Red Wings' exec rips Flyers, gets fined
The Philadelphia Inquirer Blog - Flyers Report: Broad Street Bull
Red Wings' exec rips Flyers, gets fined
Sam Carchidi, Inquirer Staff Writer
The NHL on Saturday fined Detroit Red Wings VP Jimmy Devellano a reported $250,000 for comments he made about the collective-bargaining agreement and the Flyers earlier this week.
In an interview with Island Sports News that was posted on Puck Daddy (yahoo!), Devellano ripped the Flyers for giving a 14-year, $110 million offer sheet to RFA Shea Weber this summer.
"The Detroit Red Wings’ organization and the league agree that the
comments made by Mr. Devellano are neither appropriate, nor authorized, nor
permissible under the league's bylaws," said Bill Daly, the NHL's deputy commissioner. "Such comments are neither constructive nor helpful to the
negotiations.”
In the interview Devellano said, "There is a hard cap in place as we all know. You can't go over that....period. If Weber gets this much, then another player gets less. Now does that mean it's right for another team to do that? My answer is this: They (the Flyers) operated within the CBA and it's totally legit to do. Having said that, I will tell you there is an unwritten rule that you don't do that, but they did, and just like everything else in life, some people are great to deal with, some aren't. If you are asking me if it's right, I would say there is, again, an unwritten rule...we all know it in the NHL, but not everyone follows it."
Added Devellano: "Each owner / team has a decision as to how they want to pay their players, as long as they are under the cap. Now Donald Fehr (the NHLPA executive director) would have you believe by getting rid of the cap, the owners would make more money and that the sky is the limit, but trust me, the owners would lose their asses. We've tried that. It doesn't work. There is just too much cost involved in running and owning a team.
"It's very complicated and way too much for the average Joe to understand, but having said that, I will tell you this: The owners can basically be viewed as the Ranch, and the players, and me included, are the cattle. The owners own the Ranch and allow the players to eat there. That's the way its always been and that the way it will be forever. And the owners simply aren't going to let a union push them around. It's not going to happen."
*******
Another day in the NHL lockout, another day without negotiations.
“It’s been pretty quiet, so there’s been nothing to communicate” to his teammates, defenseman Braydon Coburn, the Flyers’ player representative, said in a phone conversation from his home in Calgary on Friday.
Representatives for the league and the players are battling over many issues, including how to divide hockey-related revenue (HRR). The owners have proposed giving the players 49 percent of the HRR in the first year, 48 percent in the second year, and 47 percent in the third through sixth years.
The players are asking for about 53 or 54 percent of the pie; they got 57 percent in the last collective-bargaining agreement.
Coburn said he met Thursday in Calgary with former NHL player Steve Webb, who is the Atlantic Division representative for the players’ association. According to Coburn, Webb said the players’ association wants to talk with the league about other collective-bargaining agreement issues _ such as ice conditions, players’ safety, contract lengths and free-agency changes _ but the owners want to first solve the HRR dispute.
The league “isn’t interested in negotiating until we get the numbers down on” the HRR issue, Coburn said Webb told him.
Coburn has been working out in Calgary with several NHL players, including the Flames’ Jarome Iginla and Jay Bouwmeester.
“It’s a good group of guys, but it doesn’t replace playing,” Coburn said.
The Flyers’ training camp was scheduled to open Saturday at the Skate Zone in Voorhees. The start of NHL camps has been canceled, along with several exhibition games.
Players assigned to the Adirondack Phantoms, the Flyers’ AHL affiliate, will report to the Voorhees rink on Friday for the start of that camp. That group will include the Flyers’ Sean Couturier, Brayden Schenn, Zac Rinaldo, Erik Gustafsson and Eric Wellwood.
More labor pains. The NHL players’ union was in Edmonton on Friday, trying to get the Alberta Labor Relations Board to declare the lockout illegal for the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers.
Last week, players from the Montreal Canadiens presented a similar case in Quebec, and the labor relations board there turned down their request for a temporary injunction against the lockout.
Another option. A judge ruled Friday that the Swedish Elite League cannot ban NHL players.
As of now, no Flyers are planning to play in Sweden, but that could change.
Three Flyers are playing in Russia’s KHL _ Ilya Bryzgalov, Jake Voracek and Ruslan Fedotenko.
Follow Sam Carchidi on Twitter @BroadStBull.
f- Devellano. If it's legal it's legal. Welcome to America. Land of the pretend free market. Home of the screwors and the screwees.— raoool- yet so many players and posters on these boards think the cattle own the ranch - WRONG! someone first had to buy the land, erect the house on that land, pay for and build the stables, clear off the land and then and only then would cattle be needed. it's not the other way around. if it were, the cattle would just be swatting flies with their tails and chewing their cud until someone with some money came along and found a way to build a place to play. go owners!— tmq
- "It's very complicated and way too much for the average Joe to understand." Mr. Devellano sounds like a stock broker. And his comments sure sound like hypocrisy. Detroit may choose not to tender offer sheets but they can't criticize the Flyers for offering big bucks. The Red Wings made a big push for Weber's former teammate, Ryan Suter, offering him a 13-year deal worth $88 million and they also offered New Jersey's Zach Parise a 13-year deal worth $73 million.
