Friday, December 10, 2004

NHL players offer 24% pay cut

Interesting negotiating strategy - NHL players offer a 24% pay cut in an attempt to re-start talks with the NHL which claims to have hemorrhaged money over the past two seasons. (There seems to be little dispute that teams as a group have been in the red question is how much.) Starting with 24%? The players will end up taking a 33% cut or something. (Call Donald Fehr?)

Separately, according to the article, an adhoc panel of players, coaches, commentators and executives have met trying to find proposals to make the game, which has seen less scoring and lower attendance, more interesting.

They mentioned shootouts to decide ties. Good idea. Penalty shots in hockey and shootouts in soccer though anathema to some purists seem to make for great drama.

And this is the solution that will make soccer and hockey much more interesting. GET RID OF THE OFFSIDE RULE. First 80% of the country doesn't understand the offside rule. Second, games will have scores like 10-8 instead of 2-1. A lot more drama and you don't miss the key point of the game if you happened to have a long yawn in the 62nd minute.

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