The hard-liners have regained the floor and seized the agenda. Big ideas have been reduced to the smallest of matters.
Because understand this: The NHL claims it is prepared to cancel its second season in the last eight years if the Players’ Association does not accept a five-year term limit on individual contracts.
“That is the hill we will die on,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly proclaimed last night after the NHL summarily dismissed an NHLPA proposal in which the union offered yet more concessions to a league that has offered none throughout Owners’ Lockout III.
As if performing to a script written long ago, the league has withdrawn the major components of Wednesday’s proposal — including an increase in make-whole from $210 million to $300 million; acceptance of a pension plan into which the players pay; free agency remaining at 27 or seven years; salary arbitration eligibility remaining at four seasons — to which the union sought to counter by offering eight-year contract limits plus further givebacks.
In addition to citing the five-year contract term limit — with a cap of annual variance of five percent — Daly said the league would not agree to a collective bargaining agreement of shorter than eight years. Further, the league has ruled out amnesty buy-outs as part of a transition to a significant decrease in the cap next season.
Canceler-in-Chief Gary Bettman, who said he is “tormented” by the possibility that yet another season might be lost on his watch, seemed indignant the players would not accept the full Monty of givebacks proposed by the owners this week, even if the NHL had withdrawn some of its original demands.
“We told them we needed a yes or no,” Bettman said by way of explanation for why only Daly and counsel Bob Batterman attended the meeting that included a full array of NHLPA staff (including Donald Fehr) and 16 players.
The commissioner apparently could not understand why the players insisted Fehr be able to rejoin the talks after he and Bettman had been excluded by mutual consent on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The reason is simple. The owners, according to several sources, attempted to pin the players down on agreeing to a CBA, much like an ADA offering a plea bargain to a defendant without representation.“I was told on Wednesday night [by an owner] that if we brought Don back in, that would be a deal-breaker,” said Winnipeg Jets defenseman Ron Hainsey, who is part of the NHLPA negotiating committee.
Bettman also suggested the owners who participated in the process this week were “beside themselves” when talks took a turn Wednesday from the optimism that had marked Tuesday’s session. Of course, no proposals were exchanged on Tuesday; only a discussion about concepts.
This turn of events was not unexpected. Neither should anyone overact to it. Bettman and the Board are attempting to reprise the 2004-05 divide-and-conquer strategy that yielded dividends when players overthrew Bob Goodenow.
“We know what they’re up to,” a source on the players’ side told The Post. “They’re trying to create dissent within the union. They’re trying to scare us into makiing a deal.”
The union will consider disclaiming, which is the first step to decertification and likely sooner rather than later. Bettman said the Board had been briefed on the possibility during its meeting on Wednesday and did not regard such a hypothetical step as particularly dramatic.
The NHL has canceled games through Dec. 14. Another round of cancelations may come as soon as today. And then, of course, the season.
“There will come a time when a [representative] season cannot be played,” he said before citing the 1994-95 Owners’ Lockout I. “That year, we played 48 games [starting on Jan. 20].
“I can’t imagine fewer than that.”
In other words, the script has another month to go.