockout could last two years

[Chip R]

My boss's wife works in the front office for the Minnesota NHL team. He says that he's had enough conversations with FO types to believe that they are on a scorched earth plan.

That is, NHL declares an impasse, implements its last best contract offer, opens for business, hopes that some regular players would show up, and then fill the remaining roster spots with replacement players. And busts the union. And implements the fiancial plan they want.

He also said there has been talk about contracting back to pre-expansion number of teams and getting rid of Tampa, Phoenix, LA, etc. He said it's really only in Canada and the US NE and Great Lakes that hockey is truly viable in the long term.

Don't they have an anti-scab law in Canada? That would be a big roadblock in this scenario.

They may be on to something to keep the Canadian teams and some of the US teams like DET, CHI and BOS and the NY area teams and Philly and Minnesota. It'd stink for a team like Columbus which has only been in the league a few years but them's the breaks. Maybe they could move some of the teams back to Canada.

[westofyou]

The owners have yet to change their position, thus it's hard to say they have reached a negotiation impasse, the only thing they change is the language of their terms.

They can't kick in next year with scabs if an impasse has been determined to be actually happening... and for that a little F to F is needed by the league and the players.

[jmcclain19]

Considering that some of the newer places, like here in Phx, Columbus & Atlanta, just built new stadiums for their teams, the NHL would have public relations disaster and lawsuits galore if contraction were the case. That would be true scorched earth, no fan base would ever grow in those cities again.

[Catch22]

Without the union their is no labor protection.

The history of the NHL is littered with the owners taking advantage of the players.... The Players are the sport, the owners will find out soon enough if they try and peddle AAA hockey in towns that know the game.

I agree that unions and labor law had its place and time. However, I generally find now that these laws have created more problems than they solve and have created an era of false entitlement. This problem is no more evident than in the pro sports realm. I will be the first in line to stand up and say that professional athletes are not in need of labor protection. You'd swear the way some of them cry poverty that they were being forced to work 72 hour shifts in the coal mines.

True, the owners of a franchise stand to make large sums of cash (if they are smart) if a salary cap is instituted. However, the owners have a lot more cash at stake in the running of a franchise and should be entitled to a significant piece of the pie. The players do not want a hard or soft cap because it will drastically slow the salary inflation process that currently exists through arbitration and free agency and the few freespending owners that accellerate the whole process. The owners want a cap so they can essentially receive protection from themselves (a few rogue owners that spend way mare than is good for the overall health of the league). It's too bad that what both the owners and players have completely missed while fighting for their share is the fans. If anybody should unionize, it should be the fans and municipalities and businesess that are caught in the crossfire.

My read on the situation up here in Canada where hockey is king is that the fans are generally on the owners side. Most people want the owners to break the union and start again with whoever wants to play. One only has to look at how much attention the world junior tournament got this year to see that we don't care who is playing pro hockey, as long as someone is playing pro hockey. I don't think the AAA replacement player blahs will have much effect up here. We just want to see hockey.

[westofyou]

I see the ticket price for replacement hockey as being an issue if a good portion of the top tier players are sitting out.

Now that the Juniors are over there are alot of empty hours to fill.