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October 12, 2004
Allan Woods
The National Post
Beginning of the end:
Though the lockout is hurting everyone from fans to junior hockey teams,
people should not expect it to end anytime soon. If it lasts long enough,
the owners may be able to begin anew
It is fitting, perhaps, that hockey fans should have one perverse landmark
with which to commiserate the absence of another.
On the eve of what should have been the start of the National Hockey
League's 88th regular season, the International Ice Hockey Federation
quietly announced yesterday that Adam Hall, a 24-year-old Michigan-born
forward in his second season with the Nashville Predators, became the 200th
NHLer to sign a contract to play in Europe, with Finland's Division II team
KalPa.
No, the exodus does not rival the Moses-led biblical journey out of slavery.
The number is nowhere near as shocking as the 1,000-plus U.S. soldiers
killed in Iraq. But for the die-hard hockey fan it is the pain with no
relief, the ever-present throb of a phantom limb.
It has been four weeks since the contract between the league and the NHL
Players' Association expired on Sept. 15 and the two sides have not publicly
said a word to each other since.
The NHL wants a salary cap, or "cost certainty," for owners. The NHLPA wants
a pay system without a ceiling on top salaries for players.
Neither the league nor the union will say when they might sit down again to
discuss a new collective bargaining agreement, but there have been
off-the-record assurances that no new offers will come from either side
before Oct. 13, when the 2003-04 Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning
were to have officially opened the season by hosting their Eastern
Conference rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers.
For the second time in the NHL's history, hockey will not start on time. In
1994, the NHL and the union were able to hammer out a last-minute,
season-saving agreement in January. For all the speculation, punditry and
hopeful thoughts, that seems more unlikely with each passing day.
"I tell you, I've never heard so many upset people in my life," says Jim
Boone, co-founder of the NHL Fans' Association, a group of 25,000 people for
whom the absence of hockey causes an acute pain. "I'm being inundated. The
upside to the whole thing is that we're getting thousands of new members.
We're over 25,000. The bad news is they're all complaining."
Boone, from Ottawa, says he has been putting in full-time hours, in addition
to his regular job, since the lockout began trying to figure how his
little-known entity can contribute to a solution.
He has considered how he can coax players to break ranks with Bob Goodenow
and the union, because he feels the consensus is that they must give in
order to reach a deal. He has struggled with how to get owners to break the
NHL-imposed gag order so that the sanity of the majority can prevail. He has
even considered sending a public invitation, on behalf of all NHL fans
everywhere, urging the two sides to meet at a neutral spot and re-start
talks toward a solution.
"The sad thing is that even if we had 250,000 members, I don't think they
would sing a different tune. I really think they'd still be saying, 'Thanks.
You're important to us, but thanks anyway,'" Boone says.
"I'm still an optimist and I think they'll be playing hockey in December.
I'm certainly in the minority. Most people think it's going to go all year.
I just can't see them turning their backs on two-billion dollars and
wrecking the game. I can't see them doing that."
In the absence of hockey's top league, much has been made of the boost,
however temporary, to lower-tier professional leagues. Jay Bouwmeester, the
Florida Panthers' defensive star, is playing with the AHL's San Antonio
Rampage. The Ottawa Senators' Jason Spezza is toiling with the Binghamton
Senators during the lockout. In Europe, Jaromir Jagr is playing for the
Czech team Kladno, the Canadiens' Niklas Sundstrom is playing in Milan and
Switzerland's Davos has Joe Thornton, Rick Nash and Niklas Hagman. The
familiar faces playing in foreign jerseys are a sure boost for team
attendance figures.
But David Branch, president of the Canadian Hockey League, which encompasses
the OHL, WHL and QMJHL sees no benefits, short or long-term, from NHL
lockout.
"The dark clouds have been gathering for some time. We've seen them on the
horizon. They've arrived and they haven't been good for our game," he said.
The CHL is out close to $6-million in player development fees without the
NHL, and it will have to find some other way to fill that funding gap. That
means tightening the purse-straps, cutting corners and finding new financial
backers.
All the while, there is the threat that labour fury -- "the various tales of
woe," as Branch calls it -- will push the casual fan away.
"We don't see any gains here to hockey, quite frankly, given the lockout,"
Branch says.
To the trained dispassionate eye of David McConomy, an accountant and
professor at Queen's School of Business in Kingston, Ont., the lockout had
to happen, regardless of who is hurt, what much-loved veteran is denied
their victory lap, or how the CBC will fill its hallowed Hockey Night in
Canada timeslot.
Compared to Major League Baseball, the NFL or the NBA, he says hockey cannot
compete for television revenues or the U.S. fan base.
"If your revenues are 25% less than everybody else, or 50% less than
everybody else, you can't afford to pay salaries that are on a par with
everybody else," he says. "You've got to tailor your cost of players to an
amount that you're generating."
According to Arthur Levitt, who audited the finances of the NHL and its 30
teams, the league spent 74% of revenue on payroll and lost $273-million in
2002-03.
"It just doesn't compute. It doesn't make sense. It's propped up
artificially and, in large measure, it's propped up by the personal net
worth of the people who own the teams. Why is Disney trying to get out of
it? Why is [owner Tom] Hicks in Dallas trying to get out of it? Because
they've seen that, as a business, it doesn't make sense. And once you've
been through the ego thing of having a franchise it wears off."
McConomy, a season's ticket holder with the Senators, feels the owners have
a greater resolve than the players do and, like many, he can foresee the
NHL's worst-case scenario being played out.
"I think we may very well get to the point in March or April where, if
there's been no progress on either side, and no real valid concessions being
made, I think there's going to be radical action suggested as a bargaining
position and the players and owners are going to have to be absolutely
resolute in what they're trying to accomplish," he says.
At its worst, that radical action could see the owners seek a declaration
from a U.S. court that the two sides have reached an impasse, allowing the
NHL to fold the league and re-launch on their own terms with a salary cap.
It might hurt the fan base for three or four years, but it would rebound, be
healthy and, he posits, the majority of today's NHLers would return.
In any case, hockey fans, observers and insiders will soon get a glimpse of
both the league and the union's mettle. As of tomorrow, team owners start
losing money as home games are cancelled. By week's end -- Oct. 15 -- more
than 700 NHL players will have failed to receive their first paycheques of
the year.
"They'll start feeling the pinch a little bit," McConomy says, "because,
quite frankly, I doubt they've saved enough money over the years to see them
through."
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