Goodenow Gets His Turn

So what did you think of Bob's turn?

Here is a summary:

1. The players want to play.
2. The owners locked the players out(again).
3. The owners set the player salaries in a free market system.

Repeat ad-nauseum.

Unfortunately, in contrast to Bettman's session, the quality of questions was rather poor and it was essentially a rant session. The players make too much money... blah blah blah. This was extremely frustrating to watch.

From what I managed to watch:

• No one challenged the PA on their stance regarding the Levitt report.
• No one challenged the PA on their "substantial" offers to the NHL.
• No one challenged Goodenow on what he claims the NHL's issues are.

I'll give credit to Goodenow on his position that a salary cap doesn't necessarily work and that the NFL's players have a really crappy deal... but of course he ended up sticking his foot in his mouth on most of the issues, especially when he called fans JEALOUS.

I also have to take issue with his stance that there is no relation between player salaries and ticket prices. I'll try to make this quick:

• Yes, there is no guarantee that ticket prices would go down if salaries did the same.
• Yes ticket prices are determined by supply and demand.
• Over the past ten years, ticket prices have risen at a rate far higher than inflation.
• This is a gate driven league, the only way to cover rising salary costs(which, also, have risen at a rate much higher than inflation) is to increase ticket prices.
• The high ticket prices have yet to adversely affect demand because most fans realize that high ticket prices are a requirement in order to pay the high salaries.
• However, if players were making an average of 800k rather than 1.8m, fans would not be willing to pay the ticket prices they are now. In other words, the DEMAND would be less, as fans would know that the owners are essentially pocketing the money. They would not accept the ticket prices, whereas currently they understand that ticket prices must be high in order to pay the high salaries.

Anyway, here is the CP recap from TSN.

Quote of the day:

Doug Maclean: "My owner, who has invested 110 million in the franchise, made less money last year, than Jody Shelley."