Thursday, October 4, 2012

Casualty Of The NHL Lockout: The First Two Weeks Of The Season.

Earlier in the summer a co-worker of mine asked if the NHL was going to lock out it's players, causing games to be missed.

I responded by saying No, figuring common sense would prevail and a new CBA would be reached in time to start the season. I didn't think the NHL was stupid enough to miss games due to another work stoppage after cancelling a whole season eight years ago.

I was wrong.

The NHL is stupid enough to cancel games because of a work stoppage.

Earlier today the NHL announced that all games from October 11th through the 24th would be cancelled. 

The reason for this work stoppage is because the owners and the players can't decide on the best way to divide hockey related revenue.

In the first proposal by the owners the NHL wanted players to receive 43 percent of the revenue instead of the 57 percent they are receiving now.

The players in return proposed to drop the percentage of revenue received from 57 to 54 in the first season of a new CBA. The plan would then be for the percentage of hockey related revenue to drop by one percent each season until it reached 50 percent. The owners then countered with a new proposal in which the players would receive 47 percent of hockey related revenue instead of 43.

So if you are keeping score at home,the owners are proposing 47 percent in the first season while the players are proposing 54 percent.

That's right, a seven percent difference between the two is what's causing the first two weeks of the season to be cancelled.

Now there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides but I think the main question hockey fans are asking is if the season is in jeopardy.

My gut feeling tells me no.

One of the reasons I feel this way is both sides are still communicating with each other. Back in September of 2004 when the last lockout started the two sides didn't meet for negotiations until December. By that time it was too late to save the season. As long as both sides are still talking to each other there is an opportunity for a deal to be reached.

I've always felt that if a lockout happened a deal would be reached by Thanksgiving at the earliest. I still feel that way only because I believe common sense will prevail and both sides will agree to a 50/50 split of hockey related revenue.

Of course I also felt that common sense would prevent the NHL from having it's fourth work stoppage in 20 years.

I think the fact the NHL only postponed the first two weeks of the season is a good sign that a deal can still be reached. If a deal wasn't probable I think the first month of the season would have been cancelled.

In reality the NHL can afford to miss the month of October. Hockey is usually under the sports radar during the first month of their season as their fans go,with football having a stranglehold on Sundays and the MLB Playoffs going on.

Once the World Series is over though the pressure will ramp up from hockey fans wanting their game back on the ice. It's up to the owners and the players to figure this deal out.

After all it's only seven percent that is keeping the season from getting started.

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