This comes as no surprise, but today it is expected that the league will cancel the Winter Classic, according to ESPN. The game was supposed to take place at the Big House in Michigan between the Red Wings and Maple Leafs on News Years Day.
The decision to cancel the game was based on a number of factors and logistics was a concern.
The league was tasked with a unique challenge this year in building two rinks — one at "The Big House" and one at Comerica Park — and has a contract with the former that requires the NHL to pay for any expenses occurred by the university if the event was canceled later than Nov. 2. The NHL also owed $250,000 of the $3 million rental fee on Nov. 2.
This is not believed to be the biggest deal-breaker, however.
The league did not want to host such an event without the usual bells and whistles — HBO's "24/7"show documenting the event would've been virtually impossible to pull off — and it did not want the pageantry of the event tainted by the work stoppage.
The Winter Classic is touted by the NHL as a celebration of the game, a tough message to send after a league-imposed lockout has wiped out almost the first two months of the season.
The Classic was the one thing keeping some tension on negotiations, because the game and surrounding events (24/7…) are obviously revenue and publicity generators that the league and owners didn’t want to miss out on. Now, there’s no specific incentive for a deal to be reached, which means this thing could drag on into… well, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter can spend another summer as Stanley Cup Champions.
22 Responses
i dont get it. they just show blatant disrespect for their brand. Makes no sense what they are doing.
Who cares. Fuck those greedy hockey players
Fuckin Bettman. What the fuck.
No season. Bank on it now. Fuck these assholes. Fuck them hard.
Not getting a dime from me for at least 3 years after they come back. So it may be a decade before I spend another dime on the Flyers. That makes me sadder than you can imagine.
I’m in tears. Fuck you Bettman
Insert unfunny comment about fucking or fingering by Lenny/ Candy
Hate those 2
Can we now all agree the NHL is dead
not sure why someone with a lot of dough just doesn’t start the USFL equivalent for hockey – unlike the USFL, unless they became NJ General/Trump stupid, it would work.
F the players union.
F the league.
Fire Bettman.
Play hockey.
@ teamozzy I’m blushing with your hard on for me. But hockey can’t get fingered duh
Bye bye season… maybe two. So fuckin stupid and unnecessary. Just get it done for fucks sake.
Hockey is for losers like the loser greed of the players
teamozzy wants to fuck candy
One thing about this extended lockout brings a smile to my face…Nashville is fucked w/ the Weber contract. They did not see this coming.
The league had a nice run. Time for a new one.
Pieces of shit …All of them. Even the players. I’ve always said the owners are the biggest ones at fault here. I mean, how you let people you employ bitch at you and make demands like this in the first place is beyond me…But the players are still fuckin shitty too.
I get wanting to be paid what you signed, and wanting to be paid the most because you’re the best in the world. You shouldn’t get bullied or sell yourself short in any profession, but gimmie a break. At what point do we put the egos aside? At what point do they realize that they’re still getting hundreds of thousands of dollars, or in a lot of cases millions of dollars, to PLAY A FUCKIN GAME? A game that everyone on both sides claims to be the best in the world; a game that they claim is above this kind of nonsense. If they care about the game that much, then why are they quibbling over money that essentially amounts to another sports car or some other rich expense that doesn’t mean shit? Fuckin pisses me off.
I get the players argument here but congratulations guys, you may have just sunk your entire league. Yeah I bet that was worth it. Fuckin assholes on both sides, screw all of them.
The players are greedy scumbags!! Yo guys, your sport is 4th on America’s list.
GET A FUCKING CLUE
A pox on BOTH houses, owners and players. This shouldn’t have had to happen because of all the overwhelming greed.
Old News……..this power outage is killing this website
I win I win I win!!! Allll me!!!!!!!
The owners pay a lot in concessions aside from player salaries, and they want to make some of that back. I get that.
The players don’t want to have contracts altered in any way that would immediately lower their salaries (they don’t want the value of contracts diminished or the contracting process itself undermined by CBA adjustments that will change an agreed-on salary or compensation), and they don’t want a second consecutive CBA renegotiation to result in a second consecutive shift in revenue to the owners (as that would also undermine the collective bargaining process, with owners consistently winning concessions at the negotiating table). I get that.
The NHL made record revenue last year, to the tune of $3bil. I REALLY get that. Any given trip to see the Flyers play at home costs me anywhere from $300.00 to $500.00. I totally get the whole NHL record profits thing.
It’s the players and owners brand to build or destroy. Looks like they’re opting for ‘destroy’ in 2012-2013, which I totally do not get, especially in the year following a record $3bil revenue. The entire lock-out is a non sequitur; sports blivet 2012-2013, thy name is NHL.
I’d rather spend $300.00 to $500.00 on the working-class median-wage guys who restored power to my area after a four-day outage, than spend a dime on a bunch of well-compensated players and very wealthy owners who only serve to entertain, and who squabble over profits and percentages and pr and image. Is this lock-out entertaining? Not too fucking much.
If this lock-out is serving the purposes of greed and greed only then it’s going to punch a large dent in the fans’ feelings for the league (not the sport, just the league). I’m not going to say something like ‘I’ll never watch again’ because that is disingenuous bullshit. I’ll tune in again once it’s on, as I’ve been watching Flyers hockey for a long damned time. But when I eventually tune in again, for a while at least (and maybe moreso if the Flyers get off to a terrible start), I’ll remember this lock-out fiasco, and I’ll remember that a bunch of extremely wealthy people plus one small, excruciatingly awkward go-between named Bettman conspired to mismanage the sport with no apparent regard for the sport’s integrity or for the patrons who contributed to a record $3bil revenue in 2011-2012.
Greed, pride and ineptitude, pfff, weak.
I hope NHL never comes back now
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