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NHL Lockout.


steezyb

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I was talking to a local jersey shop owner yesterday and he was definitely concerned about how it's going to affect his business. He sells mainly NHL gear, so he has genuine concern. There's so many people that are going to negatively affected by this. It's adamn shame. I'm quite bitter about the whole thing.

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As soon as Fehr was Hired it was obvious a lockout was inevitable and if you thought different then you need to look up the guys history. Saying that I'm siding with the players 100%. The owners circumvent the cap, that they waisted a whole season putting in, every chance they get then cry poor the next day saying they pay the players too much. Give me a break.

While I am not 100% on the side of the players, I am more on their side. You got owners who are saying "we need a 5 year cap on contracts" and then just before the lockout, let me give this guy 6 or 7 years". Don't contradict yourselves, this is for the owners and players.

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Here's a direct quote from the KHL facebook page.

"Let the show begin! Malkin & Gonchar to Magnitka, Datsyuk almost in Kazan, Andrei Kostitsyn to Traktor. Who's next? Place your bet."

Kovalchuk reportedly has an agreement with SKA St Petersburg

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As jersey collectors, let's look on the bright side. Think of all the "Euro" jerseys that will be sought after as the players start signing overseas. I'm sure Johnny on the Spot can't wait to pick up that Giroux "KHL" , "DEL" or "Czech Extraliga" team jersey...or whatever team he signs with.

This is possibly the only bright side out of this and it lets us expand our collection in different ways just like 04-05 did.

On a completely different note, due to an agreement that was reached in 2006, if there is no NHL season, the Stanley Cup could actually be awarded to a Non-NHL team.

Canadian Press

2/7/2006 1:46:07 PM

TORONTO (CP) - Stanley has won the right to free agency.

Two Toronto beer-league hockey players have won a nearly year-long legal battle to ensure the Stanley Cup doesn't have to stay in mothballs in the event of another NHL season is wiped out by lockout or walkout.

The settlement doesn't necessarily mean the Cup would be awarded to a non-NHL team should a future season be wiped out. It would be up to the trustees who look after the Cup to make that decision in a year where the league doesn't operate.

Nor do the two men who launched the dispute believe a cup normally won by professional athletes will ever be given to pickup players.

But the settlement does offer some reassurance to diehard fans that the cup originally donated to Canada as a challenge trophy to help develop the sport won't have to gather dust if some future season is lost by bickering owners and players.

''Realistically, we never presumed to be the guys who would play for it,'' said Gard Shelley, who launched the legal challenge with friend and teammate David Burt last spring.

''But if an extended commercial dispute went on say even longer than the last one, or some other drastic changes occurred, then you just don't want the thing put away and forgotten about.''

Shelley, 56, and Burt, 55, are members of a Toronto pickup hockey league called the Wednesday Nighters. Distraught last year when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman declared the 2004-05 season cancelled due to the labour war, the pair asked: how can the Cup only be available to NHL teams if they're not even playing?

''A few beers later, we said, `we'll play for the Cup, they don't own the ###### Cup,''' Shelley said.

Added Burt: ''It just didn't feel right to us that the Cup could be locked away in a cupboard while some millionaires battled over money.''

A day later, the two pursued the idea and through an Internet search engine found a legal opinion from Edmonton lawyer Rod Payne, who questioned whether it was the NHL's right to withhold awarding of the Cup given to Canada as a gift.

''We decided there was merit to the thing, and that your average Canadian doesn't want to see the thing put away and hidden just because of a commercial dispute in a professional hockey league,'' Shelley said.

Payne's argument hinged on determining what Lord Stanley's intentions were when he donated the Cup in 1892, and whether the trustees overstepped their bounds when a 1947 agreement, revised in 2000, handed its control over to the NHL.

A court hearing on the case was scheduled for Tuesday, but lawyer Tim Gilbert said a deal was struck last Friday.

''A David and Goliath story,'' Gilbert said, adding that his clients launched legal action ''to establish a principle.''

As part of the settlement, the league will inject $100,000 a year into hockey leagues for women and underprivileged children for the next five years.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league was ''pleased'' to have the matter resolved.

''In a lot of respects, the litigation was the sole remaining vestige of a year-long labour dispute that was difficult for us and for our fans,'' Daly said. ''It was time to turn the page and move on.

