Looks like the end of the niceties in the CBA negotiations

Last night, I was out of town at the races in Fargo and during a rain delay I decided to check my twitter feed when I saw these tweets make it’s way across my twitter feed on numerous posts.

Bettman: “still a wide gap between us with not much time to go”

Bettman says after analyzing PA’s proposal the NHL owners understand it “but there is still a wide gap between us with not much time to go.”

Bettman: wide gap remains. In other words, lockout all but certain. No meetings until next Wednesday.

The message is clear that the owners really don’t plan on budging very much on their first proposal and this doesn’t really look like a partnership anymore. Any way you look at this – the players are going to be the losers in the CBA negotiations. It looks more like a shakedown than a negotiation.

Here is a break down on how far apart the two sides are – from TSN

Current system@

Salary cap: $70.2 million

Salary floor: $54.2 million

NHL's proposal@

Salary cap: $55.3 million

Salary floor: $39.3 million

NHLPA's proposal@

Salary cap: $69 million

Salary floor: $53 million

70.2 – 55.3 = 14.9 is a very big gap between the two sides. I am not very optimistic anymore that the two sides can avoid a work stoppage. It doesn’t appear that the owners are going to move off of their stance and I stand by my statement that the owners appear that they want to weaken the players union even further.

NHLPA presents their case to the owners

The owners of the National Hockey League made their proposal to the players back on July 13, 2012 and a month and a day later the NHLPA  presented it's level headed and grounded case to the NHL owners. The NHL owners have now said that they are now going to need some time to study the proposal from the NHLPA.

Bettman says "we need time to evaluate" players' proposal. They meet again tomorrow morning after league studies it.

This is what the head of the NHLPA Donald Fehr had to say on their counter proposal according to the Canadian Press and it doesn't look like the NHLPA has put forth a controversial proposal  - it looks pretty grounded to me.

Chris Johnston, The Canadian Press --- "We do believe that the proposal the players made today, once implemented, can produce a stable industry ... that can give us a chance to move beyond the recurring labour strife that has plagued the NHL the last two decades," said Fehr.

By the union's calculations, the deal could see players give up as much as US$465 million in revenue if the league continues to grow at an average rate for the next three seasons.

The proposal includes delinking the salary cap from hockey-related revenue and setting a fixed rate -- increasing by two per cent for the first year, four per cent for the second and six per cent for the third. That would see the salary cap grow to US$78.93 million for the 2014-15 season.

Michael Russo of the Star and Tribune also has a good break down of what the NHLPA's proposal on his blog and you can see that the NHLPA  is trying to focus on revenue sharing. Also, the NHLPA isn't trying to blow up the salary cap and from everything that I have read this afternoon, the hard cap stays in place as well.  Lastly, the message that I am getting from everything that I have read this afternoon, it appears that the NHL Players want to be a partner with the owners and have made some concessions to help the clubs that aren't doing as well as the bigger well off NHL teams.

Michael Russo, Star and Tribune --- The NHLPA also calls for expanded revenue sharing of what Fehr said would be up to $250 million a season. The league proposed $190 million, I’m told by sources, which is up from $170 million in the previous CBA. In the player proposal, I’m told the figure listed is actually $240 million (not 250, like Fehr said in his presser). Whatever: $240 million or $250 million is relatively not a long ways off from $190 million, so that’s pretty negotiable.

The other area where I think the NHL will want to negotiate with the union is in the contractual system. The NHL proposed no salary arbitration, increasing the years of service to become an unrestricted free agent from seven years to 10, raising entry-level contracts from three years to five and going to maximum five-year contracts. The NHLPA proposal offered no modifications, Fehr said. You know the NHL will want to delve into that.

Also, the NHLPA CBA proposal is for three years. The fourth year of the CBA is a player option to revert back to the current, expiring CBA. Zero chance the owners ever agree to that.

It will be interesting to see where this proposal goes - much like the owners proposal it's the first step in the negotiation process.

Fehr, 'still sufficient time to get NHL deal done'

I must say that I agree with the Head of the NHLPA – I also don’t see a reason to have a lock-out either. There is lots of time to get an agreement on a new CBA and in my opinion a lock-out does nothing for progressing the game of hockey after making much progress with exposure the last five seasons or so. Why not negotiate through at least the pre-season.

The NHL and the NHL Players' Association can agree there's still more than enough time to reach a new labor deal even though the union has yet to submit a counteroffer with less than six weeks left before the current collective bargaining agreement expires.

“I don't think time's running out yet,” Fehr said by phone Monday from Barcelona, where he met with about 40 NHL players. “I still think if the parties are dedicated to it, there's sufficient time to reach an agreement.”

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly concurred.

Daly declined to discuss the NHL's plans if an agreement is not reached by mid-September. [Associated Press]

Who is to blame? 

