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2020 Offseason Miscellaneous Thread

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Paulie Walnuts said:
ECHL north division won't play this season. Greeneville not impacted for now except less teams to play
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That’s Adirondack, Brampton, Maine, Newfoundland, Reading and Worcester. Brampton and Newfoundland are the only Canadian teams in the league, which complicates matters for that division.

www.echl.com

Official Site of The ECHL | North Division Elects Suspension of Play for 2020-21 Season

In light of COVID-19’s continued impact across the Northeast region, the ECHL announced Wednesday that each of the six teams in the North Division - Adirondack Thunder, Brampton Beast, Maine Mariners, Newfoundland Growlers, Reading Royals and Worcester Railers – will be suspending play for the...
www.echl.com www.echl.com
 
HeyKurtz said:
Survey says that 60% of sports fans won't return to indoor venues until there's a vaccine...

www.espn.com

Poll: Fans still won't go to games without vaccine

A recent survey conducted by Seton Hall University's Sharkey Institute reveals that most American sports fans will wait for a COVID-19 vaccine before returning to arenas and stadiums.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
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I talked to my Canes rep the other day, as he called me to follow up on some comments I made in that STH survey last week. From what he told me, the responses the Canes are getting aren't too far off of these results. He also told me that people seem pretty fired up about their position, regardless of whether they want to attend pre-vaccine or won't ... which is hardly shocking given the current environment.
 
I predict vaccine distribution will go badly. Especially Pfizer version since it needs a freezer that very few places have outside of hospitals. Moderna version does not need that extreme cold freezer so that will be much easier to send out and get..
 
Elliotte Friedman on some major bumps in the road to getting the new season started...

www.sportsnet.ca

Players feeling angry, betrayed by NHL’s new CBA amendment proposals

If anyone was hoping major details about the 2020-21 NHL season would be settled by the weekend, think again. A Jan. 1 start date for the upcoming campaign would seemingly mean a deal needs to be reached by the end of the month. But Wednesday’s events have knocked things off course, and the...
www.sportsnet.ca www.sportsnet.ca
 
HeyKurtz said:
Elliotte Friedman on some major bumps in the road to getting the new season started...

www.sportsnet.ca

Players feeling angry, betrayed by NHL’s new CBA amendment proposals

If anyone was hoping major details about the 2020-21 NHL season would be settled by the weekend, think again. A Jan. 1 start date for the upcoming campaign would seemingly mean a deal needs to be reached by the end of the month. But Wednesday’s events have knocked things off course, and the...
www.sportsnet.ca www.sportsnet.ca
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Here is LeBrun’s view.

The CBA was agreed to 4 months ago. To be coming back this soon with changes of that magnitude is...let’s say ballsy.

theathletic.com

LeBrun: NHL, NHLPA negotiating over salary deferral ask

The NHL has come asking the NHLPA to tweak some systemic financial details to the recent CBA.
theathletic.com theathletic.com
 
The numbers of the new CBA right off the bat didn't make a lot of sense in year 1. 10% salary deferral and then 20% escrow of the remaining 90%? The NHL revenues are going to be absolutely devastated this coming season due to COVID. A net 28% reduction in player compensation for Year 1 doesn't remotely come close to covering the severe drop in revenues the league will face in Year 1.

You can argue both sides of this pretty easily. Neither side was being realistic with just how far revenues are will be down this coming season, but the owners agreed to 10% and then 20% with the NHLPA. Asking for more givebacks now was never going to go over well.

As for the NHLPA, they had to have realize that what they were being asked to give up wasn't even remotely close to enough for this next season in terms of the revenue split that is supposed to happen. The circumstances for having fans in the stands looks pretty darn dire at the moment. There are going to be some teams that are going to lose a huge amount of money this season with potential long tern damage to their sustainability.

