Sports

Humility, honor will help NHL win back fans as nightmare ends

SOWING SEATS: The boardroom battle between commissioner Gary Bettman and union leader Don Fehr over, hockey fans like these happy ones at the Garden are likely to forgive the lockout if the NHL puts on a passionate season, writes The Post’s Larry Brooks. (N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg)

One month ago, when Don Fehr said the NHL and NHLPA were essentially on top of one another and were not far apart at all from an agreement to end the lockout, the union leader was not kidding.

The only joke was that Canceler-in-Chief Gary Bettman and sidekick Bill (The Hill) Daly responded on that Dec. 6 day by throwing a twin tantrum that effectively shut down negotiations for a month while delaying the start of the 2012-13 season for the same amount of time.

The fact is the agreement in principle the parties reached just a couple of hours before sunrise yesterday morning following a 16-hour workday was suspiciously close in essentially every respect to the proposal to which Bettman responded with another in a set of ultimatums that all proved empty threats while keeping NHL rinks empty at the same time.

Bettman, riding counsel Bob Batterman, Boston owner Jeremy Jacobs and the rest of the militants on the Board never understood the folly of trying to break Don Fehr the way they and a confluence of events had broken Bob Goodenow as leader of the PA the last time around.

They refused to recognize that every one of their personal, petty and, more to the point, inaccurate attacks on Fehr’s character served only to energize the players in their commitment to rebuilding their association into a union. The league’s plan of attack was fatally flawed. Owners’ Lockout III was a sports folly of historic proportions.

The owners wanted 50-50 in the worst way, and that’s what they got and how they got it. They pledged allegiance to a hard cap percentage of the gross system that amounts to voodoo economics as applied to the core problems of a league in which so little revenue is shared among franchises of such widely disparate earning capacity.

It is the league’s loss that the hierarchy did not recognize the pro sports business mind of Fehr’s they could have and should have mined but instead feared. It is the NHL’s loss that the cabal of militants who spoiled for this senseless fight despite the collateral damage it would inevitably create approached the NHLPA leader as a mortal enemy rather than as a potential partner.

The NHL owners and their economic wartime consiglieres misread history, both their own and major league baseball’s. ’Tis a pity, for a system guaranteeing the players hard dollars thus allowing for uncapped league growth coupled with aggressively targeted revenue sharing — such as the PA proposed over the summer — would best serve this league.

It is impossible to project the amount of damage the lockout will create. There’s no doubt some fans are angry enough to renounce their fidelity to the league, and that’s surely their right. But there’s also little doubt many other customers will welcome the league back with no less fervor than they would have had the puck dropped on time in October, and no one need apologize for that, either.

There is no need for the league to gimmick it up in an attempt to retain the fan base. A solid season played with passion and conducted with honor is what is needed for 2012-13, not admitting an additional round of playoff games featuring lousy teams.

The NHL’s quest to genetically engineer enforced mediocrity through severe contract restrictions was not realized. The best the players can do for themselves and their sport, the best the teams can do for themselves and their sport, is to deliver excellence in a sprint to the finish line.

Humility wouldn’t hurt, either.

If there is victory here, it belongs to the big-market owners — including the Rangers’ Jim Dolan — who would not stand silently by and allow the cabal of extremists to drive the sport into the abyss, but instead urged and directed Bettman to re-engage the union 12 days ago.

If there is victory here, it belongs to the players, who emerged from the seeds of self-loathing, betrayal and chaos sewn by the last lockout to reunite in a commitment to one another under the unwavering and enlightened leadership of Don Fehr.