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NHLPA Denies Realignment


Marshall

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NHL.com:

"It is unfortunate that the NHLPA has unreasonably refused to approve a Plan that an overwhelming majority of our Clubs voted to support, and that has received such widespread support from our fans and other members of the hockey community, including Players," said NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly. "We have now spent the better part of four weeks attempting to satisfy the NHLPA’s purported concerns with the Plan with no success. Because we have already been forced to delay, and as a result are already late in beginning the process of preparing next season’s schedule, we have no choice but to abandon our intention to implement the Realignment Plan and modified Playoff Format for next season."

"We believe the Union acted unreasonably in violation of the League’s rights. We intend to evaluate all of our available legal options and to pursue adequate remedies, as appropriate."

Those are strong words.

Edited by Marshall
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I just knew, as soon as I heard that Donald fvcking Fehr was made the player's union head, that this kind of thing was coming. Hang on guys, this is the first shot in a war that's going to take place for the rest of this year (I can only hope that it's actually resolved before the end of this year...).

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LMAO @ "Travel concerns". What a crok. 3/4's of the reason that the league is doing realignment at all is to lessen travel!

What a bullsh!t excuse. But, it's par for the coarse with Donald Fehr. God, I was so happy when the MLBPA dumped his ass, and then the NHLPA ressurects him from the ashes. Ugh

Edited by ohms law
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Definitely a bad omen for the upcoming CBA talks.

I dunno, I wasn't hugely for or against the re-alignment, but you gotta feel for Detroit and Columbus, and to a lesser extent Dallas, Nashville, and Winnipeg.

And yeah, per Puck Daddy, Winnipeg stays in the east for at least another year. That's pretty ridiculous, but a straight flip-flop isn't that simple - you know Detroit and Columbus would fight tooth and nail over it. Honestly I think if they were to do it, Columbus should be the team moved. They may need it to survive.

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Hopefully not. Because if these morons are dumb enough to even consider another work stoppage after what happened 7 years ago, then this league is done.

There will be a work stoppage, and this league is not done after it happens.

Also not a bad play by the NHLPA, they're going to get run over in the next negotiation probably, at least they can carve out some things by doing stuff like this.

Edited by Triumph
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Wow- I don't think anyone saw this coming. I thought this would just be a formality. But I hated the plan anyway, so hopefully logic prevails now and they move Winnipeg to the west, Columbus or Nashville to the east, and keep the same alignment in place.

You know, I might be a little more enthusiastic about this...or at least ambivalent if I didn't believe (know?) this was more grandstanding for CBA negotiations. At least have a real reason for rejecting it, this bs excuse is laughable and just proves all the more it's about the CBA. And that's a silly reason to reject something that would benefit both sides just because you want to flex your negotiating muscles, all it's going to do is make the NHL more intractable than ever.

Edited by NJDevs4978
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I heard that the NHLPA did NOT reject the realignment, they simply wanted to keep talking but the NHL set a hard deadline which passed while discussions were still ongoing. NHL announced "NHLPA rejects" at the deadline.

Now I think a team should come east, and the Jets should go west. Divisions should also be renamed.

Atlantic - Patrik

the others - who cares

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The PA wanted to discuss travel issues.

Coming up with a schedule isn't something that can be done over night (or in 1 month) and since Atlanta moved to Winnipeg, you can't just take an old schedule, replace Atlanta with Winnipeg and do an analysis.

These players travel 1st class to and from games and get paid to travel (per diem).

If they were concerned about two divisions of 8 and 2 of 7...well, with 30 teams in the league, they will be uneven under a 4 division scenario no matter what happens.

This negotiation is gonna suck.

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http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/7434057/nhl-delays-realignment-plan-modified-playoffs-format

Seems like Staal is a whiny b*tch about leaving an easy divison...

"The way it is now, I don't mind. I think for us, for our team, going into a division against Washington, New York, Pittsburgh, Philly, whatever. The division we were in, it would have been tough."

Even Zach chimed in...

"I was surprised to hear that it didn't go through," New Jersey captain Zach Parise said. "I didn't like the change in the playoff format, so it's not bad for us. But I know some teams are going to be upset with the travel. I personally like it the way it is and didn't want any changes."

I really don't understand the travel argument, unless teams are complaining about having to play every team both home and away...which is what SHOULD happen. Now the Eastern teams are only playing road games against West teams 9 times, compared to 16 with realignment.

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If the players are so worried about the inequality in the playoffs & travel, they might as well get rid of divisions and have two conferences. Move Winnipeg to the West, bring Columbus to the East. Play 4 games against the other 14 teams in your conference (56), and the remaining 26 against the other conference (11 teams both home and away, 2 teams home only, 2 teams away only).

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If the players are so worried about the inequality in the playoffs & travel, they might as well get rid of divisions and have two conferences. Move Winnipeg to the West, bring Columbus to the East. Play 4 games against the other 14 teams in your conference (56), and the remaining 26 against the other conference (11 teams both home and away, 2 teams home only, 2 teams away only).

This wouldn't help with travel (aside from the Winnipeg business), but it would make the playoff qualifying as fair as possible with the current number of teams and games. I like the evenhandedness of it. Get the players to agree to an 86 game regular season in the next CBA and you can have perfect balance.

But this would probably hurt the Devils financially, taking out games against the Rangers, Flyers, Pens, & Isles and replacing them with the likes of the Blues, Ducks, and Oilers. The team would have to go into more dramatically tiered pricing to recoup the revenue.

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