Everything will be OK?
Have no fear, NHL will play
By MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun
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NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has a lot on his plate with upcoming labour negotiations to avoid a lockout of players this September. (CP File Photo/Frank Gunn) |
NHLPA head Bob Goodenow is huffing.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is puffing.
Both of them are bluffing.
That's the take from Caroll Carl, a Gatineau-based labour negotiator who has conducted more than 200 contract negotiations over 28 years.
Carl is a consultant, a management guy who represented The Toronto Sun's parent company, Quebecor, in the contract talks that brought editorial employees their first contract.
I called Carroll Carl because I figured a fresh set of eyes might help in perusing a labour picture that everyone claims will implode Sept. 15.
Whom to believe, billionaire owners or millionaire players?
"How about," Carl said, "none of the above."
Players and management will settle, Carl believes.
Everything you read, listen to and watch about the negotiations in the days leading up to Sept. 15 will be theatre, empty posturing and rhetoric.
First, in any negotiation, the real work happens only with the hammer poised over the participants heads.
"You might make a horrible misstep early," Carl said, "but you have plenty of time to correct it. The most important work is done in the last week before the deadline. The deal will get done in the hours before the deadline."
The NHL will tell you it is ready to shut down its operations, perhaps for years, to gain a salary cap. Or, as Bettman likes to call it, cost certainty.
Off the record, officials say it's better to lose a little money with empty buildings than a lot more with fairly full ones. Since those, especially in the South, are as rare as gay Republicans, why not shutter the operation until the players cave? As if.
The league can bring as many reports about money-losing franchises as it likes. Who knows, they may even be provable.
The important thing, Carl said, is that owners don't care about losses.
"They keep on saying they don't want to lose money but clearly, they really don't hate losing money," he said. "Because they keep doing it."
The notion of a financially vulnerable league is predicated on the faulty notion that owners depend on their franchises for their livelihood.
NHL teams are merely one component in communications portfolios or, in the case of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd., another cash cow for a staggeringly wealthy Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board.
Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks made his money in leveraged buyouts. Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano found his fortune in the payroll services industry. Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk is a captain of the pharmaceutical industry. Their teams are diversions, not core businesses.
Why let a lockout spoil the fun or soil the ego boost that initially enticed them?
The players say they are the real champions of market-driven free enterprise, but they nonetheless have offered salary concessions and a profit-sharing scheme. What a great bunch of guys.
But players have seen salaries significantly dragged by the spectre of a lockout. As well, owners have, in the public's mind, successfully tied the notion of high ticket prices to player salaries.
The same megabucks that seemingly would make players financially invulnerable to a lockout will, in the end, soften resolve, Carl predicted.
The more you make, the more you lose by not working. Who will be willing to piddle away more money than their father made in his lifetime?
"The players would be losing millions and millions of dollars," Carl said.
In short, they, too, should be ready to deal.
"There's just way too much money on the table not to get this done," Carl said.
So sit back and enjoy the show.
