Recent Events in NHL History

Alberta's Child | 2/18/05 | Self

[CollegeRepublican]

Yeah, I forgot about Florida. Shows you how important they are :). Your plan sounds good.

And for everyone else, I guess we could move Carolina back to Hartford. Why did they move in the first place?

Finally, as a partisan Washington Capitals fan, I do not want to contract them. Plus we traded all of our expensive and talented players for used jock straps and puck bags, so therefore we could stick around for a few years with a $10 million payroll.

Bring back the Wales and Campbell Conferences. I used to love watching the Patrick Division rivalries.

[TypeZoNegative]

Again, you're forgetting about the huge snowbird/refugee fanbase and they'd like to see the home team play their original home's team.

[discostu]

Well the NHL already has endless movement, mostly in the form of "rentals" for Cup runs. That's one that irritates me, luckily those rentals rarely get to hoist the Cup.

[ken5050]

It's going to be a legal mess, no doubt about it, and the Canadian courts will pose a problem..but ti's still easier for the league to do by itself, than without first being compleeled to negotiate it with the union..This is like making sausage..I love to eat it..but not to watch it being made..

[TypeZoNegative]

Do you guys still have Petr Bondra?

[mike182d]

Again, you're forgetting about the huge snowbird/refugee fanbase and they'd like to see the home team play their original home's team.

When I went to see a Tampa Bay/Detroit game in Tampa Bay, back when they first started out, there were more Detroit Red Wings jerseys than Tampa jerseys. lol

[TypeZoNegative]

Every Florida team is like that. When I was in Orlando for the Magic's 2002 season, there were more New York Knicks fans than there were Orlando Magic fans.

[Alberta's Child]

The team can be allowed to sign 2 star forwards, one star goalie and one star defenseman to as much as they want, but the other teams can only sign them away for the leauge maximum.

I don't think the NHL is going to allow that anytime soon. One of the reason the league rejected the players' latest offer was that it included a soft salary cap that permitted just TWO exemptions of this kind for each team.

[Loyalist]

The problem in Canada is that each province has different laws regarding replacement workers.

Ontario and Alberta permit replacement workers; British Columbia and Quebec do not, although the NHLPA is not recognized as a union in Quebec.

If the NHL tried to declare an impasse and hire replacement players, the Canadiens and Canucks would either not play at all, or be forced to play elsewhere for the duration.

I have heard that the NHL would argue before courts in those provinces that the players are not employees of the NHL or its teams but independent contractors, thus getting around the ban on replacement workers. I don't know how that would fly, however.

[Alberta's Child]

With the cap level that's coming there will be no room for movement . . .

Oh yes there will. There will be movement back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. With the cap level that's coming, I predict that the next Jari Kurri, Jaromir Jagr, Teemu Selanne, or Peter Forsberg will look upon the NHL as nothing more than a three-year hiatus in the middle of a European hockey career.

If you think the NHL has been dull over the last few years, just wait until you see NHL rosters filled with 7-8 fourth-line forwards.

[CollegeRepublican]

Washington, however, is a dead team. the season ticket base is about 2,000, and it is not uncommon to have 5,000 people in attendance for a weekday game.

I disagree. In the past four years Washington has averaged 15,845 per game. There are somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 season ticket holders. Washington's attendance dropped last year to 14,720 per home game due to the ownership trading off all of our high priced free agents and picking up prospects and draft picks. Washington will have a young team that can learn to play together and the fans will come back to watch the team.

[CollegeRepublican]

No, traded to Ottawa.

[Repealthe17thAmendment]

and one of his first orders of business as commissioner is to discard the traditional conference and division names and replace them with bland geographic names similar to every other major sport.

I didn't realize that this was one of Bettman's first moves.

But I knew that when the Blues went from the Norris Division to the who knows what division, hockey was moving in the wrong direction!

[CollegeRepublican]

Red Wings fans are like Yankees fans. You can find them everywhere. Hell even Capitals Season ticket holders will wear Red Wings jerseys when they come to town.

[Repealthe17thAmendment]

Don't forget the Neutral Zone Trap.

That has made hockey almost unwatchable on television.

[wallcrawlr]

sure there is

[mc5cents]

This may sound bizarre, but I couldn't even tell you when the NHL returned to network television.

Me neither. I do remember Piere Puck though? And who can forget the red flash puck on Fox?

[ken5050]

Maybe for a year or so..but the influx of NHLer's overseas will fill up those slots..so you'll have a lot of openings for college players to make the NHL rosters.. It might even be good for the sport.

One more point..Many of the NHL players are married, kids..and they don't want to uproot their families for 6+ months to go overseas, and the wives don't want their husbands off alone that long..Don't discount the domestic pressure..

I remember 1980, when Ken Morrow went straight from the USA gold medal team to the Islander's first Cup..

[wallcrawlr]

MN North Stars and DUI's...wow, thats unusual.

[Alberta's Child]

Well the NHL already has endless movement, mostly in the form of "rentals" for Cup runs.

At least under the last CBA these "rentals" were mostly veterans who were somewhat past their prime -- like Ray Bourque, for example. These were players who were 31 or older who would be unrestricted free agents at the end of a season, and they were traded because their team did not plan to re-sign them.

Look how awful the NFL system has become . . . contracts in the NFL don't mean anything because players can be cut at any time (imagine Michael Vick getting cut 90 days after signing a 10-year contract with the Falcons!), so you have all these "unrestricted free agents" out there who are no more than 24 years old and just entering the prime years of their careers.