The NHLPA has always been pushed around, bullied, stepped on and abused by their counterparts (Those being the owners) for lots of reasons, some of which I speculated about . But this time around,?maybe they’re serious.
The hiring of Donald Fehr by the NHLPA years ago scared me the moment they did it. Anyone who knew anything about the man knew what he was about, and they had hired him for a very specific purpose. That being the elimination of the salary cap the players had begrudgingly accepted back in 2004. The only problem with all of this is that the cap has been so UNDENIABLY SUCCESSFUL. It’s well known that the league revenues have grown by almost 40% since signing of the last CBA in 2004. Not even the NFL can boast such growth, and you would be hard fought to find ANY industry that grew 1.1 BILLION FROM 2004-11. In one of the worst economies this country has seen in 70 years, to show that much progress is nothing short of remarkable.
Player salaries rose 23% on average from 04-11, with the average salary growing from 1.83 million to 2.4 million. In 2004 there were 36 players making more than 6 million dollars, today there are 61. But the players aren’t even the ones who actually benefitted the most from the 2004 CBA. From :
Prior to the 2004-05 lockout, the average NHL franchise was worth $163.3 million. The three most valuable teams were:
New York Rangers – $282.0 million
Toronto Maple Leafs – $280.0 million
Philadelphia Flyers – $264,sports blog.0 million
The three least valuable teams were:
Carolina Hurricanes – $100.0 million
Pittsburgh Penguins – $101.0 million
Buffalo Sabres – $103.0 million
Fast forward to current day. According to Forbes, the average NHL franchise is valued at $239.83 million, based on the numbers generated from the 2010-2011 season. This means that the average NHL franchise has increased nearly 47% in seven years. This appreciation has easily outpaced the rate of inflation ($1 of 2003 dollars is worth about $1.20 now).
Let’s look at the three most valuable franchises at present:
Toronto Maple Leafs, $521 million
New York Rangers, $507 million
Montreal Canadiens, $445 million
The Maple Leafs have increased 86.0% in value since before the 2004-05 lockout,cheap jerseys, while the Rangers have increased 80% and the Canadiens have increased a whopping 128.2%.
The three least valuable franchises present day are:
Phoenix Coyotes, $134 million
New York Islanders, $149 million
Columbus Blue Jackets, $152 million
By any account, by any measurable, meaningful or quantifiable means the NHL CBA of 2004 can easily be considered the most successful Collective Bargaining Agreement in the history of pro-sports. The only problem is both sides seem to think that they are the ones responsible, and thereby most essential to that continued growth. It wasn’t the players or the owners, it was the AGREEMENT. It was THE DEAL. It’s no mystery to me that the second they agreed to an economic system that was fair and balanced that the entire sport saw?rapid growth. Once the game was decided on the ice by the players, and not by agents in a boardroom, lots of people suddenly became interested.
Without a salary cap to give cost certainty there would be no CEC, no?Penguins,cheap jersey sale?and no hockey in Pittsburgh,cheap jersey. There would be no Phoenix Coyotes or Winnipeg Jets, either. Carolina and Tampa Bay would probably be in other cities, maybe nowhere at all. Both sides are treating the previous CBA as if it were a total failure, as if the whole thing needs blown up and?rebuilt from scratch. The last CBA was the best thing to happen to hockey since Stan Mikita accidentally broke his stick and?discovered the curved blade.
What Donald Fehr is either ignoring or?oblivious too is that HOCKEY ISNT BASEBALL. It doesn’t have 100 years of tradition and loyalty. It doesn’t have entrenched fan bases outside of Canada, and that’s where 23 of the 30 teams operate. Baseball can survive a non-capped league. Hockey cannot. Baseball fans are willing to accept 20 years of losing and still attend a Pirates game (though I have no idea why, so don’t ask).?The residents of Colombus are not. For 2-1/2 months in the summer the only competition MLB faces is the WNBA. I’m sorry to tell you Mr. Fehr, but if there isn’t any Hockey being played in October, people have alternatives. You have heard of the NFL, right? Maybe someone mentioned the existance of a professional basketball league to you at some point?
Fehr’s assumed replacement to the salary cap is something similar to MLB’s revenue sharing system. But NHL network contracts are simply not big enough to support 15-20 teams unable to operate in the black. They don’t have as many games and not as many fans watching when they do. For God’s sake the Tampa Bay Lightning have recently won a Stanley Cup (2004) have one of the most marketable players in the league (Stamkos) one of the most respected and exciting (St Louis) and still cannot consistently draw a crowd. Without a cap?Stamkos and St Louis are playing on Detroit’s 3rd line, and the Lightning might as well apply for membership in the AHL.
Get rid of the cap and you can get rid of any chance of any team outside of 7 or 8 teams ( Original 6, LA, Vancouver, maybe Philly) to have any chance to win a Stanley cup. NO CAP= NO HOPE. It will turn Hockey into baseball, and no one ever referred to Hockey as “America’s Game”. People in Montreal will go to a game even if the Habs suck. Fans in Nashville? Not so much.
Without a cap half the teams in Canada would become irrelevant. Calgary and Edmonton struggle even with the cap, without it they would be little more than glorified OHL teams. Canadian teams might survive, barely, but no amount of revenue sharing would be able to save the Hurricanes or Blue Jackets. Fans in those cities simply would not be willing to support a team that has ZERO CHANCE of being anything more than the Red Wings whipping boy.
In 2002 the Red wings roster consisted of Brendan Shannahan, Steve Yzerman, Sergei Federov, Brett Hull, Chris Chelios, Dominick Hasek, Nick Lindstrom, Luc Robitaille and some kid named Pavel Datsyuk. That’s 7 HOF on one roster, possibly 9,cheap nfl nike jerseys. NINE HALL OF FAME PLAYERS. That’s half the number of skaters you dress every game. Oh, and they had Scotty Bowman as their coach. Think that wouldn’t happen again? Of course it would, and the NHL would fall from niche’ sport to an obscure novelty.
You can’t have a Boyz II Men concert on ice. You can’t have fireworks inside the CEC. And you cannot have a competitive hockey league without a salary cap. Neither side should want to try anyways.