***2012 NHL Offseason Thread***

[Rams Fan]

Draft is tonight in Pittsburgh.

If Nail doesn't go to Edmonton, I will laugh.

[Predarat]

This ****ing sucks.

[Titty Meat]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Looks like the counter offers are all 50/50 with conditions, which sounds reasonable for taking a 7% hit.

Not a big fan of the CHL as far as the quality of hockey, but the fights can be entertaining.

How does the CHL compare to the old IHL? I really miss that league.

[Predarat]

Originally Posted by Bo's Pelini

How does the CHL compare to the old IHL? I really miss that league.

OK, do you mean the old old IHL that was AAA with teams directly affiliated with the NHL, or the old IHL that used to be the UHL that was a AA league? The AA IHL merged with the CHL a few years ago, but some of those teams have folded or moved to the ECHL, like Ft Wayne and Evansville. The only teams left in the CHL from that league are Quad City and Bloomington.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Bo's Pelini

How does the CHL compare to the old IHL? I really miss that league.

I was only 11 when the Blades left and wasn't really into hockey, so I don't remember it well enough to compare. I've only been to one MO Mavs game, so I should probably give it another chance... I just wasn't all that impressed with the quality of hockey (and I really enjoy college hockey, so I'm not a complete hockey snob).

[Titty Meat]

Originally Posted by Predarat

OK, do you mean the old old IHL that was AAA with teams directly affiliated with the NHL, or the old IHL that used to be the UHL that was a AA league? The AA IHL merged with the CHL a few years ago, but some of those teams have folded or moved to the ECHL, like Ft Wayne and Evansville. The only teams left in the CHL from that league are Quad City and Bloomington.

The old old IHL that was AAA. Seemed like they tried to challenge the NHL during the lockout in the 90s. It was a great league.

[Bearcat]

I think this sums up the absurdity nicely...

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/85...bickering-ways

We interrupt that spasm of optimism surrounding the lockout to return you to the numbing reality that the owners and players remain very much two groups mumbling in separate languages.

Imagine two squirrels in a small box and one, tasty nut to be found.

Try as they might, in spite of the absolute necessity of finding that nut to ensure both their survival and the maddening proximity of that nut, it remains just out of reach.

Stupid squirrels.

How else to characterize Thursday's emotional letdown of a bargaining session when the NHLPA claims it delivered three different proposals to the NHL only to have all three shot down in a matter of minutes?

Must have been some serious speed-reading by the NHL's negotiating team that included on this day ultra-hawks Jeremy Jacobs from Boston, Washington owner Ted Leonsis, Calgary's Murray Edwards and Craig Leipold, owner of the Minnesota Wild.

Leipold remains an interesting figure in this dispute, considering the Wild owner penned two contracts worth just shy of $200 million to commit free agents Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to long-term deals and now is claiming the system under which those contracts were written needs to be dramatically revamped.

Irony is something that is apparently lost on Mr. Leipold.

On Tuesday, it appeared we might be approaching a breakthrough in a lockout that is now more than a month old. The league came out of nowhere to make an offer that included a 50-50 split in revenues and increased revenue sharing and other elements that, in the right light, could have been construed as conciliatory.

Given that that proposal included a chance to play all 82 games and thus pay players a full salary -- whatever those salaries would have looked like under a new deal -- one might have expected the players to seize that and try to manipulate it and tweak it more to their liking.

You know, sort of draw a line from A to B.

Isn't that, after all, what negotiating is supposed to look like?

Multiple sources have told ESPN.com there was and is room within that owners' proposal to move, areas that could have and still could form the basis for negotiation and some sort of resolution.

Likewise, multiple sources have told ESPN.com that many players believed that owner proposal was a good starting point. It had its warts, of course, but it was a place from which to begin getting a deal done.

Instead of drawing that line from A to B, the players came in with proposals that appeared to be a further reworking of their earlier proposal -- or lines that went from D to E.

Within minutes of the meeting's rather abrupt end, there were claims that the sides were trying to mislead the public about what exactly the offers entailed.

