Tag Archives: commissioner gary bettman

Opportunity knocks for NHL to re-open doors to fans, advertisers after lengthy lockout

Posted on January 11, 2013 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

Would disgruntled hockey fans forget their gripes against the National Hockey League if the league poked fun at itself in new commercials?

How about humorous television spots featuring stoic-and-not-exactly-beloved NHL commissioner Gary Bettman?

That’s the kind of outside-the-box marketing the league has to consider now to win back fans and sponsors turned off by the 113-day lockout, according to Langara School of Management instructor Aziz Rajwani.

“There’s an opportunity here to use riskier, edgier marketing strategies,” he said this week. “Bettman is not particularly well liked by fans and no one would ever say he is a funny person, though he might be in private.

“But what if you did something really funny and edgy with him? It might work.”

Bettman apologized to fans this week for disrupting their beloved game and clubs have followed his lead en masse.

The Vancouver Canucks have promised to reward loyal fans and sponsors for sticking with the club but refuse to discuss details of the pending season...

Cam Cole: Canucks, other NHL salary-cap dodgers would be crippled by ‘Gary’s revenge’

Posted on January 8, 2013 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER — The Twitter artist @strombone1, who is presumed to be the goaltender soon to be known as an ex-Vancouver Canuck, had this to say Tuesday about the latest wildfire raging on the social media:

“The Luongo Rule? Seriously how cute is that? #adorbs #garybest”

For those, like me, who arrived late for compressed-English classes, apparently the hashtags mean “adorable” and that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is, in Luongo’s tongue-in-cheek opinion, the best.

Alas, deciphering the Luongo Rule itself — that’s not an official name, but its wide usage is something of a feather in the salary cap of the Vancouver Canucks’ finagler-in-chief, Laurence Gilman — is not so easy.

What it really ought to be called is Gary’s Revenge, a petulant add-on to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, one which aims to punish those teams that dared to exploit the loopholes Bettman left in the last CBA, by signing star players to long-term, front-loaded contracts.

Most of those deals were drawn...

End of NHL lockout a win for Vancouver businesses (with video)

Posted on January 6, 2013 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

Jessica Kelly was getting home from work around 3 a.m. Sunday in Vancouver just as the news began to break: the 113-day NHL lockout was finally over.

The manager of G Sports Bar and Grill on Granville Street checked and double-checked to make sure it was true.

“I was so happy I couldn’t even sleep,” she said. “I could just see dollar signs in my mind. I was really happy.”

Even with college basketball’s March Madness and the Superbowl coming up, hockey is the bread and butter of the business. “With those two put together, it’s nothing compared to what we’ll get for hockey,” Kelly said. While unable to give exact dollar figures, Kelly said bar and food sales have declined about 45 per cent since the lockout began in September. With football games and UFC fights picking up a bit of the slack, the bar — which has seven satellites and caters to out-of-town hockey fans, not just Canucks diehards...

NHL lockout ends with tentative deal between league, NHLPA

Posted on January 6, 2013 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

NEW YORK, N.Y. - After six long months of negotiations, it took one extremely long night to get the NHL out of the boardroom and back on the ice.
A tentative deal to end the 113-day NHL lockout was reached early Sunday morning following a marathon 16-hour negotiating session.

"We have reached an agreement on the framework of a new collective bargaining agreement, the details of which need to be put to paper," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told a news conference. "We've got to dot a lot of i's and cross a lot of t's. There's still a lot of work to be done but the basic framework of the deal has been agreed upon."

Before the new CBA officially comes into effect, it must be ratified by a majority of both the league's 30 owners and the union's membership of approximately 740 players. There is no word when those votes will take place.

"Hopefully...

Game on! NHL lockout ends with tentative deal between league, NHLPA

Posted on January 6, 2013 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

NEW YORK — After six long months of negotiations, it took one extremely long night to get the NHL out of the boardroom and back on the ice.

A tentative deal to end the 113-day NHL lockout was reached early Sunday morning following a marathon 16-hour negotiating session.

