Players and fans react to NHLPA’s rejected offer

Nov 22, 2012 | Sports

Michael Del Zotto was one of the many players to express feelings on twitter COURTESY: WIKICOMMONS

By Adriano Mancini

The NHL rejected the NHLPA’s latest proposal for a new collective bargaining agreement during a meeting in New York City Wednesday night.

As a result, multiple NHL players such as Montreal Canadiens’ forward Colby Armstrong and New York Rangers’ defencemen Michael Del Zotto have gone to social media to vent their frustration against the league, specifically NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

https://twitter.com/BrandonPrust8/status/271364641664425984

https://twitter.com/LightningTimes/status/271358197695123457

https://twitter.com/jgorges26/status/271351922097807360

“The players are suffering right along with the fans,” NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr told reporters Wednesday. “We made an enormous move in the owners direction to try and end it — at least as of today that hasn’t been successful.” according to TSN.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told a scrum of reporters that the league acknowledges that the union’s proposal was a step in the right direction but that it did not pass the smell test.

“We went through their proposal point by point,” said Bettman on Wednesday “We talked about the things that were agreeable, we talked about the things that we could modify, we talked about the things that we had no more room to move on and explained our proposal on each of those elements.” TSN reports.

The players association’s latest proposal has a 50-50 split of revenues , as requested by the league. In addition to seeking a total of $393 million in hockey- related revenue for the length of the new CBA.

The players association also offered up to $1 billion in league- wide concessions.

However one of the main issues dividing the two sides remains the league’s refusal to honour the entire salary of all existing contracts and to have the players hockey related revenue slashed to $211 million.

The NHL is expected to cancel more regular season games and the all-star game by the end of the week.

The latest evolution in the impasse did not come as a surprise to hockey fans , many of whom are preparing for the worst, while hoping for the best.

“With the way this thing has gone I think the league is prepared to cancel the whole season to get what they want,” said Ryan Medeiros, a business administration student and hockey fan at Toronto’s Humber College.

Tom Reid, a media coordinator at Rogers Sportsnet in Toronto said the lockout not only affects the players and the teams but even people outside the NHL.

“For hockey we usually work with a lot more videos, and its a lot busier here, but now there has been an obvious reduction in work,” he said.

A total of 268 games have been cancelled as of Nov.22.