Larry Brooks: PLAYERS HAVE NO REASON TO APOLOGIZE

[Habit]

Well I don't like larry Brooks as a reporter. Most don't, but his "Pipeline" to the NHLPA cannot be denied. But his latest story below has got to be the worst artical yet.

Call me old fashioned, but I like a writer to be objective and give both sides of the story, not shoving his opinion down the throats of his readers. While I respect his opinion, he should save it for a blog.

www.nypost.com/sports/49846.htm

PLAYERS HAVE NO REASON TO APOLOGIZE

July 10, 2005 -- LET'S get this straight. The players owe no one an apology for fighting the good fight they did last season against submitting to a salary cap system that, in both the short and long runs, will provide windfall profits to NHL owners but will prove ruinous to the game as we have always known it.
Understand this once and for all: The owners and the NHL's ruling body could not have cared less if the league reopened for business in 2005-06 or ever again. They made it clear over and over and over again they would have incinerated the village in order to fatten their own fancy portfolios.

The league is operating for one reason only — because the players came to the conclusion the only way they'd get back onto the NHL ice would be by swallowing the league's poison pills and negotiating a surrender. There's plenty of reason to question the PA's strategy in light of the union's stinging defeat at the table, but no reason whatsoever to question the players' good faith and motives; no cause to question their love of the game and of its culture.

Yes, of course, when the owners' lockout finally ends, players should say they're sorry for the loss of last season, should say they're sorry for having been part of one of the sorriest episodes in the history of pro sports. But they should not apologize. They did nothing wrong. They did not create the cancellation.

For over a year, the NHL conducted a PR war against the players, using websites to cast these athletes as greedy villains in an attempt to rally the fans against the very performers they root for, and whose jerseys the customers pay exorbitant sums to purchase.

And now the players should be expected to apologize for being butt-ended in the teeth?

The fans who blame and even now hate the players — if you check out some of the swill posted on internet message boards, you wonder if these people despise these players so much, why they'd even bother to watch the games, unless, they're simply cheering for the laundry — won't be swayed by apologies. They'll simply want to know why they didn't apologize sooner. They'll simply demand to know why they didn't surrender last year.

Apologies will accomplish nothing from a PR perspective. They will simply demean the players offering them.

These players have nothing to be ashamed of. They conducted themselves with honor last year. Once again they showed why you'd want them — and not the other guys — in the foxhole beside you every time.

Yes, they have every right to ask hard questions of their union leaders, with the essential one being, "What About Bob?" — as in the union leader Goodenow who has essentially disappeared from sight these last six weeks. They have every right to be angry at forfeiting a season of their careers, an even more precious loss than the substantial sum of money many will never recover.

Make no mistake. The CBA will represent a negotiated PA surrender. But it is not the unconditional surrender the league demanded the players accept in order to get on the ice last season. The players did not get down on their knees then. There is no reason in the world they should get down on their knees now to beg for forgiveness.

They did nothing wrong. They owe no one an apology.

[Bob]

habit said:

Well I don't like larry Brooks as a reporter. Most don't, but his "Pipeline" to the NHLPA cannot be denied. But his latest story below has got to be the worst artical yet.

Call me old fashioned, but I like a writer to be objective and give both sides of the story, not shoving his opinion down the throats of his readers. While I respect his opinion, he should save it for a blog.

www.nypost.com/sports/49846.htm

If Brooks really thought there were windfall profits to be had, why didn't he put in an offer the Anaheim franchise?

[Doc Holliday]

...Any players thats respectuful enough of the fans to offer apologies for that awful process that was this CBA negotiation is full of class and should be commended for it. We all know that no sides is blameless but beyond the bickering and the money talk, there was us, fans, being aggravated but Brooks has his nose so far up Goodenow's ass that he can't even see that...

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

docholliday said:

...but Brooks has his nose so far up Goodenow's ass that he can't even see that...

Up who's ass does Manny Legace have his nose? Clippings courtesy OlTimeHockey at HockeysFuture:


Detroit News - November 24, 2004
www.detnews.com/2004/wings/0411/24/e01-15339.htm

"There's not going to be any hockey," Legace said. "It's a joke. The league doesn't want to negotiate. It doesn't look as if we're going to have a season."

The Oakland Press - November 4, 2004
www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/110404/pro_20041104020.shtml

"The only way to get a deal done is to go 100 percent his way, and it ain't going to happen. It's got to be a give-and-take relationship when you're going to make a deal, and he just doesn't want to make a deal,'' Legace said.

"Maybe the players should start their own league. I know the fans would come to watch us. They've already proven that. If they want to be like that, maybe we should go the other way and threaten them with starting another league,'' Legace said.


TSN - November 24, 2004
http://http://tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?ID=105777&hubName=

"We've given them (the owners) offers, they've said no and they haven't come back (with any counteroffers). All he (Bettman) talks about is salary cap, salary cap. He does not want to negotiate."

Legace reinterated the NHLPA won't accept a salary cap. He also told the paper that he felt fans wouldn't welcome replacement players.


From M-live - December 16, 2004
http://http://motownsports.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=23700

"I didn't expect them (NHL officials) to be, how would you say it, idiots about everything," Legace said. "We pretty much gave the whole farm away with our proposal (it included an immediate 24-percent rollback on existing contracts). It's unheard of for any union to offer a one-percent drop, let alone 24 percent. It ( a settlement) could have been (negotiated)."

"He's being an idiot about negotiating," Legace said. "What he basically did was take what we gave him and stuck a hard cap on it. He doesn't want to budge from his (position), doesn't want to give up anything. I can't see (a deal) being done when you're dealing with a man who's so stubborn-headed."

"He's a bitter man. He's messed up the NHL the last 10 years," Legace said. "He has to step up and take responsibility. He collects his paycheck and does nothing to help the league . . . He hasn't done anything for the owners. I don't know why they're listening to him. He sits in his office and tries to play the tough-guy role."

Legace said many NFL players have expressed their support to the NHLPA, which has posted their e-mails on its secured web site for players. The NFL and NBA have salary caps.

"They (NFL players) are saying, 'Don't do it, don't settle for a hard cap, you guys will lose out in the long run,' " Legace said. "They say that they got a raw deal."

*

I don't want to hear any whining, from players now or from owners when we're into the new CBA—it's unmanly. Choke down the pill and make the Game better—if not, prepare to blackout arenas across the US.