The players would prefer to put their heads in the sand about that truth and say that greedy owners should just eat the bigger losses than were expected 4 months ago rather than reaching out to their partners and asking for more help to stem those losses. Even with a bigger haircut, the NHL players are going to get paid and many NHL owners are still going to lose a whole lot of money. However at some point across this new CBA, the NHLPA bill will become due. 50-50 is the revenue split for the CBA. IF its 70-30 in year 1 for the players, they are going to have more to pay back in the future years of the CBA. Why not make that a more equitable split in year one so the players not clobbered in year 7?

Not well played by the owners, but wake the heck up NHLPA and accept another 5 to 10% deferral.
 
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Yeah ... go figure that the NHL would pull the rug out from under an agreement with their players. Look. There's putting your head in the sand and then there's looking out for your own financial interests. They players don't HAVE to agree to any of this. They have an enforceable CBA, and should use to negotiate the best possible deal for themselves. It's not the PA's fault that the league didn't get serious about negotiations until the sound of the clock ticking had reached 125 dB. You don't like the opening proposal, then go get a better one. Maybe negotiate a bigger chunk on the deferred payments rather than taking them dollar for dollar.

IMO too many sports fan act like they support the players right up to the point where they bow their backs and don't play ball with whatever the owners feel like is the best way out of a situation.
 
In the end, the bigger the inequity in year 1, the more the NHLPA is going to end up losing in years 2-7. The owners are now reaching out to the players asking to make the inequity smaller in year 1 to lessen the damage to the owners in year 1. 50-50 is the CBA split. If that is 80-20 for the players in year 1, they will be paying back that inequity over the rest of the CBA. Meanwhile some franchises will be devestated by the year 1 losses.

It hardly seems unreasonable to me for the owners to now ask for the players to lessen that year 1 out of balance. Maybe if that is done, Arizona loses only $30 million instead of $50 million. Players still get their money, but more of it is deferred when the NHL sees better days and the players lessen the amount of money they forfeit in future years.

The players are going to come out of this with 50% of the revenues over 7 years no matter what. How they get there and how it impacts the teams paying them in year 1 is what is problematic to the owners given the numbers and realities staring them in the face right now.
 
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cmaleski2 said:
In the end, the bigger the inequity in year 1, the more the NHLPA is going to end up losing in years 2-7. The owners are now reaching out to the players asking to make the inequity smaller in year 1 to lessen the damage to the owners in year 1. 50-50 is the CBA split. If that is 80-20 for the players in year 1, they will be paying back that inequity over the rest of the CBA. Meanwhile some franchises will be devestated by the year 1 losses.

It hardly seems unreasonable to me for the owners to now ask for the players to lessen that year 1 out of balance. Maybe if that is done, Arizona loses only $30 million instead of $50 million. Players still get their money, but more of it is deferred when the NHL sees better days and the players lessen the amount of money they forfeit in future years.

The players are going to come out of this with 50% of the revenues over 7 years no matter what. How they get there and how it impacts the teams paying them in year 1 is what is problematic to the owners given the numbers and realities staring them in the face right now.
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I get all that. I just have less of a problem with the players doing something other than saying "yes" ten seconds after a proposal they've probably been waiting for for 6 weeks.
 
I'm sure after the 'shock' has subsided and the players get help figuring out what this really means, they will negotiate the added deferrals down and get additional things from the owners in return. I'm more upset to hear any notion that the players are being stunned that the NHL business model for year 1 is going to be a frigging disaster. Certainly the players had to realize just how far off 10 + 20% in year one was from any sort of reality in terms of how far down NHL revenues will be this coming season.

"Betrayed"? Betrayed would have been the NHL asking to prorate salaries, which is not what the proposals are. Owners asking for a smoother road to get to the 50-50 revenue split is hardly a betrayal.
 
cmaleski2 said:
The numbers of the new CBA right off the bat didn't make a lot of sense in year 1. 10% salary deferral and then 20% escrow of the remaining 90%? The NHL revenues are going to be absolutely devastated this coming season due to COVID. A net 28% reduction in player compensation for Year 1 doesn't remotely come close to covering the severe drop in revenues the league will face in Year 1.

