Newz Forum: HOCKEY: Its official. NHL owners to lock out players at midnight.

Well, the hope and dreams of this NHL season have come crashing down. The Lightning will get to celebrate with the Cup a little longer. The rest of us, well we will have to fill the void between NFL games with something else. Neither the players union nor the owners are willing to budge on their proposed plans. The owners want what the players call a "salary cap", which of course the owners deny, at least in some of their proposals. The players just want to play hockey, but don't want to have their salaries restricted. They have even offered at one point to play this season without a CBA, but the owners did not want anything to do with it.

Associated Press
NEW YORK - The National Hockey League will lock out its players Thursday, threatening to keep the sport off the ice for the entire 2004-05 season. The long-expected decision was approved unanimously Wednesday by NHL owners, who are demanding cost certainty, which players say would be tantamount to a salary cap.

Comments:
Idiots. All of them. Morons. I don't like the players salaries, but they had a great idea with the luxury tax, 5% rollback in salaries, and lower entry-level contracts. So they both want money. Guess what. Nobdy is going to get any. The NHL is OVER, DONE. At least 1/4 of the teams will go broke and fold. The players that are young enough are going to go to other leagues. The older players, well, this is the last chance for a lot of them, and now there is no chance.

They needed to talk, every second of every minute of every hour of every day. They do not realize how this is going to hurt their fanbase. The NHL is already struggling to get fans. This will just push the fans away to other sports.

I finally move to a city that ends up with a NHL teams, and then this happens!

[Edited on 9/15/2004 by crayon]

Screw the NHL.

They wont see a freakin' dime out of my pocket for a long, long time. There's no bigger hockey fan than myself but I'm not putting up with this BS with millionaires arguing with billionaires. They are going to lose SO many fans over this and it will take a LONG time to recover from, I hope they saved some of their millions. I am so pissed off about this I cant even think about it, I could write a page long rant but it's not worth it. The lockout begins in 2 hours and they dont even have their next meeting scheduled. Screw you guys, all of you rich greedy bastards, I hope your pumping gas this winter.

man this sucks to hell, why why does it always have to be about money

Great pic PA.

Money is the end all to all contracts.

The NHL used to be about hoisting Lord Stanley. Now its, how much money can I line my pockets with?

How many guys will be in the AHL this year? I heard on the radio this evening about 2 players coming down from Buffalo.

And if they are coming to the minors, should the fans support them? Or boo them when they take the ice?

Check out your juniors and other pro leagues, this strike is going to be a long one. The teams own the venues they play at now so they will just fill those 41 dates with concerts, etc. Fans caught in the middle again. I don't think booing the players is the way to go Gibbs. Boo Goodenow, hey Boo Goodenow instead of Bob, he's the one pushing the only thing the owners want, salary cap, off of the table.

Originally posted by Gibbs Baby!!!
And if they are coming to the minors, should the fans support them? Or boo them when they take the ice?

Its partially the players. But they also offered to play the season without a CBA in place. And their suggestion was viable. I say support the players that are playing. Boycott the NHLPA and the NHL. I personally am not going to buy the new NHL 2005. I will continue to play 2004 for the Playstation 2. I won't be buying any NHL merchandise anytime soon. If the NHL has any sort of season this year, I probably won't be going to any games either.

This morning on the radio, they said that about 20 NHL teams will lose less money this season with a lkockout than if they actually had a season.

If that was really the case, ho win the he11 have tey been surviving the past few season???

I think there's some fishy accouting going on here...

If anyone is a bit unsure of the details of the lockout, this should answer any questions you might have.

www.sportsline.com...

How will we survive??

sports.espn.go.com.../040916

NHL CBA News

nhlcbanews.com...

hopefulyl they will air the european games, if there is a league out there or something.

Originally posted by freak29
hopefulyl they will air the european games, if there is a league out there or something.

I don't know about the States but in Canada what are they going to replace hockey with on Satuday night. It's not only a game it's part of our culture. Saturday night = Hockey. The CBC will HAVE to air some sort of hockey. What else do they have? Anne of Green Gables?

How many minor league teams are there in Canada?

Originally posted by Gibbs Baby!!!
How many minor league teams are there in Canada?

Junior teams everywhere, some other leagues like the AHL. I was specifically thinking the European leagues. That's going to be good hockey.

I understand the hockey sensation. I am in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. We just got the Wild, and this town is nuts for hockey. Saw that the Wild assigned 13 players to the Aeros of the AHL, maybe they will show some of those games on TV. That would be a blast.

Originally posted by crayon
I understand the hockey sensation. I am in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. We just got the Wild, and this town is nuts for hockey. Saw that the Wild assigned 13 players to the Aeros of the AHL, maybe they will show some of those games on TV. That would be a blast.

Interesting. The NHL's loss will be these minor league teams gain. This could turn out to be a good thing in the long run. More revenue for the farm system will promote health at that level. Once you get it running the fanbase will do nothing but grow.

With an NHL lockout in place, more than 150 players have signed to play in European leagues, including Markus Naslund with Modo (Sweden), Jaromir Jagr with Kladmo (Czech Republic) and Ilya Kovalchuk with AK Bars Kazan (Russia). Most of the players have lockout clauses that allow them to return to the NHL if and when the labor impasse ends. For now, European teams are taking advantage.

Besides Naslund of the Vancouver Canucks, Modo also signed his teammates Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Niklas Sundstrom (Montreal), Pierre Hedin (Toronto) and Peter Forsberg (Colorado).

Forsberg has indicated he will play the entire season with Modo.

Only 17 Canadian players are headed to Europe, with many others preferring to compete in a four-on-four exhibition series in Ontario and Quebec.

The Czech league has signed 47 NHL players: Jagr of the New York Rangers and Tomas Kaberle of Toronto skate for Kladno; Martin Rucinsky of Vancouver is with Litvinov; Ziggy Palffy of the Los Angeles Kings is with Slavia Prague; Radek Bonk of Montreal is with Trinec; and Patrick Elias of the New Jersey Devils is with Znojmesti Orli.

The Russian league has 33 NHL players. Besides Kovalchuk of the Atlanta Thrashers, there's Andrei Markov of Montreal and Pavel Datsyuk of Detroit (Dynamo Moscow); Sergei Gonchar of Boston (Met. Magnitogorsk); and Garth Snow of the Islanders (SKA St. Petersburg.)

The Swedish league signed 30 players, while the Finnish and Slovakia leagues signed nine NHL players apiece. Joe Thornton of Boston and Rick Nash of Columbus Blue Jackets headline the Swiss league, skating for Davos. Leagues in Austria, France, Italy and Germany also signed a few NHL players.

link

if the players are locked out by the owners how can they be assigned to the minors? will they still be drawing their nhl salaries? did the whl ever get off the ground? i have seen no mention of them at all lately