''We're satisfied that the terms of the settlement adequately protect the league's interests.''

A new clause will be included by the NHL in a revised agreement this year with the cup's trustees - Ian (Scotty) Morrison, former head of the Hockey Hall of Fame, and former NHL official Brian O'Neill - allowing them to award the trophy to someone else if the NHL isn't using it.

Reached at his Montreal home, O'Neill said he would have felt ''obliged'' to at least consider finding a home for the cup last year after the NHL season was cancelled - had he been allowed to. The trustees' existing deal with the league, reached in 2000, didn't allow him or Morrison to consider that option.

But O'Neill also said he would have to be convinced any potential recipients performed at a ''very high standard'' worthy of a cup that hockey players past and present consider the sport's ultimate prize.

''We wouldn't want to demean the Stanley Cup by presenting it to anyone we didn't consider to be the best,'' he said.

O'Neill wouldn't speculate on any hypothetical scenario that could yield a worthy cup contestant, such as a professional tournament or rival league.

''You're looking at five or six years down the line. Who knows what kind of competition there will be out there at that time?'' he said.

Shelley said it was never the pair's goal to get the cup out of NHL hands.

''Who knows what the landscape of hockey would look like some point in the future if the NHL ceased operations,'' he said.

''But I fully expect the NHL to keep playing - I hope they do - and keep playing for the Stanley Cup.''

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Award the cup to a KHL team and you can ensure there will never be another lockout again. The fury of 5 million Canadians converging on Gary Bettman's front lawn...

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Honestly I am not surprised there is a lockout. There has been growing concerns of it since the end of the season in June. And now it actually came to fruition. I just want there to be an agreement between the two sides. Again, the fans and arena employees are getting screwed.... again. It sucks. I feel terrible for the team employees who don't make millions of $. Because they will actually suffer, not the players or the owners.

In the meantime, I have college sports, the MLB, and the NFL to keep me going. Let the whole season be canceled again. I don't care. All I do know is that I am NOT supporting the NHL during the lockout by buying jerseys, merchandise, etc.

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Personally, I am going to boycott the NHL for a little while. At least for the duration of the lockout, and potentially well after. Don't plan to buy any NHL jerseys... I might not go to any games this year... and when I do watch, it will likely be from a pirated site.

The owners and players should both take a 25% paycut... and they should lower the prices of everything. So childish.

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Kovalchuk reportedly has an agreement with SKA St Petersburg

They already made him the team captain also.

2952764710107003020S600x600Q85.jpg

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http://en.khl.ru/news/2012/09/18/24724.html

The expected influx is underway: as rinks across North America fall idle, club secretaries are working overtime to complete the paperwork on a raft of exciting new signings across the KHL.

From big-name Russian stars like Evgeny Malkin and Ilya Kovalchuk, to Czech NHL-ers Jiri Hudler and Jakub Voracek and Latvian prospect Kaspars Daugavins at Dinamo Riga, the rush to the East is well underway. Here’s a rundown of the key moves.

Captain Kovi

Tuesday’s big news was the official unveiling of Kovalchuk as captain of SKA St. Petersburg. The New Jersey Devils star chose SKA ahead of his first club, Spartak Moscow, and will keep his #17 jersey in Russia. At his first press conference back in Russia, the forward told reporters that he was pleased to have the chance to play for SKA, a club which had attempted to sign him previously. He also quipped that he “was luckier” than Evgeny Malkin, moving to the classical elegance of Petersburg rather than the industrial city of Magnitogorsk.

kovi.jpg

As for the hockey, Kovalchuk said his aim was to help SKA win the Gagarin Cup, and added that he was looking forward to renewing acquaintance with Milos Riha, who also coached him briefly at Khimik Moscow Region during the previous lock-out. However, despite claiming the captaincy straight away, Kovalchuk admitted that it was not yet clear who would partner him on the ice or exactly what his role would be.

SKA may not have completed its lock-out related business: young forward Vladimir Tarasenko could be heading back to the Baltic despite his summer switch to St. Louis.

