Lemieux says players misled him and what else do you need to know? Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall at the PA meetings? Hopefully, Mario's words are what is discussed:

"The longer we wait, the more challenging it's going to be for us to generate enough revenues. At the end of the day, you can only afford to pay the players so much. The longer we wait, the smaller the pie's going to be and the less there's going to be for the players."

This is a pretty funny piece about the "Just Say No Players' Association" on MSNBC called NHL players deserve most of blame. Duh!

Is there anyone out there who believes for a second that any active NHL player truly cares whether or not he plays under a salary cap? Why, then, do the members of the NHLPA keep parroting their leader's drivel?
Where does Bad Bob take his troops now? There is a scene in The In-Laws (1979) (and don't even dream about the remake) in which Peter Falk and Alan Arkin are facing a firing squad. "What's the plan?" asks Arkin. "I'm wide open" replies a clearly clueless Falk. That's where I think Bob is now. Wide open and clueless.
The NHLPA has no plan, at least not one that they've chosen to show as of yet. And it's kind of late if there is one. Nope. Their plan - their only plan - was to have the owners' resolve collapse like the Rangers late in the game. Since that hasn't worked (and won't), there needs to be a Plan B. And there isn't.
Hockey players want to play hockey. They don't care about caps, qualifying offers, or linkage. They want to play the best of their competitors and be paid fairly to do it. Why have they let lawyers bench them? Why haven't they demanded Plan B?

The New York Daily News reports that Holik sees more NHL chill ahead and when you read the piece you get a fascinating insight into what may be the problem. Holik, whom one can argue is a poster child for what has been wrong with the old NHL CBA, wonders how a deal didn't get done last weekend when the NHL has clearly won the big battle - that of that salary cap.

I don't want to tell the owners what to do," he said. "But again, they might realize that Gary has already won on that point. They need us to get the game going again, so why not negotiate?"

Bobby, they tried. You and your PA brothers have got to stop believing that your representatives are doing anything more than obfuscating. Aside from a 24% salary rollback, which, with half the players unsigned is a specious offer, what has the NHLPA done to advance this? Call meetings? Great - but those meetings need to be more than the NHL making offers and the NHLPA turning them down.
The NHL has, by my count, made at least 10 separate proposals to the 1 from the NHLPA. That's a pretty lopsided score in any sport and a ridiculous tally in a "negotiation."

FresnoBee.com: National Hockey League: BOB SMIZIK: Bettman deserves round of applause and I'll join in. Interesting perspective.

As the National Post says, the NHL owners are hell-bent on fiscal reform and the NHLPA had better wise up.

It was only a matter of time before the details of what went down Saturday came out. They're starting to today, and it's pretty apparent that the NHLPA blew it yet again. I can't understand how you as a union drag two of the best, if not the two best, men ever to play this game into a meeting to "mediate" and then refuse to negotiate. Yet that is what the NHLPA did, and you know it's true when it makes the PA look bad and comes from the desk of NHLPA mouthpiece Larry Brooks:

Though it is clear that militants from Florida, Nashville, Edmonton and Boston led the movement to undermine Wayne Gretzky's attempts to lobby small-market clubs to accept a $45M cap, The Great One himself has told confidants that he left the meeting far more miffed at the union than upset with the league.

At the same time, we've learned that Mario Lemieux has told friends that the NHLPA appeared completely disorganized on Saturday.

While the perception has been created that Gretzky and Lemieux were recruited by ownership to help mediate the conflict — which is certainly how it was presented to me — it's now known that No. 99 and No. 66 were asked to intercede by the players' side.

Indeed, I've now been told by a trustworthy individual that Gretzky was all but begged to intervene by Coyote player rep Shane Doan while Lemieux was initially invited to the come-as-you-are party by Calgary player rep Jarome Iginla.

While it's too late for this year, the NHLPA needs to fire Bob and make a deal to save the draft and the next season. And soon, before this trickle of damage to the game becomes a tsunami.

I guess it takes a billionaire to fully appreciate what a billion dollars is all about. Mark Cuban writes all about How to Lose 1 Billion Dollars in his blog and it's a must-read.

