Here I thought that i would miss hockey, but the truth is, I watch making the Cut on CBC and that's enough to sate me for the time being.
As per the usual, the truth is somewhere in between. The players offered some token concessions, and the owners are holding fast.
The owners are partly to blame for giving players $10 million per season. Bobby Holik for $9 mil per? For 40 points in a good year? Give me a break.
But the players, by continuing to insist on a market system when the most successful sports (NFL, NBA) have a salary cap, is simply an indefensible stance.
I support a maximum/minimum system. It rewards good businesspeople with the ability to make a profit, while it ensures that no one will pull a Donald Sterling/Harold Ballard and refuse to spend enoughh to field a competitive team. I also want to see a system similar to the NBA, where there is a max amount a player can make based on his league tenure.
I want hard limits on entry-level players -- no Thornton-like bonuses.
And while I would like to see contraction, I am against it as it is good for the game as a whole to have teams in most of those cities. It will hurt Canadian dominance of the game, and we won't see the good for a few years, but it will happen.
In the end, everyone gets rich, and we get hockey.