Metallurg’s trio

Metallurg Magnitogorsk, despite Kovalchuk’s reservations about the steel city, has successfully attracted three NHL stars. The biggest name of the trio is undoubtedly Evgeny Malkin (beyond, left) – star of Russia’s World Championship success back in May and the lynchpin of the Pittsburgh Penguins offense. He has honored his pledge to return to his boyhood club, and is joined there by defenseman Sergei Gonchar (beyond, right) and forward Nikolai Kulyomin. With the club also boasted the services of ex-Penguin Cal O’Reilly, it looks like the USA’s steel city is forging ever closer links with its Russian equivalent.

malk.jpg

Ovechkin waits

Alexander Ovechkin, poster boy for Washington Capitals and the NHL as a whole, is expected to confirm his new club by the end of this week. According to the player’s agent, Ovechkin is weighing up offers from CSKA Moscow and his old club Dynamo, Sovietsky Sport reported. Earlier it had seemed that Dynamo was out of the race after baulking at Ovechkin’s salary. The Blue-and-Whites, meanwhile, are expected to make a move for Leo Komarov, a popular figure on last season’s championship-winning roster. Among the other big names whose future is not yet confirmed, Pavel Datsyuk has been heavily linked with Ak Bars Kazan and Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg.

hudl.jpgLev signs two

Lev Prague, an early leader in the Western Conference, has swooped for two Czech NHL stars. Stanley Cup Jiri Hudler (right), of Calgary Flames, will be familiar to many Russian fans after his season with Dynamo Moscow. The forward played in Russia in 2009-10 after quitting Detroit Red Wings, and posted 54 points in 54 games before the team crashed out of the play-offs in the first round. Hudler is joined by Jakub Voracek, from Philadelphia Flyers. Voracek, a World Champion in 2010, has more than 300 NHL games under his belt.

Other confirmed moves

Niklas Backstrom – Minnesota Wild to Dinamo Minsk

Kaspars Daugavins – Ottawa Senators to Dinamo Riga

Ruslan Fedotenko – Philadelphia Flyers to Donbass Donetsk

Andrei Kostitsyn – Nashville Predators to Traktor Chelyabinsk

Alexei Ponikarovsky – Winnipeg Jets to Donbass Donetsk

Semyon Varlamov – Colorado Avalanche to Lokomotiv Yaroslavl

Lubomir Vishnovsky – NY Islanders to Slovan Bratislava

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I think over the next several weeks the influx of NHLers going overseas will rise. I can bet that players will not want to sit around and wait for the lockout to be resolved, when they can play and make $. I don't blame them. I would play overseas if I were them too. Playing somewhere is better than playing nowhere.

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I guess Ovechkin is tweeting that if the NHLPA agrees to a deal that aren't to his standards he will still refuse to play. I used to like the guy, but now, ugh, what a ###### move.

I don't think that's a ###### move at all, it's more leverage for the players. While he may not deserve to be anymore, he one of the faces of this league still and the owners need everyone back if they are going to appeal to the fans as much as they did prior to this lockout.

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Gary Buttman can annoint anyone he wants as a face of the league, especially after the lockout ends. Owners can then make Ovie an example of selfishness to the players who aren't making tons of money. He could have framed it differently instead of making it come off as "I am the all mighty being of the players, and if I don't like it I am taking my ball home and not playing anymore."

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Guys who I respect much more: Bruno Gervais (already liked Chef Bruno the person a lot, not the player Bruno) and Max Talbot. Supposedly they are playing hockey throughout Québec to raise money for charity. Those are the players who I believe "truly" want to play hockey and it isn't about the money to them

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From a European standpoint it's pretty awesome to see the best players in the world come to Europe. In Finland we have already had Jussi Jokinen, Lennart Petrell and Valtteri Filppula join their respective teams, plus Jason Demers from the San Jose Sharks.

Also Anze Kopitar went to Sweden's second tier league to play there - completely free of charge. That's pretty amazing.

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Players need to step up and give these types of interviews.

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At this point, I feel the two sides don't care enough to come to an agreement. But IMO as time passes, and if we move into November and December with no hockey, then I think that might change. Just like the NFL and NBA lockouts, the $h!t started to hit the fan after some time, then the two sides (in each league) quickly rushed and put a deal together. Eventually, this lockout will get to the owner's wallets over losing a lot of $, and they will be more bipartisan, and hopefully we'll see the puck drop. I hate to say that history may repeat itself, but that is my feeling at the moment.

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NHL 13 will have to be my hockey for the season :(

Sad, but true.
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