PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – There was a cool breeze blowing off the Pacific Tuesday over some of the sweetest golf turf you’ll see in the world.
The topics being discussed on the legendary Pebble Beach Golf Links by NHL owners, who are here for their semi-annual meetings, were somewhat warmer.
The heat could have been turned up on NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at these meetings, which got underway Tuesday night, but Bettman delivered relatively good news to the owners in his state of the business address that kicked things off.
The league will break even on the Phoenix Coyotes deal if the sale of the club goes through to Ice Edge Holdings and the salary cap remains where it is, thanks to the strength of the Canadian dollar.
The owners were on the hook for the losses incurred by the Coyotes, which the club purchased out of bankruptcy at the end of the summer. That would have been a key talking point here, but the league signed a letter of intent Friday to sell the club to Ice Edge, a group of businessmen who intend to keep the club in Phoenix.
Good timing.
“That was the big topic on the course today,” said one governor. “How much is the Phoenix situation going to cost us? How much are we getting out of the deal?”
Bettman told the owners the league would recoup the money it spent on the Phoenix situation, leaving it in a break-even situation.
“Our intention all along was to get out what we put in,” said Bettman.
The league paid $140 million for the Coyotes to buy them out of bankruptcy court and, Bettman added, some losses were incurred which are expected to be recouped in the Ice Edge deal.
Bettman also told the governors he expects the salary cap to remain close to its $56.8 million level when it is set this summer, depending on what happens with the value of the Canadian dollar relative to its American counterpart.
“The sneak peek was a variable. We have a pretty good sense of where our revenues are going to be at this stage of the season. Up a little, down a little in local revenues, close to flat in this environment which we think is pretty good,” said Bettman. “Whether or not the Canadian dollar goes up or down will impact what the cap will be next year and whether or not the players choose to take a five per cent (increase) or not (the players have that option under the CBA).
“My own view is it’s not going up dramatically and it’s not going down dramatically. My guess is within a million, a million-and-a-half or two million either way is the swing we’re looking at. I take that all back if the Canadian dollar goes to a buck-fifty.”
Bettman pointed out that a year ago, the governors were talking about a Canadian dollar in the 84-85 cent range.
“Now we’re talking 94-95 (cents). That impacts it. If it’s at 95 cents and stays there for the rest of the year the cap will go up a million or so. If the Canadian (dollar) drops under 90 (cents) it may be down a half a million or so. All of these prognostications of 10- and 20-per cent declines, that’s not going to happen.”
Tuesday night’s meeting also included a presentation by NHL vice-president and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell which focused on headshots and their place in the game.
“We’re talking about shoulders to the head, which have historically been defined as a clean hit. There was some sentiment we don’t want to change the very fabric of the game,” said Bettman. “The question comes down to do we take something that historically has been legal and redefine what is legal?”
The meetings will continue to today with more detail on the Phoenix deal.
chris.stevenson@sunmedia.ca
