Sports

NHL union gets ‘book’ smart

We can’t tell you whether this is a case of hide-and-seek, but Slap Shots has learned from several sources that after exercising its right for the first time to audit select NHL clubs, the NHLPA believes it has discovered unreported revenues from last season.

This, in addition to a dispute over whether the $25 million Glendale, Ariz., paid the NHL to keep the Coyotes from absconding to Winnipeg should be considered hockey-related revenue, is what is holding up issuance of the escrow refunds to the players and checks to the owners who qualify for the second round of 2010-11 revenue sharing.

We’re told Washington and Nashville are among at least a handful of clubs that have been cited for failure to declare hockey-related revenue, with the matter now more likely than not to be decided in arbitration.

Odd, isn’t it, how you can’t find something until you actually begin to look for it?

There is, of course, no acceptable explanation for the PA’s failure to exercise its collectively bargained right to audit teams until executive director Don Fehr ordered the forensic accountants into action this summer. It is simply just another example of the damaging dysfunction within the union leadership for the first half-decade following the lockout.

Because not only was the oversight foolish, it will prove costly to the players for, as Slap Shots has been told, the union is now prohibited from auditing past seasons regardless of the degree (if any) of malfeasance, misfeasance or just plain carelessness (uh, right) of those clubs who allegedly under-reported revenue to be shared with the athletes.

There is no time limit written into the CBA, no statute of limitation within the document the players ratified after losing the 2004-05 season. But not to worry, Ted Saskin, who succeeded (ha!) Bob Goodenow as executive director, took care of that.

Saskin, the NHL’s vision of the quintessential partner folded into the league’s definition of its partnership with the union, signed a side agreement with the league that precludes the PA from auditing teams once the books on a season are closed.

Imagine if the IRS were bound by such constraints.

* A high-ranking executive of one of the league’s most successful clubs on and off ice matter-of-factly told Slap Shots during the course of a conversation about something else entirely this week that the players, “will get 48 to 50 percent, and there will be a rollback” in the next CBA as if it is a fait accompli and Fehr doesn’t exist.

The players currently are entitled to 57 percent of the revenue under the deal conceived by commissioner Gary Bettman that expires on Sept. 15.

A lack of communication between Goodenow and his negotiating committee and the rank and file was the fundamental reason the union finally broke last time.

For instance, the players did not learn that Goodenow had offered a 24-percent rollback until the PA’s proposal in December 2004 was released at a press conference, and most had no idea that the no-cap executive director had signaled a willingness to accept a cap not linked to league revenues in the days leading up to the February 2005 cancellation of the season.

But lack of transparency or communication will not be an issue this time. Slap Shots has learned Fehr, who is conducting his annual fall tour of the league, is not only telling players that negotiating sessions will be open to all members of the union but urging them to attend whenever possible, all expenses paid.

We’re also told Fehr intends to bring former Braves and Mets pitcher Tom Glavine, one of the most respected player reps and articulate voices of the MLBPA, to the NHLPA to serve as a conduit to the athletes.

Glavine, a high school hockey star in Massachusetts, was selected in the fourth round (69th overall) by the Kings in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft, so he speaks the language of pucks as well as bucks.

* We would have more than a minute of time for Peter Laviolette and his grandstand play if the Flyers coach had tried it at home in front of the paying customers who fill Comcast’s till.

Just what we need: Chris Pronger telling people how the game is meant to be played. Wonder if that includes the stomping and head shots.

The Lightning had the eighth-worst goals-against in the league through Friday, so are there some coaches who are smart enough to have found the way to attack Guy Boucher’s 1-3-1 Maginot Line.

Rangers general manager Glen Sather on the Flyers’ refusal to engage: “We talked about doing that last year.”

Aaron Rome, once again just so misunderstood. Just as James Wisniewski always seems to be.

* Finally, we see Mike Keenan has agreed to coach the Rangers’ alumni in the Dec. 31 outdoor game in Philadelphia, but then why is Iron Mike calling Detroit to see if the Wings’ old-timers need a general manager?