So the NHLPA made an offer for a salary cap. $49 million per team. Sounds pretty good to me, but the NHL didn’t think so. Personally I have mixed feelings about this whole situation.
I really don’t (and can’t) sympathize with the players. That’s for sure. But I don’t blame them for what’s going on. Sure you can look at the players and say, “Oh what $10 million a year isn’t good enough?” But you have to look at it this way: the players didn’t offer themselves those high salaries, the owners did. So it’s the owners that got themselves into this mess in the first place, so even though I said I don’t (and can’t) sympathize with the players, they aren’t the ones to blame; the owners are along with another man: Garry Bettman.
The NHL got Bettman to be commissioner to do one thing: get a salary cap. When did they get him, like a decade ago? Good job Garry, you’re doing great work (ya fucking wanker)! If it weren’t for ol’Garry there, this wouldn’t be happening. It was his idea to expand the league in the Southern American sunbelt, and getting all these other teams like Nashville and Carolina. By doing so he thinned out the talent, and made people less interested in the game. That in turn reduced ticket sales, which led to ticket prices going up to compensate for the losses. The new rise in ticket prices led to even more people turning away from going to games. Which led to the owners not having any money. So they think that the way to go is to get a salary cap! Ya lets give our players all these high contracts and them tell them “Oh sorry we want to cut your pay.”
The players were even willing to take a pay cut as early as November. They offered to take a 24% pay cut. I don’t care who you are and what you make, a 24%cut in pay is a lot. But no, that wasn’t good enough for Garry and the gang. So the players said they’d take a cap of $52 million per team, then went down to $49 million. The players are the ones stepping up and are willing to admitting to defeat, but apparently that still isn’t good enough.
So now there’s not going to be a season, and that just proves what Garry Bettman doesn’t can about: the fans. If he really loved the fans like he says he does he wouldn’t have turned down the last offer made by the NHLPA. I think all the fans want is watch the game again, and ya a salary cap would be nice, so take it already! I hope they do end up at a salary cap soon, and not just so there’ll be a season next year, but because that’s why they hired Bettman for in the first place. And once they have their salary cap, then Bettman will be useless; he will have served his purpose. And what do you do with something useless? You get rid of it. So maybe after all this is over and Gary has no more use to the league, maybe they’ll hire someone with…oh I don’t know…prior knowledge of the game and how it’s played. That’s usually what you do isn’t it? But then again, I’m just a fan, and apparently the way Gary sees it, I don’t matter.
Youngblood
1 comment:
Hockey players have always been big babies though, don't forget that. but i do agree with you, the cap was supposed to be put on the salaries a long time ago, and in the past 10 years, the hockey players have been spoiled, and who can blame them for being used to making a gazillion dollars a season?
but there is something wrong with our society when a player of a sport makes more money per year, than relief efforts for tsunami's , victims of war, and the like can make in a lifetime.
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