I received several e-mails over the past two weeks from various sources, but I've chosen to post the following one because, after asking around today, it seems to be pretty accurate...
"I was told a group of players for an Eastern Conference team held a
secret vote to see what they would do if the NHLPA would bring a vote
on the NHL salary cap proposal, and not to anyone's surprise, a
majority vote went in favor of a salary cap system.
With this information, the player rep asked Goodenow why the NHLPA
hasn't provided the members with an opportunity to vote on the
proposal because he's got a team full of young teammates needing to
play and knows his owner is willing to budge on some issues like the
age of free agency, cap threshold, pensions, and other important
issues to players not in the upper end of the league.
Goodenow dispatched one of his cronies to tell the rep to act like a
hockey player and be a team player in this and that they would never
allow a vote in a million years that included a salary cap, no matter
the cost.
I was told this got back to a few players on the rich end of that team
and they gave a pretty good talking to the player executive, which of
course in turn had to give the info to Trevor Linden.
Linden over the past week has been getting a ton of pressure asking
why the NHLPA is refusing to negotiate a good deal now before losing
the whole season and half of next year too.
The NHLPA loses any leverage past December 2005 and Linden knows this,
that's why he asked for the meeting without Goodenow and Bettman.
Players know, if they don't get a salary cap negotiated at possible
$40 million now, they know the owners in January 06 will drop their
best offer to $31 million and hard-line on other issues too.
This deal is done by Sunday this week."
This same scenario took place on several teams, The Islanders, Bruins, Hawks, and Caps for certain...we'll see.
