Rollercoaster Week for the NHL
So the NHL cancelled its season, and although it was officially gone, we all flocked towards the rumors that the 2004-05 NHL season may be “uncancelled”.
Hockey fans - even many who are against the concept of a mini-season - seemed excited that we may have some NHL this spring, but it was not to be.
So what did happen over this past week? Why couldn’t the league and union agree to a deal, and what made the two sides meet just days after an official cancellation?
The easiest answer is to everything is that they couldn’t agree about money, that shouldn’t come as any surprise. What many fans need to be reminded of is that it wasn’t “just” $6.5 million (US) that kept the two sides apart. It was $6.5 million per team over the course of the agreement, which should be either five or six years. Using five years, and with the league having thirty teams, that’s a disagreement of $975 million. At six years it’s $1.17 billion, note the “b”. So please throw away any “just”, “only” or “merely” - please.
So what about the rest of the storyline?
It’s no secret that time was running out to have any sort of season at all. Finally, a real deadline was set. With a real deadline, real deals were going to be presented. The league backed off of linkage between revenues and salaries, and the union said “ok cap (as long as there’s no linkage)”. They couldn’t get their numbers to jive and the deadline came and went.
Many players were furious. First of all, they’ve been told “no cap” the entire lockout, and the union agreed to one. Secondly, word is that Bob Goodenow told Steve Yzerman something along the lines of “this is the week when the league gives in”. Well, that came and went and Yzerman was supposed to be the one behind a group of veteran players who put pressure on Ted Saskin, Trevor Linden and Daniel Alfredsson. Another interesting PA tidbit is that supposedly upwards of 80 players knew about the cap proposal from the union - two left out were the Buffalo and Toronto player reps, Jay McKee and Bryan McCabe, respectively - whoops.
One thing these players weren’t being told is that purportedly Goodenow accepted a cap as a legal impasse move. His intention, by offering a contract with a team salary cap, is to show that he’s bargaining in good faith. If he tells the PA members otherwise (that he’s just doing it to look like he’s bargaining in good faith), well, then he’s obviously not bargaining in good faith. Joseph Heller would be proud.
So the players are now up in arms that the season was actually cancelled. There are big rumblings that they’re going to make another offer to the league, and this time Goodenow isn’t involved. But remember this - it was the league, not the union, that sent out the invite. Like a shark smelling blood, the league saw the union as vulnerable and thought this could be the best time to strike a deal.
So now we have clear signs of player angst, and the league sending out an invite. That was it, the rumors started to fly left and right about a deal being done and the season being “uncancelled” (word of the month btw, and I prefer the unhyphenated version, even though it’s not a real word).
The thing that everyone forgot is that the two sides were still around a billion dollars off from each other and that a group of owners thought a $40 million cap was too high, and that anything higher was even more ludicrous (it’s not hard to separate where each owner stands). While NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman only needs 16 of 30 owners to agree to a deal, and he’d probably get that many with a cap as high as $45 million, he still needs to do his best to make sure the owners on the lower end of the scale can survive. Many suggest that it probably doesn’t matter - any cap in place will raise the franchise value of all teams, and that any unhappy owner will be able to sell relatively easily (then you just have to deal with new owners possibly wanting to move teams, something Bettman doesn’t want to happen). There are a couple of NHL team wannabe-owners out there right now, former Pittsburgh Penguins owner Howard Baldwin being one of them (the old-ish rumor is that he wants to take a team to Kansas City). The wannabe-owners are banking on the league having a cap.
But I digress, back to the matter at hand: a deal between the league and the union was supposed to be struck up Saturday, but Saturday came and went with no formal agreements, and both sides saying “no progress, nothing further scheduled”. They’re still far apart, although you’ve noticed we’ve at least gotten to take a break from the phrase “philosophical differences”. Another thing was made clear: Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux are clearly just owners now, making statements for the league, despite Lemieux still planning on putting skates on again in the NHL.
There it is, some of the story you’ve seen in the press, and some of what I’ve heard. Take it as gospel or shrug it off, doesn’t matter now because the result doesn’t change - no deal done.
So what’s next? Not sure. From the very beginning I was banking on seeing NHL hockey again in January 2006. The aggressive nature of the bargaining process lately has made me more optimistic than I was before about seeing some NHL hockey this fall, although I can’t be sure if it’ll be because a deal is done, the union broke, or replacements come in.
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