With out a salary cap system, they calgary flames would not be in the nhl

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by cgy2london

on a side note, i know the flames became extremely successful in the 03/04 season with no salary cap in place. all I'm trying to do is show how the salary cap provides parody and an equal playing field as compared to the dark years when the Rangers, Leafs, Avalanche, and Red wings bought everyone who was ever good forcing Calgary for the most part to ice crummy, no competitive teams

When Calgary defeated Detroit in the playoffs in 2004 the Detroit payroll was more than twice that of the Flames.

With the status quo of no cap the Wings drop Lang/Amonte and Hull and Hatcher and Joesph/Hasek and can easily pay Conroy Ignila and Regehr and Kipper 50-100% more than the Flames could and did. If the Flames were to somehow make the playoffs in 2004/05... The Iginla lead Wings would win in a max of 5 games on their way to being one of the best teams ever.

[GGG]

I think a more interesting essay would that a Strong Canadian Currency and Good Management, not the Salary Cap has led to the resurgence of Hockey in Calgary. Every year since the lockout the Salary Cap has hurt the Flames. In fact we have paid more then the cap this year and last year with 1 way deals stashed in the minors.

If the dollar were to drop back down to 66 cents. It would mean Calgary's payroll would have to drop to around 40 million with the same revenue coming in. This would put us in a much less competitive situation.

Saying that the Cap saved the flames is a boring essay because everyone believes this to be true. The more interesting arguement is to talk about the Currency issues.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by GGG

If the dollar were to drop back down to 66 cents. It would mean Calgary's payroll would have to drop to around 40 million with the same revenue coming in. This would put us in a much less competitive situation.

But if the dollar went down, the cap would go down significantly since such a large percentage of revenues come from Canada. Lowering the cap would cause the market value for player salaries to decrease as well.

[Flames89]

Dumb management is dumb management. Salary cap or not.

However, without a salary cap, the dumb management can do far greater damage with their idiocy.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by Flames89

Dumb management is dumb management. Salary cap or not.

However, without a salary cap, the dumb management can do far greater damage with their idiocy.

Dumb management can do far greater damage with a salary cap. Under a cap, if a bad GM overpays a whole bunch of players for long term the franchise is screwed unless they have the financial resources to ship the bad contracts to the minors.

[Flames89]

To their own team. Yes, definitely. I meant league-wide cancer of dumbness.

[stuck_in_chuk]

Originally Posted by cgy2london

Thanks for your suggestions. what I'm trying to show is........

Pre salary clap world:
Teams buying the league
flames not being able 2 compete, ( losing seasons showed by stats)
equaling poor attendance figures, thus allowing for major loses in revenues
in turn having season ticket drives....threats of moving (Portland)

in the salary cap world:
EQUITY SHARING=all teams to benefit from the success of certain franchises
salary cap controls spending allowing everyone to be competitive, which in turn allows for all teams to compete on a level playing ground

on a side note, i know the flames became extremely successful in the 03/04 season with no salary cap in place. all I'm trying to do is show how the salary cap provides parody and an equal playing field as compared to the dark years when the Rangers, Leafs, Avalanche, and Red wings bought everyone who was ever good forcing Calgary for the most part to ice crummy, no competitive teams

You make some valid points, and I personally am in favour of the cap. I think that the cap has allowed Calgary to compete on a level playing field. I just think that the Flames have done quite well after their cup run, and that many other teams would have faced the axe before Calgary. I would say that Calgary is in a better position to buy up a competetive team now than Colorado or possibly even the Red Wings. A successful team can only go so far if no one can afford tickets to the games.

BTW - I think the word you were looking for is 'parity', not 'parody'.

