TBURGESS

Just to get this thing signed.... Beer for everyone else. Rum and Coke for me. What kind of beer? I know nothing about beer, so your choice.

Just to get this thing signed.... Beer for everyone else. Rum and Coke for me.

I counter with 5.2M cap this year going up by $75K per year and forget about re-opening up the 'Tied to Revenue' talk in a couple of years. The TSN money isn't going up each year and other costs do go up each year, so the teams are going to have to raise additional revenue on their own to pay for the yearly increases. Rookies don't vote, so min salary raised to 50K with yearly 5% increases. 1K signing bonus per rookie and 6K for the vets cuz they vote. Any competent trainer can do the concussion tests and neurologist's cost money, so counter with a team doctor at every game. I'm not into beer so Rum and Cokes all round. *walks out* and that's why we have labour disputes.

I counter with 5.2M cap this year going up by $75K per year and forget about re-opening up the 'Tied to Revenue' talk in a couple of years. The TSN money isn't going up each year and other costs do go up each year, so the teams are going to have to raise additional revenue on their own to pay for the yearly increases. Rookies don't vote, so min salary raised to 50K with yearly 5% increases. 1K signing bonus per rookie and 6K for the vets cuz they vote. Any competent trainer can do the concussion tests and neurologist's cost money, so counter with a team doctor at every game. I'm not into beer so Rum and Cokes all round.

I'm expecting the league to counter eventually. The players still want too much IMHO. 15K signing bonuses? Really? I guess the guys with contracts finally realized that they don't get anything except a signing bonus this year.

Day 1 doesn't tell us much, but IT'S FOOTBALL TIME AGAIN! I'll take any info folks who are lucky enough to go out to the practice can give me. I don't care if you're a wanna be GM or a Fan Boy or anything in between. Just post your views and let me live vicariously through your eyes. Thanks.

I know this was meant as a joke, but surely you know that the issue isn't the "free" part. First, the service provided was essentially a shuttle service (Park and Ride), with direct routes to the stadium that aren't provided by the city's regular bus routes. Eliminating this service means people have to take a regular city bus, which from some locations is damn near impossible, and from others is extremely impractical. A system where the fans are asked to pony up the difference between what the Bombers are willing to pay and what the city is asking would be great, if it weren't for the fact that the city said a "pay" shuttle is not possible (for reasons that escape me now). It was meant as a joke... It's sorta 'funny' cuz it's true Everyone agrees that a bus service of some sort is needed. The Bombers don't want to pay for it. The city doesn't want to pay for it. The fans don't want to pay for it. Everyone seems to think it's someone else's responsibility. Bus service in the cities I've lived in (Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Merida) are similar. Good on some routes, bad on others, and damn near impossible on the rest. Sure, you can take the train in Calgary and Vancouver, but most people have to get to it first, which makes it the same as taking a bus to a second bus to get to the stadium. Some bars in the Canadian cities offer shuttle services to the stadium for a fee. I shake my head and sometimes do a face palm when I see how entitled folks in Winnipeg think they are.

Leaning towards the owners offer isn't anti-union. It's pro-CFL. Most folks around here want to see the players get raises and to see some CFL football being played. A 10% raise and a 3K signing bonus is a way better offer than most people on these boards will get this year.

That idea doesn't fly either. Players have 6 months of time that they can choose to use to do anything they want, including having another job. Training is an unpaid requirement of a pro football career. Most professions have an unpaid training requirement too, it's just not in the gym.

That certainly explains why the union gets the financial statements.

A few points of clarity: 1. It's about the money. Most of the non-money issues have already been agreed upon. 2. Profit sharing is by definition about the money. 3. All teams except Regina have submitted their numbers to the players association (See the PA press conference). Not sure why the union thinks its their business though. 4. There is no problem getting young players to sign for $45K a season, and that's just for 6 months work, so no, it's not too low. If the CFL couldn't find players to take the minimum, they'd have to raise it. 5. All professionals have to do work they don't get paid for. In pro sports, that's keeping yourself in top shape. If you don't, you won't make the team and you won't get paid. 6. The players gave up Revenue sharing last contract because there was no revenue to share. Now that there is, they want it back. They will need to give some concessions if they want revenue sharing because the league isn't going to just give it back. (No talk from the player about any kind of concessions) 7. Most Pro leagues don't have revenue sharing, just the top 4. They also have billions of dollars, lots of teams to spread out the risk and only take the best players in their sport. The CFL doesn't have any of those things. 8. The players have been negotiating in the media since talks started. Kind of two faced of them to complain about the league doing it too. 9. Twitter comments bother some and don't bother others. Best course of action for the players is to stop them. 10. Revenue sharing appears to be the hill both sides are willing to die on. The league has deeper pockets, so I expect they win.

