From TSN.ca, UBC professor weighs pros/cons of a cap.
I don't usually write about hockey because people like chuq do it so much better, but here's an article worth reading.
Stephen Ross, professor of sports law at the University of Illinois but who teaches at the University of British Columbia, says "an across-the-board [salary] cap, that takes no account of the team and where they are, is an anti-fan idea".
Now I know that professional sports is a moneymaking venture and that the measure of success is to some degree whether the owners of the franchises make money, not whether fans are happy with the league. But you'd think that minimal fan pleasure would be a prerequisite for making money in the long term.
Chuq and others have pointed out that this is not a fight between the NHL and the NHLPA (that is, not a fight between the owners and the players) -- it's really a fight between the rich owners in good locations and the less-rich owners is less-good locations, with the players rather caught in the middle.
Players don't dictate salary (at least, not in any convincing way) -- owners set salaries, and the rich owners are willing to pay more than the less-rich owners can afford. But the less-rich owners must pay large salaries or lose their best players, and so they pony up anyway, and their franchises lose money because of the double-bind that the rich owners put the less-rich owners in.
Players are just along for the ride. You can't expect a player to say "I'm not worth that much money and I won't take it" when they are offered huge salaries far in excess of their demonstrable worth on the ice and in relation to other players of their skill level.
But the rich and less-rich owners can't negotiate among themselves, they have to negotiate with the NHLPA and get a new union agreement. So they have to paint the NHLPA as the bad guys (and to be fair the union is not squeaky-clean because they are trying to distort the system to benefit their members at the expense of the owners) while the NHLPA must paint the owners black as a group instead of pointing to the Rangers and the Maple Leafs and the Avalanche as the problems.
It's a mess, and hockey is already a distant fourth (or fifth, behind NASCAR) in sports interest in the US. It's not going to get better.
I gave up season tickets to the Sharks because of cost and haven't really regretted it (having an extra 42 nights a year at home as well as an extra few thousand dollars was worth it). I still enjoy the occasional game, but I can get my fix on TV or via NHL 2004 (or 2005, I suppose) or with the more accessible junior, college, and minor-league hockey available here in Canada.
I am the one the NHL and NHLPA need to fear, because I'm a fan who left and discovered that life without NHL hockey in person is still worth living.
Hmm. Maybe I need a sports or hockey category? Naw, not until I write a few more of these.