Who Didn’t See This Coming?

It looks like there may finally be a light at the end of that very distant tunnel that anyone to whom the NHL is in anyway a concern has been staring into for what now seems like years. For almost ten months now, there has been nothing but uncertainty surrounding the future of the NHL. First a lockout was announced last September, followed by (and this is the mind-boggling part) a few negligible bargaining sessions which turned out to be wildly unsuccessful. When all was thought to be lost in mid-February after the NHL decided to become the first North American professional sports league to cancel an entire season, word spread that the season would be “uncanceled” due the sudden capitulation from both sides by moving off their respective hardline stances. All that excitement and optimism was quickly quelled when a meeting between the two sides, supposedly to be merely nothing more than an opportunity to put the appropriate signatures on paper, imploded and left the two sides even further from an agreement.

In recent weeks, the NHL and the NHLPA had vowed to maintain a rigorous schedule of bargaining sessions until an agreement could be reached. Shockingly, over the past week or so, the two sides have reported progress on key issues and yesterday, it was reported by several sources that an agreement on the numbers that would make up a salary cap system had been reached. Compared with the deal that was allegedly on the table in mid-February that would have “uncanceled” the season, the figures are substantially lower. The agreement reached yesterday is said to have a ceiling in the vicinity of $36 million and a floor of anywhere between $22 million to $24 million. This is about a $10 million difference from the numbers that were on the table in February but at the time, the NHLPA was prepared to take that gamble.

This labour disagreement was not too much different than any other really. It began with the inability to agree on issues, both sides haggled away and eventually one side capitulated and gave into the demands of the other. In the NHL’s case, this just took a heck of a lot longer than it should have taken. Several things were clear right from the start of this merry mess in September: the owners were bent on implementing a salary cap system, not so much because they just felt like it but because they really had no choice; the owners were prepared to wait as long as it took for the players to give in; and the longer this disagreement continued, the less money there would be to pass around.

These are three points that likely anyone who has paid any attention to this situation and even some who have not could have acknowledged as accurate right from the beginning. That is, anyone except for the leadership of the NHLPA apparently. This, unlike sports labour disagreements in the past, was absolutely necessary. There were no evil owners conspiring against the players trying to save themselves some money. The fact is they had to save themselves some money because the vast majority could no longer afford to run their franchises. The owners were not going to give in because frankly they had no money to give in with.

Theoretically, the agenda of the leadership of the NHLPA, among other things, is to put their membership in a position to make the most money possible. If the likes of Bob Goodenow and Ted Saskin would have acknowledged those three aforementioned points much earlier, they would have been doing their membership a far greater service. They could have accepted a nice warm and cozy number like $49 million which was discussed last fall or even a cushy little number like $45 million that was turned aside in February. Instead, they thought it wiser to drag and stretch this out for as long as possible assured in their belief the owners would cave. With that stubborn and obstinate negotiating tactic, the final result yielded only a mere $13 million discrepancy.

In this case, the earlier an agreement had been reached, the better off the players would have been. This never should have gone on this long. The sacrificing of a season was completely unnecessary. Nobody gained anything from it they could not have had last fall. It was a fixable problem from the outset that turned into a colossal ordeal and there is only the stubborn leadership of the NHLPA to thank.