I am going to respond to a comment a fan made on a blog post that I wrote yesterday by someone named Bar Down, this is the comment that he posted, “Don't the players have something like a 57%-43% split??? What other sport is that uneven? I could be wrong...but if I'm right you must quit blaming the owners.” I do blame the owners – who else is culpable? The players were offered the current outrageous salaries by the owners. Do we blame Zach Parise, Ryan Suter and Shea Weber for their multiyear million dollars salaries? If the owners are willing to agree to these salaries I don’t blame the players for signing the contracts and taking the money.

Summer Dreaming...

If you’ve read Goon’s World for any length of time (thanks for reading by the way), you will see that this is for the most part, a 24/7 365 days a year blog dedicated for hockey… When I am not watching hockey, I am actually thinking or dreaming about hockey (NCAA and NHL Hockey). Let’s just say,  hockey is my religion of choice for me.

While listening to a podcast of the Pipeline show last week while riding my bike, Fighting Sioux junior defenseman Dillon Simpson said something that got me thinking – it’s going to be hockey season very soon. While I am not very good at math – we’re roughly about 2 months away from the start of the college hockey season. "If" the NHL gets their stuff together with the CBA, we are about 9 weeks away from the drop of the puck in the NHL.

The summer is beginning to wind down and incidentally the fall semester at UND starts on 22 August – so like I mentioned above -– we're getting down to crunch time – hockey season is just around the corner... The college hockey season begins the 6th and 12th of October with exhibition games against the Manitoba Bison and the USNDT under 18 team.

In the final season of the WCHA as we know it – the University of North Dakota Hockey team will begin its defense of the Broadmoor Trophy – in case you were counting – UND is going for the 4-peat … That would be unprecedented if UND won the trophy for season in a row.

Yesterday was a big day for the University of North Dakota sports – Per Jayson Hajdu UND has officially gone Division I in all of their sports.

The University of North Dakota is proud to announce that it has been elected to full Division I active membership status from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), officially completing UND's transition from Division II status. UND President Dr. Robert Kelley received a letter from the NCAA today confirming the University's active membership in Division I athletics

If you’ve been paying attention this summer, you will have noticed that the NCAA has been very busy – yesterday, the NCAA levied a very heavy punishment against BGSU defenseman freshman defenseman Ralfs Freibergs, basically Freibergs is going to get to play 3 regular season games and possibly about 2-6 playoff games if BGSU doesn’t decided to have him file for a redshirt.

Kevin Gordon Sentinel Tribune --- Bowling Green freshman defenseman Ralfs Freibergs has been suspended for 33 games by the NCAA, the result of his junior hockey team in Latvia playing in a professional league, Falcon hockey coach Chris Bergeron said.

The Latvian born Freibergs has played junior hockey in the United States the last 2 1/2 seasons, but played in his home country before that.

He played with the Latvian national team in the World Junior Championships in 2009 and 2010 . To prepare the team for the WJC, Latvian officials had the team play in a Latvian professional league.

The NCAA penalized Freibergs one game for each game he played in the league. "Ultimately, anything professional, when it comes to the NCAA, is something that will have penalties with it," Bergeron said. "We knew, as a program, as a staff, this was a possibility. It's not something out of left field."

BG has 36 regular-season games this season, so Freibergs will be eligible to play the Saturday game of its next-to-last series of the regular season.

This is what former Princeton Tiger and current LA Kings’ Kevin Westgarth had to say about the prospects of the NHL having another lockout. I agree with Westgarth; I think we are going to see a lockout – actually – I would be very surprised if it didn’t happen. In my opinion, I think that the owners are trying to weaken the NHLPA.

Pat Leonard, Blue Shirts Blog --- Finally, the LA Kings’ Kevin Westgarth said it best on Wednesday when asked what he believes is the players’ No. 1 issue, considering the feedback he’s received from his peers:

"Generally, like the fans, we are concerned about – I think everyone has a little post-traumatic stress from last time,” Westgarth said, referring to the lockout and missed season of 2004-05, when the union lost the battle and eventually agreed to the salary cap in place today.

“It is something (where) they locked us out last time. It’s foreseeable for them to lock us out again. So guys obviously want to play, but obviously we need to get the right deals together, as well.” Read that one more time: “It’s foreseeable for them to lock us out again.”

Boston Bruins heir apparent Tuukka Rask is ready to take over the reigns as the starting goalie in Beantown this fall. According to Capgeek, the RFA Rask has a new one year deal worth $3,500,000.

Tuukka Rask was caught off guard - just a little - when he heard fellow Bruins goalie Tim Thomas decided not to play next season.

Surprised? Yes.

Shocked? Not so much.

''I wasn't expecting him to do that, obviously,'' Boston's new starting goalie said Thursday at a charity event. ''But I really appreciated what he's done and I appreciate his decision to want to be with the family and take some time off hockey.

''It really didn't shock me that much, but I'm more sad to see him leave because we had a really good connection and friendship going on. But I'm sure he's happy now where he is, and gets to spend time with his family.''

Here is some interesting news – former Edmonton Oiler, Vancouver Canucks and New York Ranger forward Mark Messier has been awarded a $6-million in a settlement with the Vancouver Canucks. [Vancouver Sun] Mark Messier played with the Vancover Canucks from 1997-2000 and returned to play for the Rangers from 2000-04.