One of the owners' main proposals in the current Collective Bargaining Agreement has a stipulation extending restricted free agency to 10 years of service before going unrestricted. In that case the earliest a player could go UFA would be his late twenties. Under that scenario the free-agent market would be even barer every summer than it already is and the sheet would be the only way to go for any true value. Why pay the kinds of salaries we see in free agency for players are routinely past their primes, even if you do own the ranch?
What GM wouldn't want the sure thing in a young NHL player who has already proven what he can do at the highest level over the uncertainty of draft picks? Unless you think your team will be in line for some top-five picks in the next few seasons.
P.S. Mr. Devellano - get used to being a fringe team. - And then the kindly owners slit the "cattles'" throats or whack them over the head with sledge hammers and then sell them, probably pumping them full of chemicals and irradiating them first. -- to the dufus tmq: words can't describe how stupid your analogy is. Go (eff yourselves) owners! Let's all go vegan!— Major Domo Billy Bojangles
- Agreed. I couldn't care less about what the owners want. People pay to watch the players, not the owners. Huge advertising contracts are built on backs of the players, not the owners. Billions of dollars of revenue are created and stadiums are erected because of the players, not the owners. The NHL owners are exceedingly greedy, and many of them couldn't care less about the men playing. Ironically they view them as a commodity, so "cattle" is appropriate enough. People falling all over themselves defending the rights of billionaires is laughable. Don't lose any sleep, they'll be just fine. — Jabey
- mr bojangles,
is it really necessary to talk like that? my analogy is appropriate from the owners point of view. for proof, have you ever seen where any professional team started up their own league because of a strike? right now, some of the players are looking to be flipping hamburgers before too long. you don't get players then build the stadium - it's quite the opposite. now, if you're interested in discourse, please lay off the attacks.— tmq - Jimmy Devellano: What are the Red Wings paying Datsyuk, Kronwall, Zetterberg, and Franzen? Wasn't your team bidding big bucks for Ryan Suter?— schultz8
- Unfortunately this free agency started many years ago when Curt Flood was traded to the Phillies and objected to being moved -- he said that he was a $90,000 a year slave -- not bad for a "slave" in the 1960's!! The professional athletes play boys games and are paid huge amounts of money. With free agency there is no loyalty and little incentive to build ateam for the future. The owners have their fortunes invested and the players have their sweat equity invested. Unions do not belong in professional sports -- or in our government.— cmp1996
- ...and all the lemmings run to the rescue of their blindly worshiped Mr. Snider, Clarkie and Homer failing to remember the Wings win Cups at a significantly higher rate than the three headed ego that collects the lemmings money.— bvl390
- Your arguement would have a basis if the the Flyer did not spend money. The Flyers have gone out year after year to sign best players. They don't take from revenue pool but rather give to it for other teams to take money. The Flyers are always up at the top of spenders, and in years of cap, they are tops. It wasn't until last few years that phillies beganto spend money, the Eagles never spend up to the cap. While I am frustrated that they haven won, it's not for a lack of effort. nice try. — thebaron
- My point has NOTHING to do with "spending money" except that the Flyers organ-I-zation has plenty because of the Lemmings. Get close, fill the building, that is their MO. Close to 4 decades of spending on the wrong talent or choosing to compete by adding a high priced piece here or there is not as effective (as shown by a lack of Cups) as the teams that draft well and develop (which the Flyers do but not nearly enough). Clarkie has always said..."Just get to the play-offs and its anybody's Cup"...Of course, 40 years of really only spending on North American players while ignoring Russians, Swedes, Fins, etc hasn't helped but hey, who needs Skill when you can load your team up with "muckers and grinders"? — bvl390
- I'm no fan of "unwritten rules", for this very reason- everyone has their own interpretation of what the unwritten rule is. As for the lockout, I have a hard time seeing the owners point of view on this one- if small to mid-market teams like Nashville and Minnesota can shell out the $$$ they did this summer, I have a hard time seeing how the owners are a ranch, as Mr. Devellano put it, that is anything but thriving.— KMG
- unwritten back room agreements to keep salaries low? isn't that what got baseball in trouble for collusion and anti trust violations. this could open each owner up to individual lawsuits from every player that feels he was denied a freely negotiated contract— doyle
- Guess what, unwritten rules do not apply in a free market. Do you think Walmart cares about any unwritten rules. It's a BUSINESS! That's the point of capitalism. As an owner, you have ALL of the risks. Yes, they may have insurance if a marquee player is hurt, but that doesn't solve their real problem. Look at what happened when Pronger went down last season. You may not like Snider, but he is a shrewd businessman.
Although that said, if you went into a contract, you should have to honor it. The thought of asking players to cut their actual salaries is just insane. Just settle at a fair percentage on the HRR and start the season, already!— NYluvsPhylers - wait everybody - you would be bitter too if you lived in Detroit. time's yours . . .— Justicek
