Tag: lockout

The Lockout is Officially Over

Both sides signed an agreement yesterday that officially ends the lockout.  The union ratified the deal after a 36 hour internet vote.  11 players failed to vote, and 12 voted no.  Lets hope that those 23 players all play for Montreal so that I can hate them even more.

Training camps start today.  The season starts on Saturday.  The Bruins will open against the Rangers at home.  26 of the 30 teams will play on Saturday.  How would you like to be one of the four teams that has the wait last an extra day?

I’ll probably watch some of the game, and I’ll feel like a dirty hypocrite doing it.  I’m resolved not to spend any money though.  They don’t get a dime off of me.

Go (broke) Bruins!

Players Union Ratification Vote

The players union’s electronic (ie interwebs) vote to accept the new collective bargaining agreement was supposed to have ended about an hour ago. There has been no announcement from the union regarding the results yet.

A majority of the 700 or so union members is required to ratify the agreement. The owners ratified it on Wednesday (I think) so this is the last step. A yes vote from the players union means camps can open today. A no vote means the lockout continues, probably forever.

Do you think Gary Bettman is worried? I’m positive Donald Fehr doesn’t give a flying leap either way. Imagine the disaster a no vote would be. The dumbest work stoppage in history would be dumber by a factor of about 10 gazillion.

I expect a yes vote though, and so does everyone else, so we should have hockey in full swing by tomorrow. Just remember, all my fellow fans out there, do not give them your money this year. Spend your money on businesses that actually want to be in business.

Go (broke) Bruins’

When Did the NHL Lockout Truly End

Technically the NHL is still locked out.  The legal documents are still being drawn up.  The owners expect to ratify the deal tomorrow at the Board of Governors meeting.  The players will have an electronic vote over the interwebs to see if they approve of the new deal.  The talk now is of training camps opening on Sunday, and the season starting on January 19th.  It should be noted that the 19th is one day after Gary Bettman’s deadline to cancel the season.  Oh well.

So the lockout has not officially ended, but it effectively has ended.  But when we look back at this years from now, what will be the moment we look at as the moment the lock out ended?

It will be the moment when the Toronto Maple Leafs fired General Manager Brian Burke.

This is the dick move of all dick moves.  They waited through the off season after the Leafs failed to make the post season for something like the seventh straight season.  They waited through four months of lockout.  Then, suddenly, just a few days before training camp opened on the insultingly shortened season they gave him the axe.

There are rumors going around that he got canned over Roberto Luongo.  There was talk of a trade in the works and the speculation is that Burke did not want to pull the trigger, but Leafs ownership did.  I’m of two minds on Luongo.  First, as a Bruins fan, I love to see him lose.  He choked like a chump in the cup finals against the Bruins and it was glorious to see.  How dare you tell Tim Thomas how to play the puck!  Tim Thomas might be a right wing nut job, but he already had a Vezina in his closet and was a shoe in for a second.  Forget the fact that after your little bit of friendly advice he went on to win a Stanley Cup (at your expense) and a Conn Smythe (again, at your expense).  What a jack ass!

Of course I am also a lifelong fan of the Lowell Lock Monsters and Luongo was, for a brief time, one of us.  I tend to go easy on him for old times sake.

But given the way he has tended to lose his sanity during the playoffs, and how he still remains saddled with the can’t-win-the-big-game label (unfairly thanks partly to the first three rounds of his Cup run, but mostly due to that shiny gold medal he won in the Olympics), there is no way any serious GM would have pulled the trigger on any trade, unless The Iron Lung (that’s what we called him in Lowell… well, that’s what my brother, sister, sister’s ex, and I called him) were some sort of inexpensive throw in.  Nope.  Not going to take that deal, friends.  Luongo has to win a Stanley Cup before I would consider dealing for him.  Let the Canucks deal with him.

Regardless of the why or the how the Leafs fired Brian Burke, the fact is that suddenly those few of us who still follow the NHL are talking about something besides the lockout.  Today is the day that we actually start moving on.

I will be damned if I give this asshole of a league a dime this year, but I suddenly am not bitching about the labor dispute and the work stoppage.  I suddenly am wondering if Chris Bourque can make his dad’s old team.  I’m suddenly wondering if Tyler Seguin can score 50 goals in 48 games.

Go Bruins!

The Framework of the NHL CBA is in Place

This morning at around 6:00am Eastern time, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Director Donald Fehr appeared together at a press conference and announced to the few of us left who still care, that a framework for a new collective bargaining agreement has been reached.

There area a few things left to do. The legal document has to be written up. It then has to be presented to the league and union memberships. Then it needs to be ratified by both sides. This crap has gone on long enough that we can assume both sides will rubber stamp it, just so they can get back to work.

