Picture Courtesy Associated Press

The hockey media has started to turn some attention to hockey’s most rickety structure, not Ice Edge Holdings’ business plan, but the group known as the NHLPA. Reports have surfaced that the players association have completed their new constitution that would avoid the palace coups, public disagreements and blind side hits to leadership that are just as severe as any laid out on the ice in the past two decades. Simply put, it remains to be seen if the NHLPA will actually move away from this “divide ourselves and be conquered” and “devour your own leader” culture.

The real news coming out of these reports is that the NHLPA just might hire former head of Major League Baseball Players Association, Donald Fehr. While other candidates are in the mix, the players will have a hard time not circumventing their brand new constitution by offering the job to Fehr instead of following their search committee due diligence.

Some media outlets have already claimed that if Fehr becomes the new leader of the NHLPA then the NHL will have to scramble to ready themselves for the next CBA battle. Hockey writers are reporting that upon seeing their union combatant taking a more much aggressive stance in such a hire at the NHLPA that the NHL will be apprehensive at best.

These same writers are OFFside in suggesting that the NHL is quaking in the boots while in Fehr’s midst.

So let’s cut to the dump-and-chase, what would Fehr mean to hockey’s biggest empire, its’ 30 teams and prospective cities like Winnipeg? Here are a few of the biggest issues on the table:

Salary Cap / Luxury Tax

If Donald Fehr wants to repeal the salary cap in favour of a luxury tax or even less drag on player payroll costs, you can expect a very long showdown with the NHL. If the league shut down to achieve “cost certainty”, it certainly will put up the same fight to retain that structure. Small market teams would essentially revert to becoming tier 2 teams that develop young players for the rich cities and owners to sign later. This would be the single biggest step backwards for Winnipeg, most Canadian teams and most small market US teams to say the least.

Amending Revenue Sharing Between Teams

Next, union heads have little to gain by wading into any discussion about amending the revenue sharing formula. This is a rather weighty subject between the owners themselves. So Fehr’s effect on this provision of a new CBA will be small directly. However, one can’t have a salary cap without some form of equalization. And even without a salary cap, redistribution of the wealth to balance the playing surface is necessary. In fact, it can be argued that between-team revenue sharing becomes even more critical when salary caps are not present in order to avoid the two tiered league previously described.

No More Guaranteed Contracts

One positive that the NHL ownership may be pushing for is the elimination of guaranteed contracts. The NHL is unique among the 4 major sports leagues in this regard. Signing bonuses become much larger to offset this risk to the players. And given his background, Fehr may be open to this. Either way, the players will still play hockey and get paid very well to do so, whether they are a free agent signing or a player that was “bought out” by one team, playing for another while getting paid by both in that same year. Just what the league would have to concede under such a change is the sticking point. And the advantage to the teams would be that good general managers become less of a critical factor in team on-ice success. Contract mistakes can simply be run out of town on the cheap, compared to the cost of buying out a player currently at two-thirds of the remaining contract. Consider also that such a system would also have to include all bonuses under the salary cap much they way they are today. Greater league parity would result overall.

Just what the players would “lose” is unclear. While it is obvious that the player loses financial security on each deal, it appears that all 800 plus players will still be needed to stock the 30 teams. Given a salary cap and clauses that must share 56 cents of every dollar taken in on player costs, the players will make the money back through this system. Overall, the concept of pay-for-performance would be closer than at present. For Winnipeg, if you have a GM like Don Waddell (his record in both Washington and Atlanta tells the tale) then clearly such a new system is a huge advantage. However, if by chance David Thomson and Mark Chipman can “show the money” to a GM like Lou Lamoriello, then this CBA change may be a disadvantage to the club. Fehr could very well make this change happen.

Players Slice of the Overall Pie

Expect this 56 percent figure to be contested by the NHL with the league as a whole making less money in a down economy than in the past. One percentage point of over $2.1 Billion USD is worth the fight, even if the result is a classic stalemate. Consider that this small difference means that the players, in net effect, cover the losses of the Coyotes for this season. The NHLPA will frame this discussion in this very fashion, especially when the NHLPA wants a say in relocation of teams.

Salary Arbitration

Exactly the same rationale for guaranteed contracts can be used on the players giving up salary arbitration. However, without guaranteed contracts, the effect of an arbitration ruling holds much less weight if the team in question can walk away from the decision or any time thereafter painlessly.

NHLPA Say in Relocation

Additionally, any NHLPA leader will wade more deeply into the say where teams are located or should be relocated. Paul Kelly has made numerous past remarks stating that relocating teams to better markets provides a bigger financial pie for both players and owners. This provides the biggest hope yet that the NHLPA is in favour of Manitoba over 6 to 10 floundering franchises. In essence, the message was "why fight over expanding revenue sharing for teams in weak markets when relocation brings every team’s financial goals that much closer?" The pie can be grown while avoiding the battle over of the size of the share of the pie. A truly win-win for both players and ownership. In this sense, this pressure to relocate teams by the union could become a bargaining chip offered by the owners to the players, given clear absolute minimum market conditions for a team to remain in place. These measures would be much like the clawbacks in the current between-team revenue sharing system, only taken to a much more critical level. Needless to say, this becomes easier for any of 6+ teams to move to Winnipeg more quickly, but it also opens the door wider to losing a team later should minimum targets be missed. The real question becomes what would the NHL want in return for releasing full control over franchise location? Considering the war the NHL fought in Phoenix last summer to establish that fact beyond any owner or prospective owner wishes, it is obvious the giveback will be fairly substantial, potentially the ending of guaranteed contracts.

Expansion Fees

Lastly, it has been rumoured that the PA desires to collect a percentage of expansion team fees. This will fall on deaf ears with the NHL as the owners take on all financial risk, bare solely the burden for team losses and share neither with the players. The players might as well ask for a portion of team annual profits if they are dreaming in 3D to this extent. This push from the players might be the greatest impetus for the NHL to expand to a round number of 32 teams well before the current CBA expires. On the other side of the puck, the NHL may outwardly “reluctantly” give in on this bargaining chip. However you can expect the NHL to cease any league expansion at that point, making the whole discussion moot. And at 32 teams, a huge majority of fans would rather support contraction than even further expansion. So for Winnipeg hopes, it is a case of hurrying over the tracks before the train crosses in 2012 when the CBA expires.
Of course this assumes that Manitoba is still waiting in 2012 for a casualty of the Southern Experiment who is in critical but stable health to be “flown” for treatment.

End Result For Manitoba

With so many teams not playing to full houses, many others playing in front of entirely empty lower bowl sections and still others playing to routine crowds where the upper bowl should have been curtained off before the season started, the players will not have the “fight in them” to push even as hard on most of these issues as they did in 2004. Given the present economic clouds that were not even conceived of in 2004 and the stark reality that the current CBA was a complete win for the players (and a loss for many owners), you can expect that next CBA bargaining will go much different. The NHL will be grinding down the union for strong concessions, coincidently not unlike the NHL’s recent work with the City of Glendale. This is not because the NHL will take advantage of Fehr’s inexperience within hockey. It is because the players themselves will have less will to shut the league down when many teams are at death’s door already. Fehr, or whoever accepts the PA leadership challenge, essentially is not in a good position to negotiate his first NHL deal. And for Manitoba and Winnipeg, unless the North American economy turns quickly positive, the next CBA can only be even better news for either our NHL aspirations or Stanley Cup hopes.

Take your best shot in goal over at the forum and let us know your thoughts on the CBA and pending changes of the NHLPA. www.mbmbforum.com

Chris
President, www.myNHLincludesWinnipeg.com
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