You can argue both sides of this pretty easily. Neither side was being realistic with just how far revenues are will be down this coming season, but the owners agreed to 10% and then 20% with the NHLPA. Asking for more givebacks now was never going to go over well.

As for the NHLPA, they had to have realize that what they were being asked to give up wasn't even remotely close to enough for this next season in terms of the revenue split that is supposed to happen. The circumstances for having fans in the stands looks pretty darn dire at the moment. There are going to be some teams that are going to lose a huge amount of money this season with potential long tern damage to their sustainability.

The players would prefer to put their heads in the sand about that truth and say that greedy owners should just eat the bigger losses than were expected 4 months ago rather than reaching out to their partners and asking for more help to stem those losses. Even with a bigger haircut, the NHL players are going to get paid and many NHL owners are still going to lose a whole lot of money.

Not well played by the owners, but wake the heck up NHLPA and accept another 5 to 10% deferral.
Click to expand...

If it was another 5-10% deferral, they’d probably grit their teeth and agree to it. But it’s another 16% and then another 2.5-3% escrow on the back end, when things were supposed to swing back.
 
cmaleski2 said:
Certainly the players had to realize just how far off 10 + 20% in year one was from any sort of reality in terms of how far down NHL revenues will be this coming season.
Click to expand...

It takes 2 parties to reach an agreement. The owners clearly thought that 10 + 20% in year one would protect them. They wouldn’t have agreed to it if they thought differently. It would be one thing if we were in the middle of the CBA. But it was signed 4 months ago.
 
maybe they can delay season start until vaccine is widely used. Then they could ask for proof of vaccine to enter the building. You always get paperwork for a vaccine. got shingles shot last week and have proof of that . A few people might fake it but I would think it's very few.
 
Paulie Walnuts said:
maybe they can delay season start until vaccine is widely used. Then they could ask for proof of vaccine to enter the building. You always get paperwork for a vaccine. got shingles shot last week and have proof of that . A few people might fake it but I would think it's very few.
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They have a TV stop around July 22 when NBC starts broadcasting the Olympics. They have a similar issue in Canada with Sportsnet. From what I’ve read, the NHL wants to be done by July 15, so that means mid to late May for the playoffs.
 
48 games is OK with me. Not likely but NBC could get another network to show games possibly Fox or ABC,CBS,NBC . Only baseball is on in the summer.

Canada extended border closure to Dec 21st
 
cmaleski2 said:
"Betrayed"? Betrayed would have been the NHL asking to prorate salaries, which is not what the proposals are. Owners asking for a smoother road to get to the 50-50 revenue split is hardly a betrayal.
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Pretty sure I never used that word and for the record, I do not support the over-emotionalizing of contract negotiations. There are two parties at play here. You negotiate until both sides agree on a way to go forward. It helps if everyone negotiates in good faith, but that has sadly not been the case with the NHL's labor negotiations in the past ... nor does it happen all that frequently in other industries.
 
Betrayed and angry were the terms Elliotte Friedman used.

The players certainly can be whatever level of unhappy that they care to be, but COVID is wreaking havoc with just about everything and predicting anything with any level of certainty has been pretty futile across all businesses. I do understand the argument that if the tables were turned, the NHL would unlikely consider any proposals to amend the already agreed to CBA that the NHLPA might have. But in the end the NHL owners pay the players salaries and collectively are about to lose a whole lot of money in year 1. The player are going to get paid a whole lot of money still even with potentially 40-50% of revenues (or more) not available. They are currently poised to get well above the 50-50 split that the CBA promises. 4 months ago I'm sure they were expecting some level of fans in the stands. Its pretty clear TODAY that is unlikely to happen now at the start.

I don't think the owners are being that unreasonable to ask for an additional shift of player salary cost outside of year 1. If the extreme year 1 losses put a couple of teams in financial jeopardy that hardly does the players any good. There will be additional negotiations and hopefully they can come up with a quick adjustment and get back on track with figuring out how actual season is going to be run.

Bryan Hayes, Jamie McLennan, Jeff O’Neill and Darren Dreger had a chat about this situation yesterday

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