Fans sound off on NHL lockout, support drops for both sides

Well, I am amongst those that support neither side.

How about everyone else?

I absolutely support the players. Why should the owners make anything? I've said it before, but I predict that players' associations will own all sports franchises one day. Why fight with owners when you can afford to buy them out?

As far as I'm concerned, it's the millionaires vs the billionaires and neither side really gives a flying f*ck about the millions of hockey fans, who are the ones who ultimately pay for EVERYTHING they receive! I have no sympathy for either camp and for what it's worth, both sides can f*ck themselves. Just for shit and giggles someone from either government should declare them essential services and force them to the table to reach a compromise or have one forced on them.

Players all the way. The last time in 2005 they gave up major concessions to get a new CBA done and afterwards the owners still managed to fuck everything up. Plus the players deal in far better faith than the owners do. If this playground is too tough for them maybe some of the owners shouldn't be in the professional sports business at all.

I don't support either side, but I am unanimous n the fact that Buttman has screwed up the NHL so badly that any resemblence to a professional sports league is merely a conincidence.

Fire that prick and send Fehr back to MLB and we may have a chance of getting a couple of adults to the table and ending this continual cycle of labour discourse.

I think Dan Boyle of the Sharks might be onto something.





I fully support the players.

I'll assume that it's the eight-worst revenue-generating teams that are calling the shots here in a last-ditch attempt to bring salaries down in order to save themselves. The better and wealthier teams that could go all-out and spend like crazy in the pre-cap days (e.g., Rangers, Philly, Detroit, etc.) would have less interest in busting the union because player salaries aren't as much a chunk out of their bottom line as it would be for the poorer teams. If this is true then all it shows is that almost all of the relocation and expansion of the last 15-odd years into non-traditional hockey markets that simply cannot sustain an NHL fanchise is a colossal failure. It'd be better to let the league outright collapse at least five teams right now. In a weird way that would serve the interests of the other owners better than these lockouts are. If the poor teams collapsed then there'd immediately be more players from those teams looking for work. The star players would be snapped up immediately by the others but the journeyman-types would be in a tough spot. With a glut of players on the market it would be sufficient to drive down existing salaries in a perfectly natural free-market way as the 3rd/4th liners on the safe teams would be facing competition for roster positions from their unemployed brethren. Free market? How about that. Maybe the NHL should actually try it one day instead of using bogus internal socialist measures in vain attempts to save teams that won't ever survive on their own.

Time to use a Star-trek quote...

Or the one true Buttman.

Time for the lot to find real jobs.

Consider it tongue-in-cheek, Junior. Most of the major sports leagues are "socialized" with all sorts of "anti" free market revenue-sharing schemes that keep the ground more-or-less level for all the teams. The NFL is probably the best example where, thanks to revenue-sharing, any given team in any given year can compete for the SuperBowl. The NHL is kind of similiar to this as well. In these cases the reasons for a team's success or failure almost always comes down to the quality of their front-office, management, and coaching. Lack of funds really isn't a problem, quality of the team personnel is. That's why the dynasty teams are now a thing of the past. No single team can afford, thanks to the salary cap, to corral a multiple amount of superstar players and be able to pay them all market-value for four, five, or six years in a row. It's prohibitively expensive and it forces these players to disperse around the entire league. Dynasties no longer exist but with almost equal access to at least one or two superstar players for each team it makes it at least a possibility that any team out there, once the quality of their management and coaching have also been factored in, can challenge for a championship position.

Contrast this to Major-League Baseball. There is no revenue sharing and there's no way for the majority of the teams to compete with the deep-pockets owners with teams like the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, at least one team from California per year, St. Louis Cardinals, etc. When the Yankees can exceed a payroll of over a $100 million each year thanks to no salary cap and don't have to give a single penny to the poorer teams in the absence of revenue-sharing, it's ensured that the Yankees will appear in the post-season practically every year and that the lesser teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Toronto BlueJays won't. In the base of baseball, it's almost the exact opposite of what the NFL and NHL can do in that access to massive amounts of revenue for teams like the Yankees will by default negate whatever quality of front office/management/coaching the other teams have.

That's why I mentioned free market vs. socialized schemes as it pertains to big league professional sports. There's more to all of this that whatever silly and hopelessly outdated pre-World War One economic definitions you've picked up from those ridiculous anarchist and communist pamphlets you're obsessed with.

Buttman is just the voice of the owners.