Hypocrisy At its Finest | By Tony Stabile
Hockey This Week
Hypocrisy At its Finest
While there are many issues to go along with the currently stalled NHL – NHLPA CBA talks, I would like to point out a few facts that makes the owners and their front man Gary Bettman look incredibly bad. As the NHL tries to leak out information that the league is losing money, Allan Walsh via Twitter quotes an NHL Press Release dated April 12, 2012- NHL on pace for 7th straight year of record revenue, NHL Enterprises revenue up 195% from 2003-04. Couple that with the new NBC Cable deal (a 10 year $2 billion agreement) which nets the league $200 million a season, and you can see why the players are reluctant to be the ones to bear the brunt of the current negotiations.
In the first NHL proposal (and the second as well I would guess since It’s been reported to be nearly identical to the first proposal) that the new CBA limit the length of player contracts to a maximum of 5 years. Now, to a player, it makes little sense to agree to such a clause since it would limit the amount of money a player can make during each contract. For the owners, it would allow them to control the owners who are handing out these 10+ year deals as if they were candy. But, let’s look back at some of the contracts handed out of the past few months by some NHL teams.
Since February 2012:
15 players have been given contracts that are longer than the league requested 5 year limit.
The teams that have granted those deals,
2 by Minnesota (Parise and Suter)
3 by Philly ( Simmonds, Hartnell and the mind blowing Shea Weber offer sheet)
2 by Edmonton (Eberle and Taylor Hall)
2 by Pittsburgh (James Neal and they unbelievably gave 12 years to Crosby who has missed significant time with concussion issues)
and 1 each by:
Vancouver (Jason Garrison)
Carolina (Jordan Staal)
Ottawa (Erik Karlsson)
Tampa Bay (Matt Carle)
Montreal (Carey Price)
and finally…
Los Angeles who gave Stanley Cup MVP a 10 year extension.
How can the owners ask for contract limits when 1/3 of their teams have agreed to a 6+ year deal in the past 6 months? Bottom line, don’t expect NHL hockey to start before Thanksgiving this year.
NHL Notes:
Congrats to Colorado’s Gabriel Landeskog on being named the youngest Captain in NHL history.
Yesterday (Sept 4th), was Lubomir Visnovsky’s grievance against the Anaheim Ducks. Expect a quick resolution to this as the Islanders have requested the matter be resolved before the lockout deadline.
The Islanders are slated to play once on national television this season (way for the NHL to market one of its top 10 young superstars). Monday October 22nd against the Florida Panthers (a game most likely to be cancelled due to the impending lockout) will be aired on NBC Sports Network (Versus)
If the NHL is indeed locked out, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers are slated to be one of the most exciting teams in the AHL this year. With top prospects Brock Nelson, Kirill Kabonov, Nino Niederreiter, Casey Cizikas, Calvin de Haan, Matt Donovan, Kevin Poulin and Anders Nilsson slated to see big minutes, it may be a worthwhile trip on the Port Jeff ferry to see the Sound Tigers this season.
For Hockey This Week…..I’m Tony Stabile
Follow Tony on Twitter @tonystabile