The players' union, for instance, insisted the third offer was a simple plan that would have seen the two sides split revenues 50-50 as long as the league agreed to honor all existing contracts.

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly insisted that proposal is completely misrepresented and that such a deal is actually a 56 or 57 percent cut for the players and never guarantees a 50-50 split during the life of the deal, with some $650 million hidden outside the deal.

In fact, the league insisted that none of the proposals guarantees a 50-50 split in revenues.

Oy.

We imagine this tawdry little drama as a Samuel Beckett play, called "Apocalypse Shortly." Beckett was a purveyor of something called Theatre of the Absurd, so we think this analogy this works.

In this two-man drama, one character, let's call him Don, hands the other a sheaf of papers.

"Hey, read this, Gary, I think you'll like it. It's exactly what you need," the Don character says.

At the same time, though, the Gary character hands Don a similar sheaf of papers.

"Hey, read this, Don, this is really good."

The two continue to hand the papers back and forth throughout the play.

The problem is that both characters are blind.

Absurd? Sure. Just like these negotiations.

Because here's the rub. When all the rhetoric had cleared after Thursday's deflating exercise, what was left was the idea that maybe what's written on those two sheaves of paper isn't all that dissimilar.

Both sides seem prepared to settle in at a 50-50 split in revenues.

The players continue to say they want more than anything to have the league guarantee their existing contracts -- contracts signed by guys such as Leipold and Jacobs and Leonsis.

The league claimed in its proposal Tuesday that there was a mechanism to make that happen, to make whole those existing contracts.

If the league can't get to 50-50 while honoring those deals and without essentially creating a system in which the players end up paying each other during the life of the contract, it needs to come clean about that fact and come up with something that achieves that, or this process seems doomed.

But if the league can do what it purports, then there's no reason a deal shouldn't be done in short order, because the players' proposals don't seem that far off the same track.

In the end, this is less about speaking the same language and more about leadership and the notion that leadership doesn't just mean telling your constituents what they want to hear or marching down a path that is defined simply by one set of dogmatic principles, to hell with the final destination.

Leadership is about understanding how to make your path bend to the other side's so that they intersect at some point.

History suggests that's clearly not Bettman's strong point. Not with a third labor stoppage under his belt.

But with all this talk about NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr and his track record of labor peace in baseball since 1994, shouldn't we have expected more than this?

Wasn't Fehr supposed to write a different script for his players?

Instead, this union and the game it claims to love is in exactly the same spot it was eight years ago.

Think "Thelma and Louise" redux.

Anyone remember who was driving when that car went over the cliff?

Nope.

Just as no one will remember who is behind the wheel when it goes over this time, because all people will remember is the horrific sound of the crash and the smell of a game going up in smoke once again.

Unless, of course, the guys at the top can find that elusive nut after all.

[Predarat]

Originally Posted by Bo's Pelini

The old old IHL that was AAA. Seemed like they tried to challenge the NHL during the lockout in the 90s. It was a great league.

The CHL is at least a level below that, its more of a AA- league, most of the teams have no NHL or AAA affiliation. The old old IHL was great.

[Titty Meat]

Originally Posted by Predarat

The CHL is at least a level below that, its more of a AA- league, most of the teams have no NHL or AAA affiliation. The old old IHL was great.

Is it true the reason it folded was because it challenged the NHL during the 90's lockout?

[MMXcalibur]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I think this sums up the absurdity nicely...

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/85...bickering-ways

Leipold needs to just excuse himself from the table altogether.

[DaFace]

Just got back from the Cutthroats game against the Mavericks. Clearly not anywhere close to the NHL level of play, but it was still an entertaining evening. I'd almost forgotten how much I love hockey.

It was fun to watch Quincey playing out there. He never made any really flashy plays or anything, but no one else on the ice had a slapper that was anywhere CLOSE to as good as his. He also executed a couple of nice poke checks right in front of me, where the other guys basically just slap around at the other guys' feet until they lose control.

Anyway, given the lack of other options, I'm excited for it and will probably try to make it to quite a few games this season. Hell, it costs about the same as a movie on a Friday night these days, and there's no question what's the better entertainment.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Just got back from the Cutthroats game against the Mavericks. Clearly not anywhere close to the NHL level of play, but it was still an entertaining evening. I'd almost forgotten how much I love hockey.

