NHL cancels November games
The Philadelphia Inquirer Blog - Flyers Report: Broad Street Bull
NHL cancels November games
Sam Carchidi, Inquirer Staff Writer
The NHL on Friday canceled its November schedule because of the labor dispute.
League-wide, 326 games _ 26.5 percent of the season _ have been scrapped.
The Flyers have had 22 of their 82 games canceled. The earliest they could play is Dec. 1 at Flordia, provided the schedule isn't changed.
Using projections based on a Forbes report from last year, the Flyers will have lost $17.1 million in gate receipts for the 13 home games they will miss through the end of November.
Bill Daly, the NHL deputy commissioner, said the league will have to "rethink and restructure a proposal" because the last offer was based on an 82-game schedule.
If a new collective bargaining agreement was in place and the season started on Dec. 1, teams might play a 64-game schedule. In that scenario, teams could play division rivals six times (24 games) and their other conference foes four times (40 games).
Daly, in an email to The Inquirer late Thursday night, said the league had "no specific goals" as to how many games would be played. "Our general goal is to reach an agreement as soon as possible and to preserve as much of the regular season as possible," he said.
Asked if hiring a mediator was the next step, Daly said, "Perhaps. We will see."
The league still hopes to play the Winter Classic on Jan. 1 at Michigan Stadium. Commissioner Gary Bettman last month said a CBA needed to be in place by mid-November to save the event.
The agreement between the NHL and the University of Michigan says the Winter Classic can be canceled up until Jan. 1, the day of the game, if there is a work stoppage. The league would have to pay the university $100,000 of the $3 million stadium rental fee if that happened.
Before this year, the last time Bettman and the owners locked out the players was in 2004-05, when the entire season was lost.
And now the league has even more leverage because NBC, a subsidiary of Comcast, will pay the NHL $180 million this season _ even if no games are played .The tradeoff is that if no games are played, the NHL would not charge NBC for a year that is added to the back end of the 10-year contract.
(more coming)
Come on guys, let's get this done. The Phillies stunk, the Eagles are going nowhere with Vick and Fat Andy, I need HOCKEY! I live in Arizona now, so I'm hoping this gets done and I can ring in the New Year with some Flyers hockey in Phoenix on Dec 31st!
LET'S GO FLYERS— kozykoz26- i'm with ya kozykoz: I need hockey. but I honestly don't really care if they don't play until after Christmas. the beginning two or three months of the season are essentially pointless anyway. teams don't even start trying in earnest until January.
it seems to me that the owners aren't even trying to conclude this though.. they want to break the union. that is their overriding goal. they don't care about solving this thing.— Ryan - FIRE BUTTMAN!!! 3 lockouts in less than 20 years (or how to ruin a successful professional sports league)— sadtruthis-
- The league is looking at 55-60 games starting by year's end. They are will finish up their appletinis before Turkey Day.— 2ndNlong
- Ugh, such goodly grammar..."They will finish..."— 2ndNlong
- They all got their heads slammed into the boards one too many times.— Larry Byrd
- They all got their heads slammed into the boards one too many times.— Larry Byrd
- Their proposal is based on an 82-game season?? Very funny. It's a 6 year agreement and everything would be prorated for Year 1 if any games are lost. The loss of 20-30 games affects all 6 years? Owners are just inventing reasons to justify their next proposal going back down to 46-48%— rums623
- What both these folks better take into consideration,is, life is going on without them. Anyone want to guess who the bad guys are in this, read the article, the Network pays them whether they play or not. Such a deal!— Thelonius Monk
- "Mid-November or we cancel the Winter Classic" is such a lie. They'd start the season then if they get a deal by mid-December. Losers.— PhillySubsMac
- The Winter Classic has become cliche after all these years.
And face it, people pay exhorbitant amounts of money to sit in seats so far from the rink they need a Predator video feed to see what's going on down on the ice. Exactly *why* they do that is beyond reasoning, but they do it, so the NHL is happy.
How did NBC negotiate a contract that says they will pay the NHL $180 million USD even if there are no games? Oh, that's right, NBC is now owned by Comcast, which If I recall is run by Ed Snider, an NHL owner. Seems like a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to me. Oh, I forgot, the republicans repealed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act under Bush.— backhand - Bring back the WHA - No longer a Flyer buyer, Am now Philadelphia Blazer gazer............... And why do they always refer to Ed Snyder as "Mr. Snyder? The last time this putz won a cup, I was a senior in high school. Eddie my boy, its been a loooonnggggg Loooonnggggg time!— Anthony1957
- This actually quite pleasant not having ice hockey clog up the sports pages until July. :-)— ANGRY AL 2
- After reading "perhaps we'll see" on the mediator question, I got that Jack Johnson song in my head: "seems to me that maybe, pretty much always means no..."— TongueWagger