[DementedReality]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

.... the Toronto's/NY's of the league to buy up all the top end talent.

as their combined 1 cup in half a century proves, expensive talent didnt help hem win anything of significance.

meanwhile, markets like East Rutherford, NJ, Denver, Colorado, Raleigh, North Carolina and Tampa, Florida won how many between them in 10 years? Anaheim, Washington, Buffalo, Edmonton, Calgary all more final 4 finishes then teams like BOS, PHI, CHI, NYR, and TOR.

myth buster alert! money was one way to build a competitive team, but clearly not the surest path to the cup.. i dont care what anyone of you armchair economists say, the long term results are overwhelmingly proving my point.

biggest markets in the league have relativly ZERO Championships, never mind buying them all.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by GreenTeaFrapp

But if the dollar went down, the cap would go down significantly since such a large percentage of revenues come from Canada. Lowering the cap would cause the market value for player salaries to decrease as well.

I doubt it would go down significantly. Canadian teams make up 28% of league revenue. They represent 20% of the teams in the league.

[speede5]

Before the salary cap Calgary and several other NHL teams were quite a bit lower in payroll than the big teams, NY, Colorado, Detroit, etc. Now aren't most of the teams close to the cap, including Calgary, which is higher than most of the big teams payroll prior to the cap?

One opinion is that the cap has not kept cost down so much as forced all the teams to spend the limit to be competitive. Other than the odd exception, Minnesota, I'm pretty sure the average payroll has increased a fair bit since the cap came in.

[DementedReality]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

... an uncapped world would have gotten >10M to be captain of the Leafs Wings or Rangers.

so you are ok with systemic design to cheat someone from getting paid fair market value? i guess these guys are modern day gladiators?

anyhow, other than Fedorov and Sakic, i dont recall too many 10million dollar UFA's. i do recall Gratton getting a front loaded deal for 10m, but i say PHI got its just rewards for being stupid.

[Yeah_Baby]

How does a salary cap that is intimately linked with your fluctuating revenue stream actually achieve firm "cost certainty"?

[Kipper is King]

Hee hee! Better put Calgarypuck in that bibliography!

[Cliche]

Originally Posted by DementedReality

so you are ok with systemic design to cheat someone from getting paid fair market value? i guess these guys are modern day gladiators?

anyhow, other than Fedorov and Sakic, i dont recall too many 10million dollar UFA's. i do recall Gratton getting a front loaded deal for 10m, but i say PHI got its just rewards for being stupid.

You have to remember that teams were paying close to equivalent salaries to RFA's on their UFA years. Also your comment about Gratton highlighted the other competition part that wasn't a part of league yet, the aggressive front loaded contracts for players intended to screw other owners out them.
(much like the penner and Vanek contracts)

Keith Tkaczuk,Pavel Bure, Alexei Yashin, Paul Kariya, Jaromir Jagr, Niklas Lidstrom and you can't forget Foppa. Also remember that in changing the CBA, no longer are players sitting out a significant portion of the season. Even Iginla sat out parts of 2002/2003...

Here is a chart with spending for each team, with payroll totals the 5 years before the lockout.

Note how around the year 2000 salaries really took a leap up, and by the time year 2003/04 rolled around, most of the competitive or division leaders had salaries in excess of 50$M

In fact, let's cherry pick the 2002/03 season, and indicate who the Western Conference teams who qualified for the playoffs and their total team salaries.

1. Dallas $61.7M
2. Detroit $68M
3. Colorado $60.1M
4. Vancouver $31.8M
5. St. Louis $63.1M
6. Minnesota $20.5
7. Anaheim $39.0
8. Edmonton $30.9

Anaheim made it to the finals, to be knocked off by the Devils ($52.4M).
While this list and the results of that year would seem to indicate that teams with less than 40$ in committed salaries would have had a chance at the playoffs, it must be noted that Minnesota didn't qualify for playoffs the year after, and neither did Anaheim (whose salary jumped up to 54.4M the year after.)

Also consider that Vancouver was paying 2nd level contract or close to it for both Naslund and Bertuzzi. (2.8 and 4.5 respectively)

Anyways, while the sources may be suspect, a little more work than the 5 minutes that I put in looking that stuff up, would probably confirm the numbers listed on the websites.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Kipper is King

Hee hee! Better put Calgarypuck in that bibliography!

Are we considered a peer reviewed source?

[DementedReality]

looks like a well thought out post and I will read it in more detail shortly. but i want to comment on this first ...

