Toronto Maple Leafs: NHL Dispute Unacceptable

The Toronto Maple Leafs and the rest of the NHL still do not have a plan in place to resume play and begin the 2021 season.

The NBA has a plan; the NHL does not.  Today is Saturday, and there will not be a Toronto Maple Leafs game tonight, nor do we have any reasonable idea as to when we should expect one.

This is unacceptable.

The Players and the league need to get their crap together and figure this out, because the other leagues are doing it and they look like an absolute joke at this point.

The NHL Has Gone to the Labor Dispute Well Too Many Times

When I heard that the main sticking point in getting the games back was not the logistics surrounding the pandemic, but money, I was disgusted.

The NHL and NHLPA have abused their fans for years with constant labour disputes and work stoppages.  Twice they have cancelled half of a season, and once they cancelled the whole thing.

The NHL is a small group of rich kids, future millionaires, current millionaires and billionaires who can never quite decide how to split up the billions of dollars they earn from (mostly) working class people.

The concern they have for the people who pay their exorbitant salaries is laughable.  If the NHL couldn’t play right now because it was medically dangerous, I would respect that.

What I can’t respect is arguing over who gets what percentage of the money.  I can barely stand to do enough research to write this article (because I’m so sick of the NHL’s off-ice crap) but I was able to do it, and according to TSN:

"Players are set to receive 72 per cent of their salaries during the 2020-21 season. Twenty per cent of player salaries are being given back to owners to repay their revenue shortfall from 2019-20’s paused season. A further 10 per cent is to be deferred and paid out over three seasons.The NHL is asking players to defer another 16 per cent in 2020-21 and has also asked to raise limits on escrow in future years of the CBA."

As Brian Burke said on the Fan 590 the other day, revenues are supposed to be split, and 50% of NHL revenues come from the gate, which is currently producing zero dollars.  Therefore, if revenue is down a minimum of 50% the players are currently getting a ridiculous cut of what revenues there are, even with the cuts.

Furthermore, Burke went on to explain that if the players do not agree to defer even more of their payments, they will only be selfishly taking money from tomorrow’s NHL players, and the young players who aren’t making any money yet.

In any labour dispute, I am predisposed to side with the workers, even if NHL players are the farthest thing from blue-collar, but this is just ridiculous. NHL players are struggling much less than virtually everyone else right now, which means they get zero public sympathy.

It’s pretty embarrassing when you’re making people side with NHL owners. The fact is, sports are a very nice distraction from what is going on in the world right now, and the NHL is blowing a huge opportunity to have a captive audience, grow the game and make new fans.

Let’s keep in mind here that even with a 50% paycut, the lowest paid NHL player is going to make more money this year than pretty much any doctor risking his life in a hospital right now.

The players are being selfish and greedy, and shortsighted. If they don’t play for non medical reasons, they are only going to cost themselves down the line. I don’t know of anyone, except for maybe a few soulless billionaires, who is making as much money right now as they’d like to.  So to the NHL players need to suck it up, take what they can get, and get on the ice.

This is your fourth labour dispute since 1994, people have no sympathy or patience for either side.  Just show, for once, some respect to your fans (the people who’s money you are arguing about) and get on the ice.