NHL Armageddon has arrived - more doom and gloom suggestions
It's surely already there, in Gary Bettman's back pocket, the blueprint for his brave, new National Hockey League. This report was written by Stephen Brunt and appeared in The Globe and Mail
Forget the half-proposals that the club owners have delivered so far in a process that looks nothing like good-faith negotiation. This is the big one, the detailed one, the one that spells out how the NHL will go from a limited free-market system of player compensation to a hard salary cap.
It will be the last thing the owners put on the table, and they'll call it their best offer, because when the time comes to declare a labour impasse, that's the one that applies.
A whole lot of people aren't going to like it -- not just the players, but fans of teams that spent millions last season in excess of the NHL's new cap number and would see some of their favorites leave town by way of a dispersal draft.
So the bad news won't necessarily be delivered now, when the spotlight is on, when an ever-dwindling number of ultra-optimistic souls still think there's a season to be saved. Instead, expect it to show up on a quiet day in May, or June, and then watch this dispute head where it's always been destined -- to the courts.
Here's how it will probably play out:
Once the owners table their dream deal, they'll invite the players in to talk about it, to have every line explained to them, as though this had been a legitimate bargaining process all along, rather than union gutting.
The players will obviously reject it, then, in time to begin a new season in the fall, the owners will declare a negotiating impasse and impose the terms of their new contract. In turn, the National Hockey League Players' Association would mount a challenge in front of the National Labour Relations Board in the United States.
And from there, reading the tea leaves would get tricky.
In 1995, the baseball players beat the owners in court after they moved to declare an impasse, mostly because of some tactical, technical blunders that the hockey owners surely won't repeat. And the NLRB, with its political appointees, is a different body now under President George W. Bush than it was at the time under President Bill Clinton. Expect no favors for organized labour, and given the anti-professional athlete sentiments in the wind right now, it's certainly possible that the NLRB would see this as a battle of economic equals who can be left to fight it out on their own.
If they succeeded in imposing an agreement, the owners would have the option of starting next season, or the one after that, with replacement players, and the NHLPA would have the option of going on strike.
As of now, the only anti-scab protection the players enjoy would be in British Columbia. There are no laws in the United States or Ontario barring replacement workers, and in Quebec, where laws do exist, the NHLPA isn't currently registered as a trade union.
In theory, the NHL might also be able to hold its entry draft. A U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1996 (Brown v Pro Football Inc.) says that at the moment of impasse, sports leagues still have a collective-bargaining relationship with their unions -- and therefore can't be attacked under anti-trust law. So it's possible Sidney Crosby could be drafted, have his rights assigned and be paid under what surely would be a penurious new entry-level salary structure. (Which is why he might be sorely tempted to take his act to Europe, or even to the new World Hockey Association, if it ever gets off the ground.)
The NHLPA would still have several legal arrows left in its quiver. One -- a drastic one -- would be to decertify the union and then have players attack the NHL under U.S. anti-trust laws, from which it is exempt as long as it has a collective-bargaining relationship with a union.
What lies ahead, then, are great days for lawyers, less great days for hockey fans (aside from those in Russia and Sweden), with the game's elite players scattered around the globe.
In any scenario, what seems far-fetched now is that the NHL as we've known it, with the players as we've known them, will ever really be put back together again. This report was written by Stephen Brunt and appeared in The Globe and Mail
Forget the half-proposals that the club owners have delivered so far in a process that looks nothing like good-faith negotiation. This is the big one, the detailed one, the one that spells out how the NHL will go from a limited free-market system of player compensation to a hard salary cap.
It will be the last thing the owners put on the table, and they'll call it their best offer, because when the time comes to declare a labour impasse, that's the one that applies.
A whole lot of people aren't going to like it -- not just the players, but fans of teams that spent millions last season in excess of the NHL's new cap number and would see some of their favorites leave town by way of a dispersal draft.
So the bad news won't necessarily be delivered now, when the spotlight is on, when an ever-dwindling number of ultra-optimistic souls still think there's a season to be saved. Instead, expect it to show up on a quiet day in May, or June, and then watch this dispute head where it's always been destined -- to the courts.
Here's how it will probably play out:
Once the owners table their dream deal, they'll invite the players in to talk about it, to have every line explained to them, as though this had been a legitimate bargaining process all along, rather than union gutting.
The players will obviously reject it, then, in time to begin a new season in the fall, the owners will declare a negotiating impasse and impose the terms of their new contract. In turn, the National Hockey League Players' Association would mount a challenge in front of the National Labour Relations Board in the United States.
And from there, reading the tea leaves would get tricky.
In 1995, the baseball players beat the owners in court after they moved to declare an impasse, mostly because of some tactical, technical blunders that the hockey owners surely won't repeat. And the NLRB, with its political appointees, is a different body now under President George W. Bush than it was at the time under President Bill Clinton. Expect no favors for organized labour, and given the anti-professional athlete sentiments in the wind right now, it's certainly possible that the NLRB would see this as a battle of economic equals who can be left to fight it out on their own.
If they succeeded in imposing an agreement, the owners would have the option of starting next season, or the one after that, with replacement players, and the NHLPA would have the option of going on strike.
As of now, the only anti-scab protection the players enjoy would be in British Columbia. There are no laws in the United States or Ontario barring replacement workers, and in Quebec, where laws do exist, the NHLPA isn't currently registered as a trade union.
In theory, the NHL might also be able to hold its entry draft. A U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1996 (Brown v Pro Football Inc.) says that at the moment of impasse, sports leagues still have a collective-bargaining relationship with their unions -- and therefore can't be attacked under anti-trust law. So it's possible Sidney Crosby could be drafted, have his rights assigned and be paid under what surely would be a penurious new entry-level salary structure. (Which is why he might be sorely tempted to take his act to Europe, or even to the new World Hockey Association, if it ever gets off the ground.)
The NHLPA would still have several legal arrows left in its quiver. One -- a drastic one -- would be to decertify the union and then have players attack the NHL under U.S. anti-trust laws, from which it is exempt as long as it has a collective-bargaining relationship with a union.
What lies ahead, then, are great days for lawyers, less great days for hockey fans (aside from those in Russia and Sweden), with the game's elite players scattered around the globe.
In any scenario, what seems far-fetched now is that the NHL as we've known it, with the players as we've known them, will ever really be put back together again. This report was written by Stephen Brunt and appeared in The Globe and Mail
posted by SportsDoc at 3:10 PM
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