Friday dreaming...

There are 36 days until the University of North Dakota plays it’s first exhibition game against CIS team the Manitoba Bison. One thing college hockey fans will never have to worry about is that the NCAA will never have a lockout. That being said, I do like the NHL.

A tradition of Excellence has it's Rankings and Features, Part 2

The picture that you see on the right is the goalie mask of Western Michigan University Broncos goaltender Frank Slubowski. It’s been making it’s way around the internet to the various sites and I think it’s an impressive site to behold. Slubowski's mask has The Big Lebowski theme on it. The paint job on the mask was done by Head Strong Grafx.

On the NHL CBA negotiations front, it looks like the NHL is once again going to be the No Hockey League as Bettman and the owners are bound and determined to lock the players out for a third time since 1994. Why does the Bettman and the owners want to lock out the players? it's simple, because they can!!!

Some of the Redwing Players are impressed with the NHL owners latest proposal – I don’t think that anyone is really that shocked by this either. I am sure that if we polled a majority of the NHL players we would get the same response.

Ansar Khan, MLive.com --- “We understand some clubs are struggling,'' Cleary said. “Our revenue-sharing (plan) helped lower-end teams. There's a lot more sharing of the pie, so everyone would keep their heads above water.''

Privately, some players are saying there is little hope of getting a deal done in time to prevent a lockout on Sept. 15. They don't believe the entire season will be canceled, like it was in 2004-05, but some think the 82-game schedule will be reduced to 60 or 65 games.

Cleary, however, said he hasn't abandoned hope of saving the full season.

“There's still time,'' Cleary said. “No one wants a lockout. The money that will be lost for everyone will be astronomical. A lot of people at Joe Louis Arena I know personally could be laid off. That's one side no one thinks about.''

Said Abdelkader: “We know Sept. 15 is coming up. I don't think anyone is panicking. The sides are still apart, but we've still got some time. Hopefully, we can get something done before opening night (Oct. 12). We still got a lot of time to hash things out. I think there's still a lot of optimism that something can get done.''

So when the NHL owners made their latest proposal this past Tuesday to the NHLPA there was a discussion about the new offer’s revenue split being somewhere in the neighborhood of 51.6 per cent to 48.4 – but after some the great hockey minds perused the NHL owners new proposal – the consensus was that the players’ was more like 54-46 in favor of the NHL owners. This new breakdown was based on changes on how the owners calculated the Hockey Related Revenues, it seems that what is consider Hockey Related Revenues has shrunk making the players share of the HHR less, hence the smaller share for the players.

Apparently, the NHLPA would like to have set standards to know just what exactly the owners are calculating as their Hockey Related Revenues. While the owners originally came out and said that the new revenue split was something like 50-50, it all depends on how you look at it. Some have referred to the 50-50 revenue split as being less than generous revenue definitions.

From the latest proposal, these are the four changes that the owners are proposing - this doesn't necessarily mean that the owners are going to get these proposed changes - but this is what the owners have put out.

1) In the existing CBA, teams can deduct the cost of doing business from HRR. But there are limits. For example, deductions from preseason games or "special games" such as European openers, "shall not in the aggregate exceed fifteen (15) per cent per League Year on a League-wide basis" of the revenues. You can find all of the examples, if you wish, in Article 50 of the current document. The NHL is arguing that costs far exceed these caps.

2) One area of HRR the NHL cannot deduct ANY costs from is luxury suite sales (e.g., paying people to sell them). Everything must be thrown into the pot. Mistake, oversight, whatever - the league would like a re-do.

3) Lightning owner Jeff Vinik spent $35 million US last summer to upgrade The Tampa Bay Times Forum. Meanwhile, Rangers owner Jim Dolan committed an estimated $977 million to a massive renovation of the Madison Square Garden. (Say what you want about Dolan, but doing that without public funding is extremely impressive.) As it stands, teams receive no financial credit for that. The league would like that changed. The model is probably the latest NFL CBA, which allows the league the option of taking 1.5 per cent from the NFLPA's 47 per cent share to build new stadiums. Larger revenues from newer buildings, the reasoning goes, benefits the players, too.