“We have reached an agreement on the framework of a new collective bargaining agreement, the details of which need to be put to paper,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told a news conference. “We’ve got to dot a lot of i’s and cross a lot of t’s. There’s still a lot of work to be done but the basic framework of the deal has been agreed upon.”

Before the new CBA officially comes into effect, it must be ratified by a majority of both the league’s 30 owners and the union’s membership of approximately 740 players. There is no word when those votes will take place.

“Hopefully we’re at a place where all those things...

Canucks players preparing backup plans if NHL season cancelled

Posted on January 4, 2013 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER — Since Day One of the NHL lockout, the Sedin twins have maintained they would return home to play for Modo in the Swedish Elite League if, and only if, the season was cancelled.

Daniel Sedin appeared to be hedging on that Friday. The brothers have had an open invitation from Modo GM and former Vancouver Canucks teammate Markus Naslund to rejoin their hometown club.

“It's getting tougher and tougher to make the move back to Sweden, that's for sure,” said Daniel, 32 and a father of three. “You have to take kids out of school and look at everything. You have to look at insurance. There are a lot of questions we have to get answered first. We're going to talk to Markus in the next few days here and we'll see what happens. Hopefully it doesn't have to happen, but you have to be prepared.”

Chris Higgins is preparing, too. He said Friday he will aggressively pursue playing opportunities...

NHL delivers counter-proposal to union in push to save the season

Posted on January 1, 2013 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

NEW YORK — The NHL delivered a comprehensive counter-proposal to the NHL Players’ Associaton on Tuesday night as the sides pushed to reach an agreement that would save the season.

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said the union would review the document during the evening and expected to return to the bargaining table at some point on Wednesday.

Fehr declined to be specific about what was being negotiated.

“It’s better to be meeting than not but I’m not saying anything else more about it,” he said.

The talks are being held with an eye on preserving at least a 48-game schedule — the same number that was played following the 1994-95 lockout.

An agreement would need to be in place by Jan. 11 for that to happen.

“What we’ve said is we need to drop the puck by Jan. 19 if we’re going to play a 48-game season,” commissioner Gary Bettman said Monday.

“We don’t think it makes sense to play a season that is...

NHL, NHLPA kick off 2013 with full day of labour talks

Posted on January 1, 2013 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

NEW YORK — The push towards a deal that would save a shortened NHL season continued Tuesday.

The league and union were gearing up for a full day of talks with a deadline looming to reach a new collective bargaining agreement.

After the NHLPA presented a counter-proposal on Monday, small groups from each side held a conference call early Tuesday afternoon. Another face-to-face meeting was expected to commence at the league office around 6:30 p.m. ET.

The talks are being held with an eye on preserving at least a 48-game schedule — the same number that was played following the 1994-95 lockout. An agreement would need to be in place by Jan. 11 for that to happen.

"What we've said is we need to drop the puck by Jan. 19 if we're going to play a 48-game season," commissioner Gary Bettman said Monday. "We don't think it makes sense to play a season that is any shorter than that."

League officials met well...

NHL reviewing NHLPA’s counter offer after meeting

Posted on December 31, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

NEW YORK — Just steps from the massive celebration in Times Square, top NHL executives spent New Year’s Eve reviewing a collective bargaining proposal that could save a shortened season.

With the negotiations at a critical stage, commissioner Gary Bettman, deputy commissioner Bill Daly and other league staff worked into the night Monday and were hoping to return to the bargaining table with the NHL Players’ Association by noon on Tuesday.

"We have to review the response," said Bettman. "There was an opportunity for the players’ association to highlight the areas that they thought we should focus on based on their response. And that’s something we’ve now got to look at very closely."

The NHLPA’s offer came three days after the league made movement in a comprehensive 288-page document delivered by email on Thursday night. Both sides were fairly tight-lipped following roughly three hours of meetings on Monday afternoon.

Donald Fehr, the NHLPA’s executive director, said the union improved the offer...

Manny Malhotra has had it with NHL labour talks

Posted on December 10, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER - Manny Malhotra has had a front-row seat for the emotional roller-coaster that the NHL labour talks have become, but will now watch the proceedings from afar.

"I'm done," Malhotra said Monday.