Originally Posted by Cliche

.... Also remember that in changing the CBA, no longer are players sitting out a significant portion of the season. Even Iginla sat out parts of 2002/2003...
.

and? so long as they have fulfilled the terms of their contract, why shouldnt they be allowed to sit out and wait for a deal that makes sense for them?

are they not entititled to not play hockey if they dont want to?

i am not saying guys with contracts should hold out, but guys who are without contracts can choose to wait. as a basic human right, if they dont want to participate, thats their business.

once again i ask, are they our modern day gladiators or is it just that they get paid so much, we think they should entertain us even if they dont want to?

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by Cliche

Also remember that in changing the CBA, no longer are players sitting out a significant portion of the season. Even Iginla sat out parts of 2002/2003...

You mean like Niedermayer, Selanne and Sundin have done?

Note how around the year 2000 salaries really took a leap up, and by the time year 2003/04 rolled around, most of the competitive or division leaders had salaries in excess of 50$M

Except the two teams that finished in the Cup finals. Or the Bruins, Canucks and Sharks. So basically, only two of those teams had salaries in excess of $50M.

[Jordan!]

More accurate to say if the Flames didn't make the finals in 04 and re-establish their brand in one fell swoop, and backed it up with several (albiet dissapointing) playoff appearances, oh yeah... the Oil boom in Alberta didn't hurt

[Cliche]

Originally Posted by DementedReality

looks like a well thought out post and I will read it in more detail shortly. but i want to comment on this first ...



and? so long as they have fulfilled the terms of their contract, why shouldnt they be allowed to sit out and wait for a deal that makes sense for them?

are they not entititled to not play hockey if they dont want to?

i am not saying guys with contracts should hold out, but guys who are without contracts can choose to wait. as a basic human right, if they dont want to participate, thats their business.

once again i ask, are they our modern day gladiators or is it just that they get paid so much, we think they should entertain us even if they dont want to?

Hey, I'm perfectly fine if they go to another league entirely (RE: KHL) if the dollars are their entire motivation for participating in the league. Heck I'm even fine if they don't want to participate at all (RE: Dan Ryder).

And right now it's perfectly feasable if a guy like Wayne Simmonds sat out and asked for Anze Kopitar dollars. Doesn't mean he's going to get it due to the budgets/Caps of each respective team. However I don't want hockey to turn into baseball, where it's basically only the Yankees or Red Sox competing for the World series each year.

I am in favor of the cap in that it restricts what tools the general managers can use in screwing each other over with. The only thing remaining is negotiating how much of the pie that remains is parceled out.

Originally Posted by GreenTeaFrapp

You mean like Niedermayer, Selanne and Sundin have done?

Which of those players sat out for monetary reasons?

I'm surprised you didn't use Mark Giordano.

Originally Posted by GreenTeaFrapp

Except the two teams that finished in the Cup finals. Or the Bruins, Canucks and Sharks. So basically, only two of those teams had salaries in excess of $50M.

Hey, getting to the dance is one thing, getting to the finals is another. If the RFA sheet were a possibility then, wouldn't it somewhat logical that players who were on their 2nd contracts (usually modest raises over their initial entry level contracts) would have drastically increased the monetary upswing that teams were currently experiencing. The only reason why some teams were competitive then (RE: Oilers/Senators) were the fact that due to the prolonged RFA period in a players contact that you wouldn't see any kind of movement until they were 30-31.

Only by the teams with those low salaries essentially playing hardball with their restricted free agents were they able to retain that talent. Was it the optimal situation for their RFA's? No it wasn't, but then they had to compromise. You guys wanting no salary cap know that word right?

[DementedReality]

Originally Posted by Cliche

I am in favor of the cap in that it restricts what tools the general managers can use in screwing each other over with. The only thing remaining is negotiating how much of the pie that remains is parceled out.

and i am in favour of a system that spreads the risk and reward evenly (between players and owners).

i think that was better structured pre cap because the players did not have to be business people, they could focus on being hockey players.

anyhow, the cap is here, forever. if i was the players i would be fighting in the next CBA to have NHLPA accountants installed in the business operation with every team. not just audited statements (like they have now) but actually be part of the strategic workings of the business.