Dear Fans: You're Boned. Signed, The NHL

The Denver Post and ESPN's Terry Frei is taking up the cause for us. That's right, he's standing up for Joe Consumer who gets to continually take it in the backside from the Greed Collective that are the NHL Owners:

Ticket prices keep going up, in part to keep up with the payroll demands
created by the rising cap, which includes a floor and also pressures to at least
get in a "competitive" payroll realm; and the cap goes up in part because of the
additional revenue generated by the increased ticket prices; and …

Or is it the other way around?

What matters is that it's a continuing cycle, and the NHL didn't do much to
try to stop it after it got its alleged idiot-proof cap system.

You can't really say it any more succinct than that. Good on you Terry.

It can't be stated any clearer that while this CBA agreement made it seem like the Owners and Players were going to tie up all the loose ends, especially with the fans by bringing the game back and being more entertaining to watch all while the owners were going to stick it to the players and make them learn for wanting more. Never, ever doubt that the owners merely care about the bottom line - problem is, the owners managed to give the players the key to the city.

What's more is that the owners are also busy chewing on each other to the point where it's nearly collusion against the fans. Case in point behold the wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge reborn in the form of Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs:

"The attendance in Buffalo is strong. Buffalo has had a very low ticket price
for a number of years. As long as the interest is strong as it is, it may be
painful, but people may have to pay more for tickets… On a comparative basis,
when you're paying comparative salaries, you need comparative income."

In other words: "Hey Buffalo! You're ruining it for the rest of us with your success and lower prices!"

Some of these owners, Jacobs among them since he's the head of the NHL Board of Governors, have even gone as far as to accuse Golisano for keeping ticket prices down so the Sabres could collect on revenue sharing from the rest of the league.

As you can see at this link, the ticket revenue levels have stayed about the same for the Sabres the last two years, even improving slightly last season when the team missed the playoffs. Consistency is good, especially when it means having a full house - at least, that's what you'd think.

It's incredible to me that teams who can't fill their own house get to point fingers at those who do. The Sabres have done great to sell the game and the experience to the fans since Golisano took over as owner, so much so that there's a waiting list to get season tickets to see the Sabres. However since the Sabres aren't "taking advantage of that" and jacking up prices at will across the board and cut off their nose to spite their face, they're at fault for their woes and they're the ones stealing from the other owners.

Talk about your bully pulpit.

We know how these owners enjoy working together to make sure they get the most money possible. Just revisit expansion of the 1990s if you need a refresher course.

Perhaps its my upstate New York mindset or awareness or just flat-out common sense that tells me that maybe, just maybe, Golisano and the Sabres recognize that Buffalo is a tough town to squeeze folks for their money and that he recognizes that the Buffalo market isn't as financially strong as the bigger cities, something the Ilitch family could take a lesson on since Michigan's economy is about as fragile as Buffalo's.

While I can appreciate the NHL owners for wanting to make sure everyone is doing their part to keep up appearances and no one is dogging it just to pick up a welfare check, in Buffalo's case I don't know that its the same thing. If you jack up the prices in Buffalo, you'll turn it into something eerily similar to what you see in other formerly successful attendance markets. Just look at the numbers from last season attendance-wise.

Buffalo checked in, as a non-playoff team, with a capacity percentage of 109% Yes, greater than capacity thanks to standing room tickets. If Jeremy Jacobs is so insistent on Golisano and the Sabres doing things his way, apparently selling tickets to 82% capacity is how to get things done. It's not quite half-assing it, but it's close.

That's where the question that's akin to "What came first: The chicken or the egg?" comes into play. The Sabres are doing premium priced ticket plans where certain teams will bring with them a certain cost to the tickets. It's a reasonable approach to make to capitalize on games you know are going to be sellouts. Every game the Sabres play with Toronto is guaranteed to sell out because you've got folks from Buffalo and Toronto looking for tickets. Leafs fans especially enjoy coming stateside for a game because Sabres tickets are vastly less expensive than tickets to see the Leafs at Air Canada Center.

The problem you run into with raising ticket prices across the board, and this is where the Sabres and other teams that have gone this way got it right with premium games, is that no one wants to pay the same price to watch the dumpy team you never see as opposed to seeing the blood rival you'd pay out the nose to get in the building. The advantages all work for the team here.

Sadly this is the NHL - a league where mediocrity is the ultimate goal of the owners as far as what the fans get and what they want out of the players all the while making absolutely sure their pockets stay heavily lined and if anyone isn't doing their part to greed up...you get smacked.