Former Fighting Sioux forward Chris Vandevelde was on an Edmonton Oilers podcast recently and this is what he had to say about his recent success in the AHL playoffs. Also, the Edmonton Journal also has this story on Vandy as well. There is a chance that Vandevelde could make the Edmonton Oilers roster out of training camp.

Jonathan Willis, Edmonton Journal --- In 68 regular season games in the AHL, Chris VandeVelde scored just seven goals. In 14 post-season games, however, he tallied six times. What happened?

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at VandeVelde’s last couple of seasons over the last two weeks. Between evaluating the Oilers’ prospects for our prospect series here at the Cult of Hockey and the Top-25 Under-25 at the Copper and Blue, his name would have come up anyway, but combine those two series with the fact that VandeVelde turned down his qualifying offer, subsequently signed an identical deal, and now is in the conversation as a possible Oilers roster option in 2012-13 and he’s been top of mind.

VandeVelde was on Oilers Now a few days ago, and host Bob Stauffer asked him about that bump in goal-scoring during the post-season. VandeVelde had some difficulty answering the question but even so I found what he said interesting:

"I mean I just… I, you know, I was shooting more and I had confidence and that’s a huge thing. Any player with confidence is obviously better, and just making good plays, playing with good line-mates, that’s just how it went and we had a good run there."

Here is a break down for UND's conference Affiliations. UND’s 2012-13 Conference Affiliations – this is an exciting time in UND sports as now all of UND’s sports have a conference to play in.

America Sky Conference: Men’s golf

Big Sky Conference (BSC): Men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, football, women’s golf, soccer, softball, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field, volleyball

Great West Conference (GWC): Baseball

Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF): Men’s swimming and diving

Western Athletic Conference (WAC): Women’s swimming and diving (affiliate member)

Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA): Men’s and women’s hockey (2012-13 final season)

NHL Owners can't claim they're poor - not after the latest free agent signings

I touched on this in the last blog post... The battle lines are being drawn up. The good news is, the two sides are talking to attempt to avoid another lock out. I doubt either the players or the NHL owners want another repeat of the lockout that cost the NHL the entire 2004-05 season.

Scott Burnside, ESPN.com --- Never mind the spreadsheets and the pie graphs breaking down the NHL's revenue streams, all union head Donald Fehr needs to do when the NHL and its players sit down to try to hammer out a new labor deal is to bring the clippings from the first four days of free agency.

Zach Parise and Ryan Suter combining for $196 million over the next 13 seasons.

Forty-year-olds Ray Whitney and Jaromir Jagr combining to bring in a hair more than $9 million next season.

Matt Carle, 20th among NHL defensemen in point production last season, was lured back to Tampa by a six-year deal that will pay him an average of $5.5 million annually.

Jiri Hudler struck it rich with a four-year, $16 million contract after a career-best 25-goal campaign in Detroit.

Brandon Prust -- seriously -- got $10 million over four years to bring toughness to the Montreal lineup.

Every time a new contract was added to the list of bloated contracts that came before, commissioner Gary Bettman must have given a grim shake of his head.

When the NHL announced that they had a record breaking $3.3 billion in revenue this past season and then they turned around and said that the NHL owners we're hurting is going to fall upon deaf ears. I don’t believe it and I am sure most of the fans don’t as well.

Seriously! The NHL Owners are going to have a hard time convincing most sane people that the NHL owners are suffering financially. Sure, there is no doubt that certain teams are not as well off as financially as others – that’s life.

I also don’t doubt that are probably a half dozen NHL teams that would fold tomorrow if there is another lockout, but the owners made this bed for themselves. I don’t blame the players in this mess, the owners are the ones that signed free agents for astronomically high contracts and then turn around and say we want to reel in player contracts and that we’re broke.

The players and owners get to work and try avoid a work stoppage.

Fehr, 'NHL Labor Negotiations about to begin'

Put me down as being cynical that the players and the owners can work out a deal and avoid a work stoppage. The reason I am cynical is that the NHL Players Association executive director Donald Fehr has already been through one work stoppage with major league baseball, what makes us think that he will be able to get an agreement without having a work stoppage in the NHL.

CHICAGO -- The head of the NHL players' union said Monday that negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement will begin "very quickly" -- perhaps as early as this week.

New NHL Players Association executive director Donald Fehr said negotiations will begin after Wednesday's meeting of the NHLPA's executive board, though he did not specify a date.

Fehr was asked if a work stoppage was inevitable. He said nothing like that was coming from the union, and note that the NHLPA has not yet made a formal CBA proposal. He said the union had not yet "heard" a proposal from the league.

The NHL canceled the 2004-05 season before a labor deal was reached that included a salary cap for the first time. That agreement expires on Sept. 15.

Commissioner Garry Bettman said during the Stanley Cup finals last month that he believes the labor scene is different this time around. One big change is that the players are now being led by Fehr, the former head of the powerful baseball union.

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