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Originally Posted by MarkGio
At this point I'm starting to think the league likes lock outs. Maybe it's like Schadenfreude for them.
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Don Fehr has been angling to opt out of the CBA in September 2019 and precipitate the next labour war already. If you think the Olympics is actually a key issue, you'd be wrong. It's going to be all about Fehr and the union hardliners (some of whom aren't even in the NHL anymore so have nothing at stake) trying to see if they can break the cap and linkage.
In terms of the Olympics themselves, you have to ask yourself why the NHLPA refused to even negotiate the point. That will give you a hint as to what is to come in two years unless the players do what their peers in the MLBPA did to Don Fehr in 2002. They told him to stuff his brinksmanship and get a deal done when he was prepared to cancel another World Series.
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Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus
The NHL would never have signed off on a guaranteed Olympics clause is the CBA.....portraying the players as idiots because of that suggestion is silly.
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Of course the NHL would sign off on guaranteed Olympics. The NHL even
offered exactly that if the union agreed to terminate the mutual opt-out clause for 2019 and ensure this CBA runs its entire term. If the players didn't like that offer, they could have made a counter proposal. They chose to bury their heads in the sand instead. That's their loss.
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Both sides could barely get a deal done that covered the basics, twice. And yes, it is greasy for the league to come out and try to pin it on the players by saying they could have gone had they extended the current CBA. This is solely between the League and the IOC and their inability to come to terms.
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No, it's not greasy at all. The union wants to go, but the union stupidly failed to negotiate for all three games in the 2013 CBA. That's on them. The NHL wants a better deal from the IOC, no doubt. But when it was clear that was not happening, the league turned to the players and asked if they were willing to make something happen. The players said no. That's on the players.
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I can certainly say as an enthusiast of the Olympics and amateur sports, I won't be watching the NHL when the Olympic games are on so it makes no difference to me if the players go against the leagues wishes. The truly sad part is that this all but guarantees another lockout with the way the two sides are heading through all of this.
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As I noted earlier, a lockout is already a guarantee based on how the union is acting. The Olympics are small potatoes.