A list of possible replacement players

[Captain Haddock]

OK, let's think about some people that might make good replacement players. People that could give a fuck about the NHLPA mafia.

-The dude that ended Nick Kypreos' career. I don't think he ever played again for the Rangers organization.

-Manon Rheume

-Hailey Wickenheiser, maybe even a couple more of those Canadian girls

-Marty McSquirrely

-Steve Moore

-Kelly Hrudey

-Tonya Harding

-Elvis Stoijko

Who else?

[Shoalzie]

The AHL...

[fix]

The AHL...

You don't speak for us when you say the AHL would cross the line and work as scabs.

Count us out then..

Sin,

98% of the current St. John's Maple Leafs roster.


Playing in an NHL with Replacement players?

Fuck that noise

Sin,

Sidney Crosby

[BSmack]

The AHL...

I sure as hell hope not. I'm also guessing that getting replacement players out there will be way more difficult for the NHL than it was for the NFL. Canada actualy values worker rights.

[fix]

The AHL...

I sure as hell hope not. I'm also guessing that getting replacement players out there will be way more difficult for the NHL than it was for the NFL. Canada actualy values worker rights.

Not to mention the fact that a great number of them will requre work visas to play for the U.S. based teams.

And just when you thought that Betteman had his owners mouths all in a row..

One of the idiots behind all of this opened a can of worms about collusion with his comments last weekend...

Calculating, shrewd and slick, Jeremy Jacobs talks
Russ Conway
Associate Editor

W hen Jeremy Jacobs steered his family concessions company into purchasing the old Boston Garden and the Bruins in 1975 from Storer Broadcasting Company, from a business point of view, it was one of the best decisions ever made in professional sports history.

For a price of just under $10 million at the time, he has seen that deal turn into a multi-corporate business that is part of his privately controlled empire -- Delaware North Companies -- and a personal net worth, according to Forbes Magazine, of $1 billion.

In an elite as one of America's wealthiest men, at age 64, he is far more than one of 30 club owners in the National Hockey League. Only crusty Bill Wirtz, owner of the Chicago Blackhawks, and Philadelphia's Ed Snider have been around the NHL's boardroom longer than Jacobs.

His relationship with fellow owners is deep-rooted. Subsidiaries of the Jacobs-run Delaware North enterprise operate concessions in seven buildings occupied by NHL teams..

There is no doubt among those in pro hockey that Boston's absentee owner from Buffalo has the ear of Gary Bettman as one of the NHL commissioner's closest confidants. When it comes to the ongoing contract battle between club owners and the players union, what Jacobs thinks and has to say carries clout.

So when the opportunity came along last week to sit down one-on-one with this enigma of a professional sport -- a mastermind who made some of his fortune in hockey, only too willing to shut it down -- why not pick his brain?

For better than a half-hour, virtually uninterrupted, it was the 30-year billionaire hockey team owner facing your 37-year hockey scribe who still puts loose change in a piggy bank. What's the difference between a few bucks when the eye-to-eye taped discussion is all business?

David Letterman has his "Top 10" list. Let's expand ours to a baker's dozen: 13 questions selected from the variety asked with answers from Jacobs.

What's the next plan?

Q -- How are the Bruins going to play a 2005-06 season?

A -- We are going to attempt to play under any agreement with the Players Association that we can have. It's up to the commissioner to tell us what our alternatives are if that's not possible.


Q-- Are you going to use replacement players? Do you really think the fans are going to buy that product?

A -- I'm going to do what the commissioner tells me what I can do. I'm going to do everything I can to field the best possible hockey team we can. I'm not even going down that road with you on that, because that could get me in trouble.

But think about it. If we start out, we're going to be paying more money than anybody else in the world for players. Bear in mind, we've got Joe Thornton and Sergei Samsonov playing for 10 percent for that they made here.

Now, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize maybe we won't have the best players in the world, but players have a life expectancy. Hockey has an undetermined life expectancy. It's been going for 75 years; it's going to go another 25 and beyond.

Sooner or later, the best players in the world are going to be playing in the National Hockey League because we will be offering more than anybody else.


Q -- Is this really about busting the union?

