Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan is willing to join talks with NHL players in an effort to end the lockout that threatens the 2012-13 season in its entirety, a source close to the Rangers’ governor told Slap Shots yesterday.
We are told Dolan, a primary figure on the NBA owners’ negotiating committee last year, signaled his desire to become involved in the NHL stalemate upon Gary Bettman’s suggestion it might prove beneficial for owners to converse directly with the players without the presence of league or union staff.
It is unknown whether the Garden owner has officially volunteered his services to Bettman, with whom he has had essentially no personal relationship dating back to at least 2007, when the Garden urged the commissioner be ousted in conjunction with filing suit against the NHL in a dispute concerning website, digital rights, licensing and team merchandise control.
The source familiar with Dolan’s thinking told Slap Shots the MSG boss believes his relationship with the commissioner is immaterial given his substantial role in brokering an agreement between NBA owners and NBA players that ended that league’s 2011-12 lockout last Dec. 8 and allowed for a 66-game season to commence on Christmas Day.
The NHL thus far has limited owner participation in meetings with the NHLPA to the four representatives on the negotiating committee — the Bruins’ Jeremy Jacobs, the Capitals’ Ted Leonsis, the Flames’ Murray Edwards and the Wild’s Craig Leipold.
The Rangers produce the second-greatest amount of revenue in the league and are the NHL’s second-most profitable franchise, with the Maple Leafs first in both categories. But those familiar with Dolan’s work on the NBA lockout report while he does represent a big-market viewpoint, it does not come at the expense of the well-being of small-markets.
We’re told Dolan’s distant relationship with Bettman has not isolated him within the NHL, and he indeed commands widespread respect within the Board. A number of NHL governors either own NBA teams or own and operate arenas in which NBA teams play.
If the 2012-13 NHL season is canceled, it is believed the Rangers would lose upward of $60 million, the final number dependent upon the team’s playoff success. The Maple Leafs, sources report, stand to lose more than $100 million.
It is unknown whether these owner-player discussions actually will take place, let alone whether Bettman would allow Dolan to participate.
What is unequivocally known, however, is the owner of Madison Square Garden believes he can be constructive toward settlement and wants into the discussions.
Would seem impossible for Bettman to say no to that, wouldn’t it?
* Absent a cogent bargaining approach beyond just saying “No,” the NHL continues to attempt to discredit NHLPA executive director Don Fehr.
Everyone by now is familiar with the league’s back-channel assertion Fehr doesn’t accurately relay information from the NHL to the rank-and-file; that he withholds information to suit his own anti-salary cap agenda.
The latest, though, Slap Shots has learned, is this rumor circulating through the Board that Fehr has a clause in his contract under which he would receive an $8 million payment should the PA vote to accept a CBA against his recommendation.
“Nonsense … comical,” Fehr said once he stopped laughing when asked about it yesterday. “I’d say that I only wish I were that good a negotiator for myself, except that I don’t even want to joke about it.”
It all appears to be part of a strategy to paint Fehr as unethical in order to undermine his influence with the players. This is in stark contrast to the manner in which former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent portrayed the former leader (23 years) of the MLBPA in a published tribute to Marvin Miller, the iconic MLBPA leader who passed away on Wednesday.
“Miller and his successors Donald Fehr and Michael Wiener created a union that stands as a model,” Vincent wrote. “Their union is brilliantly led, honestly managed and extremely successful.”
In more than three decades working with the MLBPA, not once was Fehr accused of acting unethically in collective bargaining. Yet now, that’s the repeated implication coming from the NHL.
It’s a concerted effort that reeks of desperation. And it’s one that isn’t very likely to impress anyone on Federal or Provincial labor boards or in court if those, as expected, become the next arenas in which this No Hockey League competes.