You know that it's all over when NHLPA stealth spokesperson Larry Brooks surrenders. Even he finally admits that the NHLPA blew it and that they will now face a deal with a cap and linked to revenues that is worse than what they could have negotiated even 2 weeks ago. Now if we can only get Larry to admit, along with the NHLPA, that the league's books aren't cooked and that the losses are real, we'd be all set. Hey genius: if the owners were making all this "hidden" money, why would they shut of the printing press?

I can't, for the life of me, believethat it has come to this and that we won't have hockey this year.
It took the NHLPA way too long to realize a lot of things. First, that the NHL Board was serious about constructing a new financial model for the NHL. Second, that Gary Bettman was acting with full board support. Third, that the NHL and its teams have way more resources to fight this battle than do the players. Fourth, that life under a cost-certain system would be no worse, and probably better, for the vast majority of the NHLPA members. Fifth, that whatever Don Fehr and the MLBPA was telling them was a lie.
The NHL took the last offer off the table. That means we're back to an enforcable tie between player salaries and league revenues. There are rumours that NHL players are up in arms having come to the realization that their last chance to win a salary pool that was independant of the league's fortunes has come and gone. Good. Maybe they'll rise up and dismiss Bob. Maybe they'll enter into a true partnership with a league that has offered them $1.3 million on average to play a game. Maybe they'll take a hand in reaping the rewards that a true partnership can bring rather than settling for being hired hands.
Or maybe they'll sit and sulk until October and then realize that it's not going to change, that playing in any other league involves a salary cap, and that no other option that can pay them more exists.

I can't believe it. But the NHLPA had better start.

I think this story from the LA Times - A Late Bid to Break the Ice - may require registration. Here's the gist

About a dozen influential owners, general managers, players and agents held "serious" discussions Sunday to shape a new labor agreement and save the NHL season but were losing a battle with the clock, a source familiar with the talks said.
The source said the group, whose members he declined to identify, hoped to "construct a framework they can present jointly to the players' association and the league in hope it can get them to sit down and put something together." However, the source said, "they might just find time ran out."
Several sources verified that the mediation produced no reason to believe even a 28-game NHL season will be played. They all painted a picture of intense discussions among players, between players and owners, and between players and agents as they tried to determine what happens next.
One source said a large contingent of players held a conference call early last week and that Dallas Star forward Bill Guerin, a union vice president and member of its negotiating committee, grew "agitated." Guerin accused other players of caving under owners' pressure to accept a salary cap and said they could have reached a similar deal in September - and then hung up.
Another source said a group of players, frustrated with the stalemate, had called Goodenow on Saturday to express concern about losing the season. "They tried to speak with Bob and say, 'This isn't the road we want to go down,' " the source said.
Goodenow apparently was unmoved.
Owners and general managers have been allowed to speak to the media and to players since last week, when Bettman lifted a gag order prohibiting contact. Steve Rucchin, one of the Mighty Ducks' union representatives, said he doubted those conversations would be fruitful.
"I think this has been used to put a little pressure on players to get something done," he said. "I don't see it leading to anything.
"Still, it is something, and no question, the players are hoping to get something done. Where it stands right now, there has been nothing put forth that is acceptable. Obviously not playing hockey is not a good thing. But that doesn't mean we accept anything they throw our way. We trust in our negotiating committee."

Bob was "unmoved"? For God's sake - he represents YOU, boys. Throw him out if he's not doing his job.

You ever want to beat the walls and scream? Well, as the hockey season teeters on edge I sure want to. Despite the rumors of players in revolt and a willingness on their parts to try the NHL's system to get the business back on its feet, the NHLPA remains steadfast in its refusal to consider a cost-certain solution. I find it offensive that the NHL has made almost a dozen proposals now (going back to last June) and the NHLPA has made all of one, apparently the ONLY one they'll consider. How is that negotiating? How can the NHLPA leadership look at itself in the mirror and say they're doing what is best for the rank and file, for the fans, and for the game? They'll be the first to tell you they don't care about the last two but we can dream, eh?

This is unbelievable! Larry Brooks of the New York Post writes a conciliatory column which doesn't place blame and which states that the NHLPA has to make the next move. WOW!

