http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/t/story/nhl-nhlpa-exchange-offers-talks-resume-nyc-17222929 Owners want the players to take a paycut, from 57% of revenue to as low as 47%.
Didn't the players already cave in from the past lockout? The NHL was "on it's way back," but this is shooting themselves in the foot.
The NHL is back...all the doom and gloom predictions from people like me were absolutely wrong, and the owners know it. They have a fan base that will not leave the game...it will come back the exact same way it did last time. I'm done believing that lockouts and strikes mean anything in the big picture for these leagues from a fan demand standpoint. Owners buy teams as long-term investments...that's their concern. Beating down the union means more for them than a season or half of a season of diminished demand from fans who will lap up their product anyway.
Hockey used to fall after football and basketball for me, but since the NHL returned in 2005, it was only a few years after that that it surpassed basketball and became my second favorite sport. I have really grown to understand and apreciate the game in the past 5+ years and while I could live with a shortened season like the NBA had last year, a full lockout would be horrible.
Such bull****. This is the Blackhawks year to shine and win the whole thing too...... we can't be having this lockout crap.
I agree with all of this. But as a die hard Coyotes fan I really don't want to go without hockey. We had a big season to build on and we just resigned Doan. LETS DO THIS #*#& The Kings and Blues are the teams to beat in the West (IMO). Stars/Wild are the dark horses. Canucks, Wings, Hawks and Coyotes will be solid. It's going to be a good season.
Agreed - the mistake people make is looking at the 1994 MLB mess and how that affected baseball's populaary. But the key difference there was that the season was cancelled midway through, which pissed people off. If you do it before the season, you're fine - fans get over it pretty quickly.