Let the countdown begin. It’s nearing September 15th. For some of you that date might not mean anything too you. If you are one of these people please read on or go back to playing Hoop It Up 2004. For the most, this dreaded date is approaching way too fast. And for most that don’t believe all that crap the media is shooting out, it means no NHL hockey. Sounds weird doesn’t it. But it’s reality. There is nothing we can do, unless any of you are multi billionaires? Anyone? Didn’t think so.

Anyways, for those of you who do not know what the hell is going on, I am here to try and explain this the easiest way possible, never easier than Bill Walters himself.

Bottom line the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is all money talks. The players want more and the NHL owners want to spend less. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says that player salaries have jumped up 240 percent since the last CBA was signed in 1995. Sure that 240 percent it great for the players but not so great for the ownership when their revenues has only gone up 160 percent. For the last couple of years the NHL has been aiming for a ‘cost certainty” system, which could take another 10 pages of writing to explain, but I’ll get to the point. “Cost certainty” means a more equal ratio between revenue and player salaries. Pretty straight forward hey? I guess not. Just last season the players salaries took up 75 percent of the NHL gross revenue, not quite an equal ratio.

With all that said I could now branch off into about 10 different things that have to do with the CBA. For example, How Forbes Magazine reported that in 2003 16 NHL teams were losing money. But that’s for a different day.

With all this happening both sides have their own solution. The NHL is saying that some sort of salary cap is in need. Either some sort of “hard cap” or “soft cap”. A “hard cap” has a set salary maximum that each team can spend on their roster and also a minimum. The NFL uses a hard cap. A percentage of the leagues income over the year helps set the cap. A soft cap also sets a cap on how much teams can spend on their salaries but a team may go over it if they pay a “luxury tax”. A salary cap can help the NHL by allowing the smaller market teams to compete with the bigger market teams.

On the NHLPA side, they think “Revenue sharing” is the way to go. Revenue sharing is very similar to a salary cap but a lot simpler. Large market teams pretty much “redistribute” income to smaller market teams. Most of the money used in this is T.V. income, merchandise sales, and ticket income.

So as it stands, both sides are getting nowhere. These so called 9 hour meetings everyday have solved nothing. So obviously this mean no NHL. Now for our next question…how long?

So for those of you who didn’t know what was up, now you do. Stay tuned for more in depth coverage of the CBA. That’s all for now…

Boychuk (Stevies Twin)