The expected is now reality.
After they were unable to reach an accord on a new collective bargaining
agreement, the NHL locked out its players at 12:01 a.m. Sunday morning.
Until there is an agreement in place, team officials are not allowed to
have contact with players. The players will not be paid and are barred
from team facilities.
Following the Board of Governors meeting at the Crowne Plaza Thursday
afternoon, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters that there was a
“complete show of support” for the lockout, noting the “vote was
unanimous.”
This is the third lockout in 18 years, and dating back to the players’ strike in 1991-92, the fourth work stoppage in 20 years.
“[Lockouts are] their first option. That’s the sense I’ve gotten. That’s
kind of been the theme,” Zach Parise said Wednesday afternoon prior to
the start of the two-day NHLPA Executive Board and Negotiating Committee
meetings at the Marriott Marquis. Two hundred and seventy-five players
attended Wednesday’s session and 283 were present Thursday.
At the crux of the lockout is money. Both sides agree that revenues have
grown by 7.1 percent every year
since the 2004-05 lockout. Bettman
announced before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final that the league earned
$3.3 billion.
However, Bettman has argued that the league’s financial growth in the
seven years following the last lockout was due to the strength of the
Canadian dollar, the relocation of the Thrashers franchise from Atlanta
to Winnipeg and the 10-year, $2-billion television contract with NBC.
The league is asking for the players to accept salary reductions. The
players earned 57 percent of hockey related revenues (HRR) during the
2012-13 season, which the owners view as untenable.
“Fifty-seven percent of HRR is too much,” Bettman said Thursday
afternoon. “We believe we’re paying out [too much in salaries].”
It is a stance that has angered and baffled the players.
“That’s the part that doesn’t make a lot of sense. [The owners] commit
those things (money and years) to you and then they want it back,” said
Parise.
“Progress [the] last couple weeks has been disappointing,” said
Islanders alternate captain John Tavares following Wednesday night’s
session. “They’ve made a lot of changes [to their proposal]. It’s been
about cutting our salaries.”
The players are “not very much interested in” a reduction in the
valuation of their contracts according to NHLPA Executive Director Don
Fehr. Instead, Fehr has said that the structure around the union’s
offers is that they are willing to have “their shares lowered as
revenues increase,” while compelling “higher revenue teams” to commit
$120 million to augment an equal amount from the players in expanded
revenue sharing. The players believe their offers will strengthen
franchises fraught with financial peril while covering ancillary costs
for the league’s 30 teams.
“[With] our proposal we tried to fix the [structural issues],” Rangers captain Ryan Callahan said Wednesday night.
However the construction of the players’ offers has been deemed
unnecessary by the league. Expanded revenue sharing has been in the
league’s proposals. Unlike the NHLPA offers, the league’s offer
visualizes $190 million in assistance to struggling franchises coming
from the players without supplemental assistance from financially
solvent franchises.
“We do not believe a system overhaul is necessary,” NHL Deputy
Commissioner Bill Daly wrote in an email to Metro late last week. “Our
primary concern is with the economics of the current system.”
The two sides offered counter proposals during a three-hour bargaining
meeting early Wednesday afternoon at the league’s office. The owners’
offer was co-authored by Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and Flames co-owner
Murray Edwards after the league determined the players’ proposal was
“not much different” than previous offers according to Bettman. The
commissioner noted that the offer “would be off the table” after Sept.
15, and reiterated that the league was “not prepared to offer without an
agreement.” Fehr has routinely said that the players have offered to
play the season under the now-expired CBA.
The NHL and NHLPA have not held formal bargaining sessions since, and it is not known when the two sides will resume talks.
So now the question is how will the lockout affect the 2012-13 season?
It is impossible to predict the long-term damage a lockout — no matter
how short or long the work stoppage is — could inflict on the league.
In the interim, the training camps that were scheduled to begin on
Saturday are now on hold. Assuredly, preseason games will be canceled
shortly, and regular season games will be erased if an agreement is not
in place by the end of the month. Opening night is scheduled for Oct.
11.
Teams spent the final two days of the CBA locking up players to
contracts, highlighted by the Capitals agreeing to a six-year,
$23.8-million extension with defenseman John Carlson. Franchises also
sent players on entry-level contracts to AHL affiliates. A short list of
notable players that have been sent down were Adam Henrique, Adam
Larsson, Travis Hamonic, Nino Niederreiter, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan
Eberle, Justin Schultz, Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn.
There is flexibility for players who are no longer on their entry-level
contacts. Numerous players have openly discussed European leagues as a
viable alternative. Tavares told Metro that playing in Europe is
“definitely something I would consider.”
The KHL is another potential destination for players. The Russian league
recently announced that it modified its rules for signing NHLers. KHL
teams can sign three NHL players as long as those players must have
played 150 NHL games spanning the last three seasons, has played for
their country in the World Junior Hockey Championships, World
Championships or Olympics in the last two years and has been on a
Stanley Cup champion, conference champion or has won postseason
individual awards.
Already the KHL has begun attracting NHL players. Evgeni Malkin and
Sergei Gonchar have practiced with Metallurg Magnitogorsk according to a
report on TSN, while Russian newspaper Sport-Express reported that
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl will sign Alex Semin. Alex Ovechkin vowed in a
recent interview with Washington reporters that he will play in the KHL,
and it’s believed that Ilya Kovalchuk and 2012 No.1 overall draft pick
Nail Yakupov will play in the league during the lockout.
While some NHL players will find work overseas, others will rent ice
time at rinks in their cities in an effort to stay in game condition.
Callahan told Metro that the Rangers are “looking into [options to] keep
skating as a group.”
Follow NHL beat writer Denis Gorman on Twitter @DenisGorman throughout the lockout as he brings you breaking news and updates.
New York Red Bulls Thierry Henry scored once and set up three other goals in Saturday’s 4-1 win over Toronto FC.