It was fun to watch Quincey playing out there. He never made any really flashy plays or anything, but no one else on the ice had a slapper that was anywhere CLOSE to as good as his. He also executed a couple of nice poke checks right in front of me, where the other guys basically just slap around at the other guys' feet until they lose control.

Anyway, given the lack of other options, I'm excited for it and will probably try to make it to quite a few games this season. Hell, it costs about the same as a movie on a Friday night these days, and there's no question what's the better entertainment.

That would be interesting... I wonder if there are any other notable NHL players in that league. Denver is here in January, so if the NHL isn't playing by then, I might check it out.

[Bearcat]

Blues fans, if you would like your hockey fix... in my NHL 13 franchise, the Blues ended up as the 4th seed. I was 1-3 against them in the regular season (2-4 3-4 6-4 1-4), but they didn't seem nearly as aggressive in the postseason and I swept them (4-1, 5-1, 6-5 OT, 4-3).... in game 3, I scored with an empty net to tie it, got a penalty at the end of regulation, and scored short handed in OT.

Quite realistic, eh?

[Predarat]

Originally Posted by KCtotheSB

Leipold needs to just FOD.

There ya go!

[Bearcat]

So much for the Kansas City Inlanders...

http://espn.go.com/new-york/nhl/stor...yn-sources-say

Sources: Isles moving to Brooklyn
Updated: October 24, 2012, 1:22 PM ET
ESPN.com news services


The New York Islanders have agreed to move to Brooklyn's Barclays Center from Long Island as early as 2015, sharing the arena with the Nets, league sources tell ESPN.

The team has scheduled a "major announcement" for 1 p.m. ET Wednesday. Commissioner Gary Bettman, Islanders owner Charles Wang, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz, Islanders general manager Garth Snow, and Barclays Center and Brooklyn Nets chief executive Brett Yormark will be in attendance.

The Islanders' lease at Nassau Coliseum expires after the 2015 season, and the team has been trying to secure a new arena near the site for some time. Nassau County voters rejected a $400 million proposal for a new arena, funded by bonds, in August 2001.

Wang has threatened to move the team from the site when the team's lease expires. Wang, the founder of a computer software company, presented a plan in 2003 for a privately funded multibillion-dollar development of housing, retail and a new arena on the property, but the proposal foundered amid community opposition.

The move to Brooklyn isn't without complications. Under current plans, Barclays Center would hold only 14,500 for hockey, and sources familiar with the facility were skeptical regarding the arena's long-term viability as the home of an NHL franchise. At 15,004, Winnipeg's MTS Centre currently has the NHL's smallest capacity.

"It will be tough leaving such a historic building on Long Island, but we need a new rink and Barclays is a state-of-the-art facility that will be a great home for us," Islanders winger Matt Moulson told ESPNNewYork.com via text message. "I hope the fans that have stood by this team through good and bad times continue to support us on our quest for the Stanley Cup."

As recently as April, Bettman said Brooklyn might not be a viable destination for the Islanders because it's hard to reach for the team's fan base in Long Island and Queens. However, the team's announcement of a news conference at the Barclays Center trumpeted the fact that it is located "atop one of the largest transportation hubs in New York City ... accessible by 11 subway lines, the Long Island Rail Road, and 11 bus lines."

The outdated Coliseum -- it was built in 1971 and opening in 1972 -- is no longer suitable for the NHL once the lease expires. The arena holds 16,234, but the Islanders' average attendance last season was 13,191.

In an April interview with The Associated Press, Bettman sounded lukewarm about the idea of the Islanders moving to Brooklyn.

"Barclays, I suppose on some level, is an option," he said at the time.

Information from ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun, ESPN The Magazine's Craig Custance, ESPNNewYork.com's Katie Strang and The Associated Press was used in this report.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

So much for the Kansas City Inlanders...

http://espn.go.com/new-york/nhl/stor...yn-sources-say

Ouch....the Sprint Center fails again....