Lefty
ASFN Icon
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2002
- Posts
- 12,555
- Reaction score
- 922
The players look like greedy bastards.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1992342
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1992342
Last edited:
Town Drunk said:What doesn't make sense?
They gave out high contracts to players who didn't deserve that kind of salary. No one forced them to do it, they did it on their own accord. That's the reason why there is this economic mess. A 3rd liner like Holik shouldn't be making $9 million a year. And the Rangers owner, and other owners, didn't have to pay him that.
Now they want to install a salary cap to fix the blunders of their past. That's fine. But did you really expect the players to be okay with it after years of receiving those types of deals? People are calling the players "greedy" and some other words. Well geez, if you were offered that kind of cash in the past, wouldn't you take it?
Like I said, I believe the owners are the most at fault here. Both sides needed to go halfway, the players agreed to a cap, and the owners agreed that there would be no linkage. It's a shame that it only came down to a couple of million dollars.
And I hope that when this is all over, Bettman is showed the door.
Town Drunk said:If you want to call the players greedy, then the owners are just as greedy as well. The players offered a 24% rollback, and acknowledge that there needed to be a cap. What did the owners do besides get rid of linkage? They couldn’t bridge the $3 million gap?
The players aren’t claiming anything. I, as a fan, can see that the owners gave out large contracts to players who didn’t merit them. How would it be collusion if the owners had never given out those big contracts to players such as Holik?
Again, no one forced the owners to award such big contracts to the players. That’s where this mess stems from.
Edit: $3 million per team. And the teams didn't even have to spend that much, so therefore it would have been a lot less than a $100 million. And what's a $100 million out $2 billion?
coyoteshockeyfan said:It is true that nobody forced the owners into this, but the owners also compete with each other.
What makes you so sure that the players would have accepted a $45M cap?Town Drunk said:Yes, a 24% roll back is nothing. But then players acknowledged that a cap was needed.
Sure, the owners are competing with one another. Does that mean they needed to go out and over-inflate contracts? That’s not that good of an excuse.
As for stopping the inflation, again, the players agreed to a cap. All they needed to go was to $45 million. That’s it. Do you think teams like the Wild and Penguins were going to spend $45 million? I don’t. If teams can’t afford certain players, then they aren’t going to pay for certain players.
As for the owners being greedy, if there was truly that big of a problem, why didn’t the owners come up with an owner-owner revenue sharing? These guys got rich off of expansion.
This lies at the feet of the owners.
NickelBack said:So, it's tour contention that the owners need protection from each other and it's the players job to do this for them?
Town Drunk said:It's been widely reported that the players would have accepted a $45 million cap.
Check out some of the Canadian media and some of their streaming sports radio sites.
I can give you some links if you want.
It really makes you laugh when you go to view the hockey stuff on ESPN after visiting sites like TSN and Sportsnet, and listening to 590.
Town Drunk said:Yes, that was their last offer.
If the owners had come back at $45 million, it was a done deal.
Even the commentators on ESPN have said this.