At this point, multiple relocations and expansion (God help us all if it comes to that) are the only solutions the league will consider to help rebuild the coffers if it comes to that. The NHL has enough teams playing the role of the "weak sister" and for the time being, the Board of Governors and the Commissioner's Office are saying all the supportive things. You have to know that if teams are bleeding as much money as some say they are (Phoenix and Los Angeles respectively) then the rest of the owners are not happy because they're dragging them down hard and virtually flushing money down the toilet.

So, in the meantime, how do you make up for them? You cough it up out your ass for tickets.

Congratulations, you're paying for rotten miserable owners.

Suspended In Time

There have been a couple of team suspensions of note recently - one with a lot of speculation surrounding it and the other, amazingly so, isn't making more headlines for the rather disgusting way it's come about.

First off, the fluff news. Brian Burke suspended his life partner Scott Niedermayer for not appearing at training camp because he's still mulling over retirement. It makes sense, obviously, if you decide to not come to work when you're under contract (Niedermayer has two years left on his deal) you need to get punished. A lot of the fun in this story comes from the ever spotlight hungry Burke - take a look:

"Yes, he was suspended today," Ducks GM Brian Burke said during an NHL media
conference call. "I spoke with Scott to tell him he was being suspended, which
Scotty expected."

You can practically hear the heartbreak in his voice about this - like a teenager who just got dumped and is trying ever-so-desperately to win back their now lost love. It makes you pine for a viewing of American Pie doesn't it?

The initial speculation on this story from the blog and message board worlds is that this is all an elaborate ploy on their parts to cut down on the cost to employ Niedermayer. Obviously, if he shows up and is in camp, the Ducks cap space goes bye-bye. While he's suspended and being fined all while hemming and hawing about retirement, he's not exactly on the books - at least in Anaheim's mind. After all, the organization is being held hostage by the player and they have finances to worry about.

The other side of that is that they would, potentially, like Niedermayer to pull some Peter Forsberg-like type of action and just go away for a while (say... til about February) and then decide that yes, he does want to play hockey again and then the Ducks would get Niedermayer back at a vastly reduced rate for this season. It would be shrewd to say the least and I'd never put anything past Brian Burke, but this would definitely be skirting the rules, perhaps enough to even arouse the attention of Gary Bettman who doesn't seem to care about anything unless you're screwing around with the money.

Life, though, is riddled with caveats, friends, because life and/or karma may force the Ducks and Scott Niedermayer to come to a decision a lot sooner than either may have hoped. With the pre-season underway and pre-season games being what they are (read: a mine field for injuries to important starters) new Ducks defenseman Mathieu Schneider broke a bone in his left ankle in the Ducks first pre-season game against the Kings and will be out for at least a month.

This shakes up a Ducks blueline that during the Cup Finals last year was so formidible and that saw with the addition of Schneider another guy to quarterback their power play. Now, the Ducks have Chris Pronger and his band of unrenowned (Kent Huskins, Shane Hnidy, Sean O'Donnell, Maxim Kondratiev, and Joey DiPenta - yikes). Will the Ducks weather the storm for a month without Schneider or do they suck it up, make some salary-paring deals and get Niedermayer into camp? It should be interesting and add to the drama that's for sure, and it's not exactly the kind that Brian Burke feeds off of.

The other suspension this pre-season is a bit bothersome. Buffalo Sabres defenseman and NHL stalwart Teppo Numminen was suspended by the Sabres because he'll not be on the ice and skating with the rest of the team.

Not because he's holding out in a contract dispute.




Not because he wants to be traded.




Not because he's debating whether to retire and move home to Finland.




He's being suspended because he won't be on the ice thanks to having to get heart surgery.

Let me preface this in saying that thanks to the salary cap times we're in, teams are forced to do things like this (like with Numminen and also with Niedermayer, whether that's by hook or by crook regardless).

This situation just stinks because this is the third surgery that Numminen has to get to fix the valve in his heart. For just anyone this would be a tenuous time and situation, but for a professional athlete where their heart undergoes a bit more stress than us common shmoes it's of the utmost concern and urgency to get this taken care of and fixed.


The reasoning behind the suspension, frankly, just stinks.

The NHL players union confirmed that Numminen had been suspended without pay for failing to report to camp in adequate physical condition. "We are currently
reviewing this matter," NHLPA spokesman Jonathan Weatherdon said, according to the newspaper.

The Players Union should have a field day with this, and rightfully so, its bogus to suspend Numminen without pay because he has to get his heart operated on. What would the NHL rather have: a healthy, veteran doing his best to help lead his team to victory or to have that same player potentially die on the ice in practice because he can't get it fixed without getting punished by his team and the league. The answer is pretty simple here and in matters like this, the league should have a cap exemption.

