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Thats it....NO NHL for the season (pg. 2)
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| dance2dabeat |
| quote: | Originally posted by RobbyG.
I wonder what they will write on the Stanley Cup for 2004/2005 season?... "Incomplete"? |
sad sad story.............
:( |
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| dEsidEL |
*bump*
juss making sure that this NHL thread is higher than the other one
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| RobbyG. |
Arek...I tell ya....that cow pic & the farmer?? I nearly myself laughing:haha: :haha: :haha:
Where in hell do u get those....I wanna know too:D
Keep 'em coming though;) |
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| Eklipse |
You'd think that they would learn a lesson from what happened to baseball after their strike.
The game will suffer dearly because of this. |
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| starsearcher |
| quote: | Blame Bettman
Michael K. Ozanian, 02.17.05, 3:00 PM ET
NEW YORK - Hockey is a sport whose lifeblood has always been the arena. Unlike football, baseball or basketball, hockey is not a made-for-TV spectacle. You have to go to a game to understand the sport--feel the cold, hear the clank of the puck, see the blood, calculate its speed.
It's a sport that has thrived on the passion and fury of local rivalries. Anyone who has ever been to a Rangers-Islanders contest can tell you that Yankees versus Red Sox is a tea party in comparison.
The unmatched intensity of going to a National Hockey League game explains why its buildings have been filled to a greater capacity than the other major team sports. And yet, the league does not get a rights fee from its national broadcasting deal with NBC, owned by General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ). Instead, the NHL had a profit-sharing deal with NBC that guaranteed the league no income. The NHL's cable deal with ESPN, owned by The Walt Disney Co. (nyse: DIS - news - people ), would have paid the league a paltry $60 million for 40 regular season games--half its average payments for the previous five years. In short, hockey in the United States has always been more of a cult religion than a sport.
No more. Yesterday NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who had locked out the players in September just before the start of the 2004-2005 season, cancelled the remaining games as well as the Stanley Cup playoffs because he and Bob Goodenow, executive director of the players union, could not come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement between the league's 30 team owners and the players. While the media has focused on the NHL's operating losses ($96 million last season) and player salaries (an average of $1.8 million), the truth of the matter is that league's bloody P&L statement is the symptom, not the disease.
Hockey's illness is Bettman, a basketball man who is a prodigy of NBA commissioner David Stern. Bettman and the owners he works for trashed the league's identity when they tried to turn a cash-rich, mom-and-pop league into a growth industry.
To reap big millions in expansion fees, and with the hopes of getting a lucrative national TV deal, the NHL expanded to
30 teams from 24 teams in the 1990s. Aside from the quick $80 million the owners got to divvy up when teams were sold, the expansion was a disaster. By putting franchises in places like Nashville and Atlanta--cities that think the Stanley Cup is some type of athletic supporter--Bettman destroyed the sport's economics.
For starters, the big national broadcasting deal never materialized. Why not? While the Super Bowl is usually viewed by 40% of U.S. homes that have televisions and the NBA finals by 17%, the Stanley Cup finals are viewed in just 4%. Bettman never understood--still doesn't understand--that hockey isn't basketball.
Also, apparently much to Bettman's surprise, people outside the Northeast and Midwest have little interest in hockey. Attendance for the new teams in places like Raleigh, North Carolina, Atlanta, Phoenix and Nashville has been very low. Finally, the rapid expansion of the league moved the supply-demand curve towards accelerating player salaries while at the same time diluting the talent pool. To meet the growing demand for players, team rosters were often filled with European skaters with only a fraction of the passion for the game that the Canadian players have. The NHL product lost some of its appeal to its rank and file.
Only someone (like the current commissioner) completely unfamiliar with what makes hockey great could not see the likely result: During the 1996-1997 season the 26 NHL teams had an average operating profit (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $2.3 million. Last season they lost an average of $3.2 million. In November the average NHL team was worth $163 million. With $2.3 billion in league revenue wiped away forever, that figure is now down to $140 million. And big sponsors like MBNA (nyse: KRB - news - people ) and Anheuser-Busch (nyse: BUD - news - people ) may be lost forever.