A -- The thing I don't want anybody to think -- or you to feel -- is that we have anything against organized labor, or organized representation by the Players Association, because we don't. That's the only way to do business.


Q -- If there isn't a collective bargaining agreement -- there's none -- and come July 1, a player's current contract expires, say another club comes along and offers X-amount of dollars. What prevents Joe Thornton from going there to play as a replacement player? They're free. An 18-year-old has a right to work. Can they play for whom they wish?

A -- The National Hockey League will have certain parameters that they will have to function with. We're not going to go backwards where we were. That's backwards where we were or worst. This league is not going to go and kill itself a second time. I don't know what form it will take. There will be parameters in place. I can't really talk to that detail with you.


Hello Collusion

Q -- If there is no collective bargaining agreement, how can there be a salary cap?

A -- I can't get into that. I think these are all good questions. Believe me, the legal and labor intelligence that is in place is unprecedented when it comes to that we do the right and correct thing, that we do not act imprudently or irresponsibly. We're being very well advised. Impasse, implementation, replacements -- those are all alternatives. This is a whole body of law that has to be engaged.


Q -- What's the team salary cap number that will make a new deal fly?

A -- If 50-55 percent of our total gross number -- what we get from all the various sources of our revenue -- goes to the players. If we spend 50-55 percent of those revenue sources, we can survive and do well. You can't speculate on an actual number any more. This is a wounded bird now.

That $42 million that the commissioner offered before, that was a cap. That wasn't a percentage. People could go up to that number. The commissioner is very right. There's a magnet that pulls you there. You watch the teams in football. There's nobody very far under their cap. Everybody spends up to the cap.

We couldn't survive with that number now.


Q -- It's not going to have a "4" in it (as in $40-million or more)?

A -- No. No, no, no, no. I would be surprised if there is a number. I wouldn't recommend it.

Bear in mind, Gary (Bettman) is extremely bright. He is about as hard-working a guy that I know. I remember my dad and the way he worked, and that was crazy. Gary has a lot of that impulse that he had. But Gary is also a great, great communicator. He's constantly in touch with the players in the sense that they are all of his players, his 30 owners. You know where he stands, you know what he's thinking, and you know where he's going.

Credibility on the line

Q -- Trust has been an issue. Some people say it's been a red herring. Some players say, "We don't trust the owners." Your situation with the Mass. Department of Revenue came up, underreporting ticket revenue and TV revenue. There are questions that came up about other clubs with the way revenues were reported to the league. How do you respond to that?

A -- I can tell you, unequivocally, that we vetted the hell out of these numbers. These are not fabricated. Stop and think about this. Use your own common sense. Would I close a profitable deal? If it was making money, would I close it down? Would those people be out now?

Would anybody sell, or put up for sale the Anaheim Ducks for less than $50 million? They're bailing because it's a profit deal? Come on. They couldn't make a go of it. Common sense says you just don't close good businesses because you want more money.

We churn dollars. Let's face it.

It's very hard to find replacement owners. We fortunately have enough strong ownership right now who can afford to do this. People just don't tell you they're losing money if they're not.

These are rich guys who have egos as big as mine, which is few, and they don't want to tell you that they made a bad deal. Yet, they're owning up to it.


Q -- How do you mend the credibility issue?

A -- You make them (players union) come to the table and recognize that you're telling the truth. They won't look at our numbers. They came in and looked at Boston, they looked at four of us. And what happened? They went away. They won't say, "You cheated, you lied." They just walk away.

When the Levitt Report came out, they sat back and said, "We don't believe it." Well, come look at it. Sit down with Arthur (Levitt, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman).


Q -- We took the Levitt Report to certified public accountants. They came back and said it was benchmarked wrong, it was not a "superaudit" as the commissioner called it. Why would they say that?

A -- Why would the CPAs say that? I don't know. I don't know why they did.

Why not take it apart? Go take it apart. I mean, Arthur Levitt is a very creditable source. When you take a superaudit -- you take the Boston audited financial report -- you believe that these large firms, Big Four firms, whatever, are telling the truth. All of us use them. Then you test it and go back. It's as close to a superaudit as you can have.