Strikes never make any financial sense and this one would make even less than most as the only players getting more money this year would be the ones who are making league minimum. I've read that some players contracts have a % boost based on the new agreement, so those players will also get an increase, but the vast majority of players will get nothing in return for going out on strike. In short, the offer doesn't give each player an x% increase on their current contract, it just increases the total salaries for all players on a team.

Flory's letter is bush league compared to Cohons. I agree with Mike.... get back to the table and get a deal worked out.

It has been a long time since the Als didn't have a Hall of Fame QB. They didn't have one last year and still made the playoffs.

Montreal has to beat out Ottawa and at least tie with the 4th place team in the west to get the last playoff spot. They get 2 extra games against eastern teams instead of western teams. They have a very good defense. All of that gives them a pretty big advantage over Edmonton and Winnipeg IMHO.

No way the CFL can do replacement players and keep the NI rule so the drop in talent wouldn't be very much at all. In fact there would be a general rise in talent as most of the NI players aren't as good as the import replacements would be.

yes they are really using that hashtag. And you don't like that? I sure feel don't feel alienated. More like who cares? I feel like the players dont get it. Which means their leadership doesnt get it if they havent prepared the players better than that. You cant say 'who cares' if you're on here discussing it. You care. You may not care what the players say online but you care about the process. And to me the "public" show of solidarity just gets the public rolling their eyes. The public reads about a bunch of guys who are spending all day hanging out with family, playing sports, working out, whining on twitter about how poorly they are being treated when they are expected to come play football for six months for $92,000 and then go back down south and chill out for the winter. Hard to sway public opinion. The PA should have a complete cone of silence on the players and only let the leadership release statements. Yeah, I can discuss the labour situation because I'm not just talking about stupid hashtags. I fail to see how a twitter hashtag is going to upset fans other than you & a few others. CFL players aren't millionaires & the majority never will be. The public sentiment is still with the players, I believe. Are fans happy? No. But both sides are being dickheads here equally. Yesterday I would have mostly agreed with you, but today's offer from the CFL is in the realm of reason and has shifted public opinion away from the players IMHO. If the players want it back they need to put a reasonable counter offer on the table.

Yup! I'd go see replacement players. I support the team and the CFL more than individual players.

The fact of the matter is the players are easily replaceable. Most have about a 3(?) year career. The fans, the teams, and the owners have way more invested in the league than the players do. Watching the Jersey number countdown that StatsJunkie has been posting daily shows just how many players I'd forgotten about who were in the running to be the best to ever wear their number. I've totally forgotten most of the players who've come and gone since I started watching in the 60's and I'll bet I'm not alone. If the players went on strike and the teams brought in replacements, the CFL would continue with slightly less revenue, slightly less payroll, slightly worse talent in the import positions and slightly better talent in the NI spots that would be replaced with imports. I'd bet some players would even cross the picket line to go to work.

I'd sign a contract that gave me a 10% raise plus a $3000 signing bonus and I expect most folks would too. If the players choose not to sign, I suspect more fans will be against them than for them.

Offering more money is about all we can do and from what we've seen from Walters so far I think he'll do it, but I still doubt that will be enough to get him in blue and gold. Montreal and Edmonton have to be way more desireable to him. I can see Montreal being more desirable because they will make the playoffs. I don't see Edmonton as being any more desirable than Winnipeg although they are a year ahead in the rebuild process.

I hope we offer Laurent more than Edmonton does. We NEED another starting calibre Canuck and Laurent fits the bill better than anyone else who's still available.

Works fine for me on my cell and my WIndows 8 laptop in Chrome or IE. The IP address is: 198.89.126.233 according to Google dns server (8.8.8.8). Clear your dns cache if you get something else.

If you're using Windows, go into a command prompt tomorrow morning and type: ipconfig /flushdns to clear the DNS cache on your machine. That will force the system to go and ask the internet DNS servers for a new address. It won't work if the DNS server you are pointing to hasn't got the new address, but it's worth a shot.