NHL Lock-Out - Part Two (Part One was posted on Jan 7th):

From: Sturm
To: Meredith
Date: January 8, 2005
Subject: Re: Here we go....

As you so wisely pointed out, we have a lot of common ground here. My beef continues to be this: As you appear to concede, the Commissioner/Owners caused this problem with over-expansion and other policies that put this league in a free-fall. You think suggest that contraction is not a realistic option. So Meredith, you write the following, "But, as it stands, someone has to give in to get this game back on the ice."

So, if I understand this correctly, you want the players to get spanked in this CBA because the Owners screwed everything up? "Someone has to give in" suggests that you want the players to be the noble group and agree to have their payrolls cut in half so that the owners can feel better about the abortion that they conducted?

The best analogy would be this. Married couple has marriage jeopardized because the husband has been sleeping with his secretary. He is caught, and agrees to counseling. During counseling, he suggests that the wife is too fat, needs to work out more, and become more interested in war movies to save the marriage. Does this make sense? Of course not. The party that is responsible
for the fire must write the check to fix it. In this case, the owners, who could not expand fast enough knowing how many expansion fees they would receive, think the solution is that the players give in 100% and the owners reap the benefits. Some compromise! I don't buy it.

You want solutions? I wish I had a great one. I do suggest a luxury tax is a good place to start, with teams spending over $50 million paying into a fund to bail out the Canadian teams and other small-markets, but I realize that any healthy league has to grow into that. It has to become healthy financially, which is caused only if this team becomes viable on a national level. When it does, it will reap some level of national television income, which will heal much of what ills this league. But, shutting down this league in the name of bullying the players to except the owner's terms or else shows that Bettman does not give a rip about negotiating. This is not about compromise. This is about him winning. And if half of all hockey fans leave this sport for good,
he doesn't care. He will kill this sport in the name of winning this battle. And I hate him for it.
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From: Meredith
To: Sturm
Date: January 9, 2005
Subject: Re: Here we go....

I suppose I have trouble seeing how the players will get "spanked" by agreeing to a salary cap. Sure, a $5 million salary cap would probably be a bad idea for the NHLPA. But how about an $80 million cap? How exactly does that empty Mike Modano's pockets?

In the end, we probably aren't that far apart in our views of the NHL. We both support a luxury tax, we both support contraction, and we both agree that Gary Bettman is slowly sucking the life out of the NHL. I saw this on your blog this morning:

During the NHL lockout, ESPN2 is averaging 0.4% of U.S. cable TV households with replacement programming, including college basketball, that otherwise wouldn't be on TV. That's a tiny rating. But it's double what NHL games drew.

I knew hockey was struggling, but that is truly alarming. And no matter who you back in this lockout, players or owners, it's clear that both are to blame for what is now becoming quite clear:

Barring a miracle or a major image overhaul, the NHL has no future.