Major League Baseball has a roster exemption for players who leave the team for bereavement and the NBA has an injury exemptment for their salary cap as well. In fact, the NBA goes above and beyond to allow everyone a chance at spending more money for a host of reasons. Not that that's the solution the NHL should go for here, at the very least allow for a team to not have to worry about their finances when a player is going in for heart surgery. Seems to make the most sense to me.

A lot of folks will want to blame the Sabres in this matter, and that's somewhat fair - the Sabres could look the other way and just tell Teppo to get back and get well when he can. The problem is is that there's a huge risk in doing that and with resources being a bit more scarce the closer you are to the salary cap, the Sabres have no choice whatsoever but to do what they did and have to eat the PR hit that they'll take for it.


Make no fault about it, however, it's not the Sabres who should be getting jeered over this one. I think we all know who should take the hit...

Oh Those Wacky Oilers

They're at it again. Edmonton Oilers general manager Kevin Lowe nearly set the city of Buffalo on fire when he attempted to sign Sabres restricted free agent Thomas Vanek to a seven year $50 million dollar contract. The Sabres warned Lowe (and any other GM who would dare) repeatedly that they would match any offer made to Vanek, especially after losing they're top two guys in Drury and Briere via the unrestricted route.

Kevin Lowe attempted to call Darcy Regier's bluff except that Regier wasn't bluffing at all and a preturbed Sabres front office called a press conference almost immediately after Edmonton had signed Vanek to the massively insane offer sheet to say that they were indeed retaining their (hopeful) soon-to-be superstar winger.

Kevin Lowe, not satisfied with doing nothing on the unrestricted free agent market has again gone diving in head first into the restricted pool, this time signing Anaheim Ducks winger Dustin Penner to a five year $21.25 million dollar offer sheet. Again, the Oilers are obliterating the salary market in order to get some action going and maybe score a player - but right now, it seems more likely that Kevin Lowe is just being an agitator and gunning for guys that teams would rather not lose and upping the ante to put the uncomfortable bite on these franchises finances for the years to come.

It had been theorized to me that this was what Lowe was doing with the Vanek signing - blow up the salary market on one guy to really put the screws to teams they'll be competing with later on in the unrestricted market. It's an interesting theory, but imagine if the Sabres had not bothered to match Vanek's offer and if they were also foolishly saddled with this latest Penner deal. You'd have a combined 12 years and $70+ million dollars tied up in TWO players.

Now, I know that Edmonton may be getting sold to a Canadian billionaire not named Jim Balsillie away from their current gang of 34 owners and that he's promised to spend up to the heights of the salary cap to bring a winner back to the Canadian Rockies hinterlands of Alberta. That said, even I'd think that a shrewd businessman like Daryl Katz wouldn't go quite this hog wild, especially for a guy like Dustin Penner, who is mainly making his bank based on the success of the Ducks last season and his relative youth (He's currently 24 years-old and his stats for 2006-07 are: 82 games; 29 goals 16 assists for 45 points with 58 PIM and -2 ).

Is $4+ million dollars the going rate for a third line winger these days? Jeez, financial hard times have really struck the NHL once again. I haven't seen this foolish of a deal since the Bruins negotiated against themselves for the right to pay Martin Lapointe $5 million a year and take him away from the Red Wings, the same "fiscally irresponsible" Detroit Red Wings whose final offer to Lapointe that off-season was for $3.5 million per year.

If Edmonton were really out to screw with the other teams in the NHL, and mind you testing Brian Burke's nerve I am all for, but why not take a shot at a guy that would both fit into the Edmonton system instantly and thrive all the while really putting the screws to a stingy, joyless miser? Of course, I'm talking about the Oilers making a run at restricted free agent Zach Parise from the Devils.

Parise is clearly a budding young offensive star who will unfortunately be stifled if he's made to stay in New Jersey under the iron fist of hockey's Third Reich led by Heir Lamoriello. What good is it to have an up and coming young guy like Parise in a nothing place like New Jersey, where the fans could give a crap else and the team's management has been actively been hating their own fanbase and market for the last 15 years? It serves no purpose and Kevin Lowe would be doing the league a favor by trying to sign Parise to an obnoxious offer sheet that Lou Lamoriello would be tested to the "n"th degree as to whether or not to match.

Then again, Lamoriello would call in one of his favors from Asleep At The Wheel Bettman and find a way to circumvent the rules and regulations once again. Jim Fahey and Alexander Korolyuk agree at least.