The NHLPA is Just as Guilty as the NHL

[sarsippius]

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The NHLPA is Just as Guilty as the NHL

Ton DeFrancesco | September 20, 2012

It’s pretty clear the NHLPA has been on a mission to defend their position by using Twitter to promote their fight against the NHL owners and have won over the majority of fans as a result of their effort. The evidence of fan support for the NHLPA is prominent in the recent YouTube hit: Together We Can, a fan-made video supporting the players which has received almost 1 million views in just over a 2 week time span.

In response, the NHLPA has released their own video only hours after the lockout came in session to reach out to fans once again. In the video we see interviews from David Backes, Sidney Crosby, Gabriel Landeskog, James Reimer and Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews as they try to justify their position and, once again, point out that the owners are locking out the players and that they are prepared to play.

Their tactics are cute, but are they really as innocent as they claim to be? I don’t think so.

According to Gary Bettman, the NHLPA refused to start negotiations until the Stanley Cup Finals and did not submit their first proposal until nearly one month after negotiations began. Why would they wait so long to start talking? Fehr claimed that he was unprepared to enter negotiations but the fact is, he isn’t on the ice and it’s his job to represent the players. The fact that they delayed negotiations is proof to me that they were prepared to enter a lockout situation and use that to promote bad PR towards the NHL. In short, the NHL lost the PR battle before they could even begin due to Fehr’s tactics. Smart move, sure… but also dirty.

The NHLPA’s demands also seem to be unrealistic, despite the fact that they claim that their proposal is at 52%, because they are asking for a fixed number and calculate the percentage based on their projections.

“It’s not anything close to 52 percent, their proposal is not on percentage” Bettman stated last Friday, “it’s a guaranteed dollar proposal.”

It’s clear both sides are very far apart due to the fact that the NHL owners want to change the definition of HRR as well as reducing the players share to 46% along with an increase in escrow. On the other side of the table, the NHLPA not only wants a larger cut but they want that fixed percentage based on their projections which is never going to happen. Of course, their projected HRR shows that the players share would be 52%, but in reality they are not proposing a percentage so the NHL has no interest in going that route.

(Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE)

In the video above, the NHLPA claims that both sides need to compromise in order to get a deal done, but at this point they are crying wolf as they have proposed too much change in the current CBA and have provided a situation where the NHL must gamble if they took their proposal. Simply put, the NHLPA has complicated matters even further while the owners have clearly tried to keep it simple. Some may call their ideas innovative but I call them greedy, unrealistic, and

purposely provided fans with a finger to point in the NHL’s direction. It’s all smoke and mirrors for the PA.

Gary Bettman has entered his 3rd lockout during his tenure as NHL commissioner. He is booed in every building he steps into and he already knows that he has zero fan support. If there’s anything to take out of that, he is far removed from getting involved in the media circus and he is simply there to do his job and negotiate a new deal. You can’t say the same about Donald Fehr and the NHLPA.

There is still hope out there that the season may be delayed until November or December, but that isn’t an opinion that I share and can see this dragging out for another full season if things continue on this trend. The NHLPA has played dirty. They’ve won fan support and the only reason they have been so active in that area is to put pressure on the NHL to agree to their proposal. At this point it hasn’t worked and until they decide to negotiate without a media distraction they won’t be taken seriously by the NHL owners.

Try not to mistake my apathy towards the NHLPA as enthusiasm for the NHL. Neither deserve your support or attention until a deal can be resolved.

[Podein25]

I just glanced at this, saw "PENNER," and couldn't go any further.

I blame¹ Dustin Penner for the lockout. And why not? The guy got a pancake-eating injury. And later a Stanley Cup. He's clearly the problem.

1 I also blame Lindros

[flyerrod]

@sarsippius

Not buying what Ton DeFrancesco is selling...Bettman is making a grab for anything he can get. He thinks in his mind that by locking out the players, he owns them. This is a huge mistake and all of us fans are gong to pay for it.

Here is the first response to his article.....

Sorry, bud, but this is all on the NHL. Read the history of the negotiations, CBA, salary cap, etc. Bettman and only Bettman is to blame. If he wasn't imbedded in the success of the bottom feeder teams he brought into the NHL in the first place, we wouldn't be having this conversation. He negotiates for them and only them, as to continue what he does only requires the support of a handful of teams, not all the teams. I bet if any team like the NYR went off the record to talk about how they felt about this situation, they wouldn't be too happy. Bettman is a ******* disaster as a commissioner. Articles like this that remotely give credence to this dirtbag do all hockey fans an injustice. @OccupyTheNHL

I am with that dude. He hit the nail on the head.

[sarsippius]

@flyerod

I don't disagree with you, and strongly believe that Buttman's desire to save the struggling franchises on the backs of the players is the #1 reason things have gotten to this point. BUT the NHLPA and Fehr are not the angels they're coming off as either, with their "we love the fans" PR campaign. I don't feel as strongly as the writer, but I've never liked Fehr from his negotiating history and tactics during his tenure with MLBPA.....in the midst of a season for Crissake, forced cancellation of the remainder of season and the World Series so that baseball wouldn't have a cap and utility infielders could get paid 7 mil a year to do nothing.

Buttman is a horse's arse, but there are two sides to every story.

[DinahMoeHumm]

BUT the NHLPA and Fehr are not the angels they're coming off as either

I agree with this, BUT... remember that Bettman and the owners hold the ultimate card... lockout. And once again they've played that card. Fehr and the NHLPA are simply using the tools they have at their disposal to try to win the war. I mentioned in another thread that the power of social media this time around should not be underestimated. Both sides are going to play "dirty" at times, but I have a hard time swallowing much of this article. Maybe the "we love the fans" PR campaign is a bit over the top at times, but at least the NHLPA is recognizing the fans in more ways than the horrible drivel that was in the NHL's release. I don't believe Bettman and the owners really respect the fans much at all. I'm not saying that the players' "efforts" are 100% genuine toward the fans, but at least we're being acknowledged as important.

As for any money grab, I, like you, can't understand how Bettman can try to insist on the players more or less supporting the struggling franchises. I also get tired of the hypocrisy the league constantly displays. While I recognize that this is a battle and that both sides have their faults, Bettman and the owners have too much of a history of this type of thing for me to have much (if any) sympathy. Pattern behavior...

[idahophilly]

I agree. The truth in any negotiation is usually somewhere in the middle but rarely right down the middle. In this case, the scale tips towards the owners heavily for them being to blame for the whole mess. They are fighting against their own friggin CBA they got in the last lockout. And Bettman's and the owners own poor decisions (contract lengths, money, expansion into bad markets) are to blame. I have no issue with Weber making that much money. I have an issue with the Flyers offering it and Nashville paying it. If I'm the player I go for the biggest deal I can get. Then the league says "oops, that was a mistake, give us 25% of that money back????" I don't do that without a fight... And that's what Fehr is giving them, a fight.

[hf101]

From Adrian Dater:

It's clear from talking to sources on both sides of NHL lockout that...

There is frustration within both camps at how their leaders at the bargaining table are performing. Some players starting to squawk a bit to me about Donald Fehr and how maybe he's not leading as much of a democracy as they first thought. And after talking with a few people that draw paychecks from NHL teams - non-players that is - they are upset at Bettman's cabal of eight owners only needing to agree with him to keep things a stalemate.

Said one NHL management person from a team: "Our first offer to the players was a bad joke and is what caused this to get ugly too fast."

We need more complaints from both sides.