If the NHL is ever to recover from the debacle created by Bettman, it must put in place a commissioner with hockey in his blood and tremendous integrity. Someone who the fans can identify with and trust. It needs someone who has enough guts to eliminate some teams in order to make the NHL stronger. Wayne Gretzky, anyone?
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| JRinger |
^^^^ like this pisses me off, because it's so short-sighted. Gary Bettman was not responsible for the league's expansion - the owners were. Bettman was hired by the league b/c they felt he would be able to steward the expansion the owners wanted. The owners wanted to expand and Bettman was hired to help them achieve this - and he delivered on what he was hired to do. I have no qualms about blaming Bettman for many of the other ills affecting hockey, in particular the horrible relationship with the NHLPA, but I hate hearing him blamed for expansion --- he did what he was hired for.
The writer partially acknowledges this when he writes "Bettman and the owners he works for trashed the league's identity when they tried to turn a cash-rich, mom-and-pop league into a growth industry.", but the goal of the piece is ultimately to dump all the blame on Bettman. |
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| starsearcher |
| I think the person who wrote this article was rather on one side of the spectrum, I think that in many cases this article borders flame lol...especially that commet about the European players?!? :wtf: |
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| ShadoWolf |
http://www.cbc.ca/story/sports/nati..._cup050218.html
Ontario can't wrest Cup from NHL
Last Updated Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:29:42 EST
CBC Sports
The Government of Ontario was thinking of trying to take the Stanley Cup away from the NHL and award it in a Canada-wide challenge tournament, but after examining the facts, concluded it couldn't be done.
* INDEPTH: Faceoff 2004-05
The Stanley Cup, hoisted here by Mario Lemieux, has been awarded solely to the NHL champions since 1926. (CP File Photo)
Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant admitted in an interview with the Toronto Star that he had lawyers explore the possibility repatriating "the Stanley Cup for all Canadians."
"This would have been one of those cases where justice would have been achieved and a lot of joy along with it," he said.
* FROM FEB. 17, 2005: The day after: where does hockey go from here?
"Sadly there was no way to do it."
When NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced on Wednesday the labour stalemate between the owners and the players' union left him no choice but to cancel the hockey season, it meant for the first time in 86 years the Stanley Cup wouldn't be awarded.
* RELATED: Viewpoint: Ron MacLean
The trophy has been handed out every year since 1919 when an epidemic of the Spanish flu wiped out the finals.
Bryant said he was inspired to explore the issue after reading a legal interpretation by Edmonton lawyer Roderick Payne, who claimed independent trustees, not the NHL, controlled the trophy.
* RELATED: NHL debunks hockey-talk rumours
Bryant said after a careful reading of the law he determined the NHL has control of the cup.
"We reviewed that and we considered the Edmonton legal opinion and saw if there was anything that Ontario had any jurisdiction on and whether or not there was any law anywhere in Canada because I'd be happy to assist on this," he said.
"But it turns out that that is one door we're going to have to close."
In 1893, Lord Stanley purchased the silver-bowl trophy for about $50 and put it in the care of two trustees. The Cup was to be awarded best hockey team in the Dominion of Canada.
The Montreal AAA won the first Stanley Cup. The Ottawa Senators, Toronto Arenas and Vancouver Millionaires have also claimed the trophy. But since 1926, the Stanley Cup has been awarded solely to the NHL champions.
Copyright ©2005 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved |
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| RobbyG. |
| What the ....they're negotiating again:conf: |
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| stren |
| quote: | Originally posted by RobbyG.
What the ....they're negotiating again:conf: |
good
Ontario's guv should at least take the cup away from Tampa :whip: |
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| Tully |
| Yup talks are back on.........Just in time for PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!! |
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| stren |
| quote: | Originally posted by Tully
Yup talks are back on.........Just in time for PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!! |
your either ironic or delusional. Eithe way no playoffs this year :( |
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