After that, a schedule will be announced. Players and coaches will gather together, and an abbreviated training camp will take place for about a week. Dougie Hamilton will show up to Bruins camp, and nut job Tim Thomas will not. After about a week the butchered, insultingly shortened season will commence and history will fill up a great big bucket with asterisks to place next to everything that happens.

The single most important thing left to do needs to happen before the games start. The fans need to keep their money.

I said it before, I’ll say it again. This disaster is the fans’ fault. If we had punished the league for its lack of loyalty last time, then this lockout would never have happened. We did not punish them though. We came back to the game with our wallets open, ready to blow our dough on tickets, merch, concessions, anything. I’m as guilty as the next sheep.

We, the fans, cannot… Must not… Make the same mistake again. Keep your money, hockey fans. Teach the NHL that our loyalty, and our money are not to be taken for granted. Show the league and the players union who the real bosses are. Teach them a lesson that they will never forget, and stop this bullshit from happening again.

Do not buy tickets. Do not buy merchandise. I’d like to say that we should boycott TV broadcasts, but I don’t think many of us will be able to go that far. I will say that we should continue to avoid doing business with companies that sponsor the league and the individual teams. That one is particularly important for me, being a Bruins fan, as word has it that Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs is due for a much larger share of blame pie than most owners.

I can’t expect fans to not watch the games. I can encourage all fans to not spend their money. Let all 30 teams play in empty buildings for their ridiculous shortened season. Let them know who was affected by this idiocy the most. Let them know who they really work for.

Another NHL Lockout Post

tick tock, tick tock.

The clock is ticking.  One week to go until the league’s deadline to cancel the season.  One week to go until the unthinkable happens… again… and the league cancels the whole entire season.  One week.

And the two sides didn’t meet face to face yesterday.  Are you kidding?

So here are two of the remaining sticking points.

Ready?

The league wants next season’s salary cap to be 60 million dollars.  The players want next season’s salary cap to be 65 million dollars.

Both sides have agreed that term length of the new collective bargaining agreement (assuming they ever actually agree to one) should be ten years.  The players want an option to back out after seven years.  The league wants an option to back out after eight years.

There’s also an issue dealing with player pensions that seems like it might be a legitimate problem, but is still something that a little give and take should be able to resolve in a short time.  Still though… they are hung up on seven years vs eight years, and 60 million vs 65 million.  Really.  Both sides are saying that publicly.  Honestly, they are.  Both sides are so incredibly stupid that they are risking the cancellation of ANOTHER NHL season over these issues.

My god people, how much of a collective group of assholes can you be?  For the salary cap?  How about 62.5 million.  Problem solved!  As for the term length, I have a more complicated solution.  Take a coin, right?  Flip it.  Heads means the opt out is seven years.  Tails means the opt out is eight years.  Problem solved!

They have had a Federal mediator at all of the recent talks.  I swear that poor son of a bitch must be ready to just start punching these idiots.  Meet with the players and punch Donald Fehr in his World Series canceling head.  Meet with the players and punch Gary Bettman in his season canceling head.  BOOM!  Problems solved!  Drop the damn puck!

Obligatory Pissed Off at the NHL Post

I haven’t done one of these posts in a while.  Maybe because after more than three months of lockout, I just don’t give a shit anymore.  Maybe.

The NHL made a proposal to the NHLPA today.  The national hockey media is all abuzz over it.  It seems to include serious movement by the league toward the demands set by the players association.  Good.

Of course it comes as we approach the league’s mid-January deadline for cancelling the entire season.  That would be two labor cancelled seasons in eight years.  That would also be suicide.  The offer also comes as the players union is trying to decide whether or not to decertify and throw the whole labor negotiation into the US courts.  That move would probably cancel this year and next year and maybe the year after that.  But hey, at least they wouldn’t be saddled with a 10 year CBA, right?

None of this is what specifically triggered my need to write a pissy NHL post this afternoon.  As has happened each time one side or the other generated excitement, I fully expect the other side to ruin the optimism.  That will most likely happen after a 3:00pm Eastern time conference call with the players union leadership.

No, what pissed me off this time was something that NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.  Allow me to quote Mr Daly via this Pierre LeBrun ESPN article:

“We are hopeful that once the union’s staff and negotiating committee have had an opportunity to thoroughly review and consider our new proposal, they will share it with the players. We want to be back on the ice as soon as possible.”

I added the italics, because that’s what pissed me off so much.  As soon as possible, Bill?  Really?  It’s DECEMBER 28th, and you want to get back on the ice as soon as possible?  What an asshole.  Hey Bill, as soon as possible went out the window when the first day of training camp was missed back in September.  You missed as soon as possible more than three effing months ago.  Thank you Deputy Commissioner Daly, for once again blatantly insulting your millions of fans.  Those millions of fans who allowed your league to post the highest earnings in its history last year.  That’s over 3 billion dollars worth of insulted fans.

I hate them all so much.

I HATE THEM ALL SO MUCH!