NHL lockout: Your daily hockey fix for Day 15
This is Day 15 of the NHL lockout, 2012 edition. Every day, we'll serve up some CBA talk and help you get your hockey fix. Let's begin, shall we?
CBA roundup
• The games missed to this point remains the entire exhibition schedule (97 games).
• The labor talks go on between the sides, and the bridge remains between them when it comes to the HRR split. The NHL side keeps talking about how the players have to bring a better deal to the table, even if they are the only ones making the good-faith offers up to this point according to Larry Brooks.
Let's stipulate that the players represent the lone party to have offered concessions in what only laughingly and loosely can be defined as collective bargaining negotiations. An offer such as the league's -- which simply reduces the rate of a prior proposed salary cut — is not a concession.
Regardless, the responsibility does fall on the NHLPA to attempt to advance the stalled process, and that entails submitting a revised proposal to the league that will place owners' commissioner Gary Bettman on the defensive when and if he refuses to consider it. (New York Post)
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• All lockout long, we've heard the fans will come back and that's a card the owners have. Another lockout doesn't hurt because, in the end, the fans will come back.
But they might be getting a little brazen. Do it enough times, and you might finally start losing fans, if this Canadian reader poll is any indication.
With more than 12,000 fans responding to our poll, nearly 62% said they have had enough of this drama and will watch less hockey when the players return to the ice. The remainder decided they loved hockey too much to hold a grudge. (Ottawa Sun)
• You can add another name to the growing list of players headed overseas to play during the lockout: Evander Kane of the Winnipeg Jets. The forward who just signed a new deal with the Jets right before the lockout began, is going to play for Dinamo Minsk of the KHL while the negotiations continue. (National Post)
• Some people who aren't headed overseas to work during the lockout: player agents. I doubt too many people will feel badly for the agents. But as long as their players aren't getting paid, they aren't getting paid, either. The prospect of a year sans salary isn't appealing for anybody. (Star-Ledger)
Hockey fix
Instead of one play today, how about 60? As in watching all 60 of Steven Stamkos' goals from last season with the Lightning over again. Watching some of them, you can't help but ask: How do you leave Stamkos all alone right in front of the net? Oh, and that one-timer is something else.
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