The option of decertifying as a union was presented to the players in at least a quasi-formal fashion for the first time on Wednesday during a conference call that was open to the full membership of the NHLPA, Slap Shots has learned.
We’re told Don and Steve Fehr outlined three options for the players in the face of the NHL’s ongoing militancy as follows, and in no particular order: 1) Decertification; 2) Capitulation; 3) Continued negotiations in an attempt to end the owners’ lockout.
Sources report that few players expressed interest in opening Doors 1 or 2. Rather, an overwhelming number of players on the call directed union leadership to continue on the path through Door No. 3.
The players were told opting for decertification would not merely represent a legal technicality, it would in fact mean the players would no longer be negotiating as a unified group; indeed, decertification would mean the union would be disbanded.
There was little appetite to adopt that route, though talk of decertification — which presumably would be followed by filing of antitrust action in the U.S and filings in Canada, where labor laws differ throughout the provinces — will inevitably become louder and a more acceptable option for the players if the league continues to stonewall through next month.
We’ll all have a better idea where matters stand once the league and union reconvene in New York tomorrow afternoon.
* If the season is canceled, the Maple Leafs will lose approximately $100 million, the Rangers at least $50 million and the Canadiens somewhat less than that.
Yet not one of these ownership groups is represented on the NHL negotiating committee. And while Toronto GM Brian Burke is on the committee, we’re told the league’s agenda is being plotted all but exclusively by Canceler-in-Chief Gary Bettman and Boston owner Jeremy Jacobs, the hawkish chairman of the Board of Governors.
Indeed, according to one trustworthy individual who attended the negotiating session in New York on Nov. 9, Calgary owner Murray Edwards was at one point silenced by Bettman just a moment after Jacobs leaned over and whispered into the commissioner’s ear.
It is unfathomable that league owners who understand the ramifications of extending this senseless lockout have not demanded Bettman call a Board of Governors meeting for a full airing of the issues.
* Let’s say the parties are separated by as much as $150 million a year following their latest round of proposals and counters.
The difference is all but impossible to accurately gauge given the apples-to-oranges nature of such a comparison and the spin-doctoring that accompanies every exchange — league documents released on Friday, for example, account for a truncated season in the revenue column but a full season in the “make-whole” expense column — but let’s say it’s that much.
That $150 million becomes $5 million per team. And that is actually nothing. It’s nothing because most teams will never spend that $5 million a year. No team is mandated to spend to the cap, only to the floor. Most teams never come within $5 million of the cap. They’re arguing over money they will not only never spend, but never will actually save.
The answer is to drop the floor, either to a percentage of the ceiling, or to $10 million to $12 million below the midpoint as compared to the previous $8 million. The object shouldn’t be to limit how much a team might spend, but to limit how much a team must spend.
It’s astonishing neither side has focused on that issue.
* Here’s what I think: If the NHL were to present a plan under which the Hockey Related Revenue split falls to 50/50 in year three of an eight-year CBA with a transition plan to accommodate cap teams and eliminate front-loaded contracts, I think we’d be no more than a couple of weeks away from a settlement.
There is no doubt there are a significant number of players waiting for the league to make an offer they can accept. But the league continues to make offers the players cannot in good faith even consider.
The owners’ system demands are word-for-word what they were in the league’s opening July 13 proposal that established the tone of this debate.
If that’s the league’s definition of bargaining, they must be handing out unique law dictionaries over at Proskauer Rose.
If the league insists on going to 50/50 immediately as a requirement for unlocking the doors, that should be part of a system featuring a transition period through 2014-15 in which clubs would be permitted to exceed the cap by paying a luxury tax.
The revenue from luxury taxes — say teams could exceed the cap by up 12.3 percent in 2013-14 and up to, say, 7.5 percent in 2014-15 — would go into revenue-sharing and be distributed under league mandate.
* News: Montreal elects first Anglophone mayor in 100 years.
Views: Good to see Randy Cunneyworth has landed on his feet.