Not done because he's angry or frustrated by the stalemate -- and he most certainly is -- but because his wife Joann is expecting a baby next month and he wants to wait out the rest of her pregnancy at their Vancouver home.

Malhotra reckons he has made 10 cross-continent trips to participate in CBA talks or NHLPA meetings. He's done more travelling than he would have had the season begun as scheduled. He calls the experience both invaluable and frustrating.

There have been lots of highs and lows, none more so than last week in New York City.

"I think you run the whole gamut of emotions throughout these talks," he said after skating with a few of his Canuck teammates at UBC. "Right from the get-go Don...

Manny Malhotra’s sense of justice may be costly, but rewarding

Posted on December 3, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER — The son of a Pakistani father and francophone mother, Manny Malhotra grew up barely aware of racism.

“Yeah, there was the odd comment on the ice,” the Vancouver Canuck explained recently. “But growing up in Toronto, which was so multicultural, I think I was blind to it. Jamaicans lived across the street, Asians were over there. It was a melting pot.”

So Malhotra’s fierce beliefs in justice and fairness were created not by skin colour or language, but by birth order. He was the youngest, by three years, of four children — two big brothers and a sister. Life was not fair.

“When your brothers and sister pick on you, that’s always unfair,” the 32-year-old said with a smile before travelling to New York for meetings Tuesday that could salvage the National Hockey League season.

“I remember being so angry that they could do stuff better than me, or wouldn’t let me play or wouldn’t share. That kind of built my...

NHL lockout: Little hope for a full season

Posted on October 24, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Dan Hamhuis practised with the UBC Thunderbirds on Wednesday, because he has other plans Thursday. They won’t revolve around waiting with heightened anticipation for a resolution to the NHL lockout.

Like his peers, the Vancouver Canucks defenceman expects commissioner Gary Bettman will confirm there won’t be an 82-game schedule commencing Nov. 2 — to reflect a Thursday deadline he imposed to reach an agreement — and that another month of the regular season could be lost to the collective bargaining impasse.

The bad blood and staring contest between Bettman and the players union doesn’t surprise Hamhuis. It’s as if the owners have a settlement date in mind — hello, Dec. 1 — when players may be more desperate about missing cheques, and the Winter Classic can be salvaged on Jan 1. That would mean bridging the revenue-sharing gap in the coming weeks because, while both sides agree on a 50-50 split, they can’t agree how to get there.

Three counter-proposals last...

This time the league actually seems to care, but only about losing money

Posted on October 24, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

There’s an interesting difference between this year’s lockout and the one back in 2004-05, and even the one way back to 1995.

During the lockout eight years ago the owners weren’t interested in even having a season, let alone getting in one that comprised 82 games.

And going back 17 years, there was certainly no interest on the part of the owners to get in the full number, and when the parties finally settled they played 48 games in the regular season.

But this year there seems to have been almost a paranoia on the part of both sides to somehow squeeze in the full schedule, although mercifully now that seems to be slipping away in the absence of any more formal meetings.

OWNERS SUDDENLY CARE

You can certainly see why that would interest the players, because they wouldn’t then be missing any paycheques. Playing a full season is something they’ve always wanted in all three lockouts, and their situation is pretty transparent.

They’re...

Canucks’ Hamhuis frustrated with CBA negotiations, expects full season won’t be played

Posted on October 24, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Dan Hamhuis practised with the UBC Thunderbirds on Wednesday because he has other plans Thursday. They won't revolve around waiting with heightened anticipation for a resolution to the NHL lockout.

Like his peers, the Vancouver Canucks defencemen expects commissioner Gary Bettman will confirm there won't be an 82-game schedule commencing Nov. 2 — to reflect a Thursday deadline he imposed to reach an agreement — and that another month of the regular season could be lost to the collective bargaining impasse. The bad blood and staring contest between Bettman and the players' union doesn't surprise Hamhuis. It's as if the owners have a settlement date in mind — hello, Dec. 1 — when players may be more desperate by missing cheques and the Winter Classic can be salvaged on Jan 1. That would mean bridging the revenue-sharing gap in the coming weeks because while both sides agree on a 50-50 split, they can't agree how to get there. Three...