4) When players on one-way deals like Wade Redden or Jeff Finger are sent to the minors, their salaries no longer count. Not only is the NHL trying to eliminate this loophole from the salary-cap portion of the discussion, it is trying to make those contracts tied to HRR, too. [Elliotte Friedman CBC.CA]

With each passing day it looks like there is going to be a work stoppage in the NHL. It also looks like the players are preparing for delayed start to the season – but they also have to be ready because these impasses can come to a quick conclusion. While there is really no reason to believe that a quick solution can be reached and I also think many hockey fans are of that mindset as well – based on what we are hearing in the media and from Gary Bettman. Fans as well as the players would like to see the NHL start on time. I just hope that there is a quick solution to the CBA negoiations.

George Richards, Miami Herald --- Commissioner Gary Bettman has said if a new deal isn’t reached by that time, the league will lock out its players for the third time under his watch.

There is some optimism a deal will get done especially after the league’s latest proposal. Yet expectations are games will be missed. So what exactly are these players doing working out in August?

“Getting ready for November,” joked one former Panthers player who asked not to be identified. “I hope we play in October. But I also hope we play in November. We’re still getting ready.”

According to Michael Russo of the Star Tribune this is the way the defense pairing are going to look to start training camp for the Minnesota Wild. It's nice to see that he Minnesota Wild have more depth than they have had in a very long time.

Ryan Suter and Jared Spurgeon
Marco Scandella and Tom Gilbert
Clayton Stoner and Nate Prosser or Jonas Brodin

Fred Poulin of the Hockey Writers has his top 20 overpaid players in the NHL. I think you will also notice a few familiar names from the WCHA as well as players from our favorite teams. Also, it’s not hard to see how some teams can get into financial trouble – look at some of the salaries some of these players are paying – in retrospect, I doubt the owners of the Islanders or any other team would pay Rick Dipietro what he is getting paid right now.

Ville Leino, Buffalo Sabres– $4,500,000 cap hit
Christian Ehrhoff, Buffalo Sabres – $4,000,000 cap hit
Jay Bouwmeester, Calgary – $6,680,000 cap hit
Mike Cammalleri, Calgary Flames – $6,000,000 cap hit – Michigan Wolverines
Joni Pitkanen, Carolina Hurricanes – $4,500,000 cap hit
Paul Stastny, Colorado Avalanche – $6,600,000 cap hit – Denver Pioneers
Shawn Horcoff, Edmonton Oilers – $5,500,000 cap hit
Ales Hemsky, Edmonton Oilers – $5,000,000 cap hit
Ed Jovanovski, Florida Panthers – $4,125,000 cap hit
Dany Heatley, Minnesota Wild – $7,500,000 cap hit – Minnesota Wild & Wisconsin Badgers
Scott Gomez, Montreal Canadiens – $7,357,143 cap hit
Rick Dipietro, New York Islanders – $4,500,000 cap hit
Lubomir Visnovsky, New York Islanders – $5,600,000 cap hit
Paul Martin, Pittsburgh Penguins – $5,000,000 cap hit – Minnesota Gophers
Martin Havlat, San Jose Sharks – $5,000,000 cap hit – Former Minnesota Wild
Vincent Lecavalier, Tampa Bay Lightning – $7,727,273 cap hit
Tim Connolly, Toronto Maple Leafs $4,750,000 cap hit
Mike Komisarek, Toronto $4,500,000 cap hit – Michigan Wolverines
Keith Ballard, Vancouver $4,250,000 cap hit – Minnesota Gophers
Roberto Luongo, Vancouver $5,333,333 cap hit

Former NHL agitator Sean “Sloppy Seconds” Avery has officially announced his retirement.

Here is a pretty good read on the CBA One could make the argument that the rich teams are the ones that are going to pay a heavy burden with any new CBA agreement. - Frank Seravalli: How Flyers will suffer with labor changes.

The Edmonton Oilers have locked up two of their young stars Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle to identical seven-year deals worth an eye popping $42 million dollars. It’s apparent that the Edmonton Oilers don’t want to lose their two up and coming stars to an offer sheet and would like to keep them well into the future.