Feb. 17/05 -
How would you like to be a fly on the wall at the next full membership meeting of the NHL Players’ Association?
The players marched into this labor war with a grand, unifying slogan, displayed in big, bold letters: NO SALARY CAP. We don't ask for any guarantees, they said, just the right to negotiate a contract free of such restrictions. Give us a marketplace where a guy can sit down with his boss and decide his value to the team.
Then, with no warning and apparently little consultation, this essential article of faith was cast aside.
In one of the final meetings before negotiations ended, the Players' Association proposed a team-by-team salary cap.
Executive director Bob Goodenow later argued that the move was made only after the NHL made a key concession - shelving its demand that overall salaries be limited to a fixed percentage of overall league revenues. Just another move in the negotiating process, according to him.
But it didn't achieve anything, and left the players' cherished "marketplace" argument in tatters. If the NHLPA has a Plan B, it wasn't revealed in Goodenow's post-cancellation news conference.
More than a few players were upset when the news broke that a salary cap was on the negotiating table.
"There are 700 guys trying to call one number, trying to talk to Bob," Tampa Bay defenseman Brad Lukowich told ESPN.com. "My feeling is I'm confused and disappointed. I thought the players were tougher on this."
"I know a lot of players are upset," added Turner Stevenson of the Philadelphia Flyers. "Just by your initial reaction, why did we sit out all year to do this?"
Others professed faith in their leadership.
"The union, through this proposal, has caught us by surprise," Ryan Smyth of the Oilers told TSN.ca as negotiations continued. "But the fact they felt it was the thing to do to get it done, then I'm behind them."
Well, it didn’t get it done. The NHL Players’ Association is left with the no hockey, no income, a divided membership and compromised principles. The players drew a deep breath, crossed a line in the sand, and got screwed anyway.
There are reports that several high-profile players made phone calls to the league head office in recent days, helping pave the way for the salary cap cave-in.
"There may have been good intentions from those players, but in the end it only hurt the process," Mat Schneider of the Los Angeles Kings told TSN. "At the very least they should have called and asked permission... it was unprofessional."
"I'd love to say the players are unified but I don't know if anyone is going to believe that any more," said Chicago's Mathew Barnaby in another TSN interview. "If you want to negotiate, you want to stick to your guns. You don't cave in halfway through. We've given up a lot."
Having offered to take a salary cap and a huge pay cut, the players can claim the high ground – "We tried, we were reasonable, we gave everything we could," etc. But how much will that count for when they all get together, look each other in the eye and ask "Now what?"
And with NHL revenues and franchise values falling off a cliff, how do they go about negotiating a better deal than the one they turned down this week?
