Labour war enters 11th hour
NHL, union prepare for potentially long lockout
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Bob Goodenow, president of the NHL Players Association, has advised players for years to save money to prepare for a lockout. (CP FILE PHOTO/Fred Chartrand) |
TORONTO (CP) -- The clock is about to run out on the NHL.
Come midnight EDT on Wednesday night, barring a miracle, the NHL lockout will finally begin. Few believe it will end any time soon.
"Obviously tomorrow is D-Day," Ottawa Senators defenceman Wade Redden said after Team Canada's pre-game skate Tuesday. "It's probably the last time we'll be on the ice for quite a bit."
The optimistic prediction is for an end to the impasse in January, seen as the cutoff point for an NHL season to be salvaged -- just like nine and a half years ago during the last lockout.
Many believe the entire 2004-05 season could be cancelled, which would mean the Stanley Cup not being awarded for the first time since 1919 -- when an influenza epidemic stopped the Montreal-Seattle final.
First things first.
The NHL's board of governors convenes at 11 a.m. EDT at the Westin New York at Times Square on Wednesday -- about 13 hours after the end of the World Cup of Hockey -- where commissioner Gary Bettman and executive vice-president and chief legal officer Bill Daly will likely recommend a lockout as the proper course of action.
"We expect to report to the board on the status of collective bargaining and receive its direction as to where we go from here," Daly said Tuesday. "I don't think there will be any surprises."
In reality, Bettman doesn't need any votes to implement the lockout -- the commissioner already has that authority. But sources indicate he will get a unanimous resolution from the board supporting that course of action. The announcement will come at a 2:30 p.m. EDT New York news conference.
The NHL and NHL Players' Association last met last Thursday in Toronto, a bargaining session that ended after four hours with Bettman telling the union: "We're not even speaking the same language."
No meetings between the two sides have been scheduled for the foreseeable future.
So with NHL training camps scrapped, players will look at their options.
Some, like Team Canada veterans Scott Niedermayer and Joe Sakic, have indicated they will hang out at home with their families and play dad.
But others will want to play hockey somewhere. Some will skate for nearly no money in the Original Stars Hockey League in Ontario, an exhibition four-on-four league slated to begin play Friday night in Barrie, Ont. It's meant to give the players ice time while the lockout endures and will cease as soon as the impasse ends.
Dominik Hasek, Chris Osgood, Brent Sopel, Dan Cloutier, Bryan McCabe, Andrew Raycroft, Mike Fisher and Mike Comrie are among those who have already signed up, others are expected to join in the next 48 hours.
Other NHLers will head to Europe for a little more serious competition -- Joe Thornton and Rick Nash have already signed with Davos of the Swiss league. Some European NHLers are expected to announce their deals overseas after the lockout commences.
"I've got a few options," Montreal Canadiens netminder Jose Theodore said Tuesday after Canada's pre-game skate. "I'll talk to my agent (Don Meehan) after this is over. There's a couple of places in Europe and there's that four-on-four league in Quebec. But you have to play somewhere, you have to stay in shape.
"If the season does start it might be a short season and you have to be ready to go."
And what about the fans?
In the six Canadian NHL cities, hockey will be sorely missed, especially in Calgary where the small-market Flames are coming off a heart-stopping run to the Stanley Cup final.
South of the border, in such stops as Nashville, Atlanta, Miami and Anaheim, people may barely notice hockey is gone.
Will the fans come back? Cancelling the World Series in 1994 drove fans away from baseball for a long time. Major League Baseball is finally getting some of its fans back -- 10 years after the strike.
Jobs will be lost. The NHL has already laid off some of its staff in New York, Toronto and Montreal while individual clubs have plans to do the same. People who work at arenas will be hurt. TV networks will feel the pinch. Sports bars will suffer.
"It's going to kill me," said Vic Salerno, owner of Up Front Bar & Gill, a downtown Toronto sports bar, where Maple Leaf games draw a huge crowd.
Perhaps the most depressing fact is that the labour standstill hasn't changed in over a year.
The league wants a system that guarantees "cost certainty." The league says it lost $273 million US in 2002-03 and $224 million last season, and needs a system that guarantees player costs won't eat up more than 50 per cent of league revenues.
The league says player costs consumed 75 per cent of league revenues last season.
Any such system that limits player costs is translated by the NHLPA as a salary cap -- which it says will never accept.
The union, however, is not sitting on the status quo, because it acknowledges the current collective bargaining agreement, twice renewed over 10 years, has indeed seen salaries soar -- from an average of $733,000 in 1994-95 to $1.83 million in 2003-04.
As a result, NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow, senior director Ted Saskin and the rest of the union braintrust have offered a package that includes a luxury tax, revenue sharing, five per cent rollback on current player contracts and changes to entry-level contracts -- all of which the union says will save owners up to $150 million next season.
Bettman has zero interest in that offer. He wants a cap, and believes he can get it with a long lockout that will break the union. The league began in 1998 investing into a lockout fund that now stands at more than $300 million. They mean business.
The NHLPA has also thought ahead. Goodenow has advised players for years to save money to prepare for a lockout. The union has also amassed a significant lockout fund with revenues from group licensing over the last 10 years.
How do you break the union?
Maybe the players' families get a little edgy at home come January. Maybe the veteran players begin to get worried about never playing again.
But don't think the NHLPA doesn't have an equal chance of breaking the owners' solidarity. Big-money teams like the New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers may very well begin to get a little rattled after a few months, considering they don't need a salary cap to make piles of money.
The showdown begins Thursday morning.