Let me tell you, Delaware North has a lot of subsidiaries. I've got one in New Orleans that's being audited by somebody, I forgot. I've got another one being audited by somebody else. It's being consolidated. But I think if you want to create news, you say Joe Blow the auditor down the street said this or that with a forensic auditor. Make it a forensic audit. Why the hell didn't the players do that?

I mean if they really wanted to test it, let them do it. It isn't like we didn't give them a chance to.

Believe me, the intelligence on our side and the talent on our side is enormous when it comes to this, and you can only drag someone so far. We can't make them believe it. We've gone as far as we can.


Q -- Why is that? How?

A -- This subject was engaged four or five years ago. The commissioner left out a lot of little bread crumbs all the way down the road, saying we're in trouble, we're in trouble. Right up until we had to close the business down, they (the union) wouldn't engage.

David Stern (the NBA commissioner) made a wonderful comment, talking about the situation, when he said Gary gave them miles and miles of opportunity to correct the situation. Gary told us two years ago that this was going to close down if we can't correct it.

We never got engaged. They (the union) never went forward, never collaborated, and now we find ourselves where we are.


Q -- If a season-ticket holder or a luxury suite holder says to you, "I want my money back," what are you going to say?

A -- We've been handling that here locally and we've been dealing with it. It's realistic. I can see why they would. It makes sense. I'm asking the fans to stick with us but if they don't, I can understand why they wouldn't. It's a problem. It's a disappointment to the community that says something about us that is not good. I'm equally hurt as they are. As a fan I am. Forget my financial aspect in this. As a fan, I'm equally hurt.


Q -- Do you still think Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow can reach an agreement?

A -- I think Gary can.(Jacobs offered an opinion on Goodenow, requesting that it be off the record.)

Back to Square 1

So here we are. Owners united, players marching in lockstep, agents in solidarity. Season gone. Pro hockey's world turned upside-down in a mess headed into a black hole.

ESPN has announced that it will go with an all-college sports programming drive. The network is reviewing its options and may drop out of the NHL broadcasting picture next month all together. If it goes with college football, basketball, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, wrestling and what-have-you, where will the NHL fit in when it finally comes back?

Ping-pong may be a bigger draw than a replacement-player NHL.

Where are the sponsors and advertisers going? How many season-ticket holders are going to be appeased by taking credits for no hockey this season and how many are going to drop out, asking for refunds? What about those high-roller luxury suite holders who get access rights for $200,000 a year, but only got the Celtics this year and no Bruins or NHL hockey? Think they got their bang for the buck?

Listening to Jacobs, it became obvious that his approach could be considered two ways.

Is it good business sense to couch this entire fiasco by engaging in this never-ending war of finger pointing, for all practical purposes claiming that one side is completely right and the other is totally wrong?

What's the value of equity that's been built into his FleetCenter (oops, TD Banknorth Garden) by the Bruins? Thank you very much, $6 million a year for 20 years to rename the joint.

Would there even be a building without the Bruins?

Jacobs has an investment in his business, and well-run businesses operate to make a profit. That's why they're in business, and nobody should have a problem with that.

But this disaster appears to be more about killing. It's about one side trying to kill the other while "the process" is killing a major league sport, careers and livelihoods.

When all is said and done, what kind of relationship do you think the players, owners and fans are going to have in the aftermath of pro hockey's nuclear meltdown?

My father had a term he'd use when it was the turn for one of his young sons to mow the huge lawn at our family home. The lawnmower always seemed to break down before the neighborhood baseball game. "Again?" he'd scowl. "Sure, accidentally-on-purpose."

Is the idea of shutting down the NHL in a contract dispute because no agreement could be reached, or was it for a complete top-to-bottom overhaul?

The NHL governors turned down a $3.5 billion offer to sell out the other day, keep their buildings, and get out from under their headache.

Look closely at what Jerry Jacobs says.

Is this good business, or is it a Machiavellian attitude -- the end justifies the means?

You be the judge.

[scritti]

look for scouts in NE,Michigan and Minnesota just in case and a few bribes to INS wil work.

[tough love]

Anyone catch Grapes take on, NHLPA'errrs whining about replacements.

Lets just say his honesty didn't make him any friends with those spoilt overpaid assholes.

Go Abyss.