For those of you who aren't in NY or familiar with Larry, he is pretty much the NHLPA's press agent and very little of what he writes isn't a direct reflection (if not a verbatim lift) of the NHLPA's thinking. If this is their thinking now:

IT'S not about blinking and it's not about caving. Not about strength, not about weakness. With so much at stake, it simply can't be. In fact, no matter the very different roads each side traveled on their way to the immediate first climax of this potentially industry-shattering NHL lockout, the one now willing to concede ever so slightly will be the one remembered for saving the league.

then we might actually have a season.

WOW!

This AP article is pretty much where we are on the surface. We won't have another weekend of wondering, that's for sure. And this weekend would have been All Star weekend in Atlanta, the one time where the NHL family gathers to celebrate the game and the players as one. Gone.
There are a lot of rumors out there that much will happen this weekend and I hope they're true. If they are, and the NHLPA comes up with a last minute compromise that includes a cap, and if I were a player, I would fire Goodenow and the executive board a minute after it was signed. Any deal the NHLPA signs this weekend will be one they could have had months ago, months during which NHLPA members lost money. Months during which the "little people" who derive their livings or a portion thereof from the game have been clobbered. Months during which the fans found other uses for their entertainment dollars. But Bob the ideologue stuck to his guns for those months and everyone else lost. So like All Star Weekend, Bob needs to be gone.

Here we go again, hopefully to a decisive end this time. The Wayne and Brett discussion is interesting as well but not newsworthy.

Finally this morning, Mike Ulmer in Toronto asks Bad Bob to Say the season is over because, as he says, "it won't bring NHL hockey back, but it might save your butt. The public won't love you but I guarantee, they'll hate you a little less."

Mark Cuban weighs in on the lockout and, more importantly, on the new realities of the sports business. He thinksNHLers are 'Out of Their Minds' and I'm not sure I disagree.

Steve Simmons in Winnepeg has great vision. As he asks in this column:

Does Bob Goodenow realize how asinine he appears to the general public with this bully-like body language and ignorant attempts to intimidate camera people and those holding microphones? He may be able to run his membership with shoves and threats -- having been undefeated in negotiations until now -- but in a hockey fight he can't win he is becoming less tolerable by the minute.

Mike Tyson proved years ago that bullies have no concept of how to lose with grace and Goodenow is playing that part to his own detriment.

Can't win? Amen, brother...

Here is a good overview from the Dallas Star-Telegram that summarizes a number of the issues the lockout has engendered. Will the NHL use replacements? What happens if there's no draft? Good piece.

Dumb question of the day:Can the NHL season be saved? Hell yeah it can - soon as the NHLPA quits standing on ideology and deals with the practical reality. They are working in a business whose model doesn't work. It's broken and the management of the league is trying to fix it before hockey jobs are lost (you remember - those things unions are supposed to protect?) Enough posturing: make a deal.

Sounds like Derian Hatcher wasn't accorded the best of receptions, either by the fans or his fellow players as he scored in his Mechanics debut. Gee, could it be the hypocrisy involved? Playing under a cap? Taking another man's job?
There will be a bunch more NHLPA members playing in the UHL as of today. Too bad - could be playing in the NHL for more money under a bigger cap and not riding buses. But that would be way too easy, eh Bob?

Very good point made in this morning's Calgary Herald. While the NHL/NHLPA battle is about a lot of things that are visible and public, there are a number of other organizations and issues whose battles are being waged as well. MLB and its union, in particular, have a vested interest in how this all turns out. Good piece!

How do you know when you're really barking up the wrong money tree? When the President of one of, if not the, greediest organizations on the planet calls you on the carpet, which is just what happened as MSNBC - the IOC president criticizes NHL players. How come it's so obvious to everyone but Bob?

This is really a great story - if only these guys stay away from the NHLPA and remember why they play.FAU hockey heating up talks about guys who just want to play:

With the economic battle taking place in the NHL, this is hockey at its purest form. It's a club, meaning it's not affiliated with the FAU athletic department. The team gets no use of the school's fitness facilities, no financial support from the athletic department and little financial support from the student government. It's not even allowed to use the school's mascot, "Owls," in its name.

I love this. While the fans are ga-ga over three Wings joining a UHL team, the UHL guys have a different perspective. In fact, the addition of the Red Wings irks some in UHL and I couldn't have said it better:

The hypocrisy of it is unbelievable," Kerr said. "They don't want a salary cap, but they'll come to a league that has a salary cap and take someone else's job."