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Letter to the editor

Lockout will cost union in long run

By JOHN ROMANO
Published December 2, 2004

TAMPA - Hey guys, loved the bluff.

Really, it was top-notch stuff. The pose, the pledge, the solidarity. It was like watching a sit-down at Hoffa's corner booth.

But I've got to tell you, it's over. And the sooner you recognize that, the better off you'll be. The better we'll all be.

The time has come for the NHL players association to relax its principles and accept its reality. The players are not going to win this labor battle.

They can continue to posture. They can continue to talk with conviction. Mostly, they can continue to sit and watch as bank accounts dwindle.

Look, it's not about who is on the side of good and who is doing evil. That's for talking heads to argue. This is about who has leverage and who does not. And, based on what we've seen so far, the owners are swinging hammers.

Forget, for a minute, the philosophical questions of whether salary caps or luxury taxes have a place in collective bargaining agreements.

Instead, focus on these two important points:

No. 1, hockey teams are losing money. As many as half the teams in the league and as much as tens of millions of dollars. As motivations go, that's about as basic as it gets for owners to continue their hard-line stance.

No. 2, most owners do not depend on hockey as a primary source of income. The ranks of owners include a Wal-Mart heir. A Little Caesar's pizza founder. A CEO of Compuware and, oh yeah, a little group called the Walt Disney Co. Players, on the other hand, sort of need their hockey paychecks.

Or, here's another way of looking at it:

Without the players, owners are still millionaires and billionaires. Without the owners, players are looking for apartments in Helsinki.

Granted, the same dynamics have existed in baseball, football and basketball labor wars. But hockey is not exactly on the same footing. It's losing more money and attracting less attention. There's a wide disparity in revenues and too many markets with too little support.

Television is not going to foot the bill. And fans are not up in arms about the lockout. The sport does not have the history of baseball in the United States, and the NFL and NBA have already submitted to salary caps.

So where does that leave hockey players?

Preferably at Gary Bettman's office door.

Instead of pretending they're willing to go to the mattresses for this, the players should be negotiating as many concessions as possible. They should quietly accept that some sort of salary cap is inevitable, and then offer a long list of demands before agreeing to what the owners most want.

Free agency restrictions should be eased. Maybe earlier arbitration eligibility. Players can add whatever perks they'd like.

But they should take the negotiations to owners before the union begins to crack and their demands turn into desperate pleas.

Let's face it, the union already has blundered enough. Consider its reaction to a financial report in Forbes. The magazine said NHL owners did not have an annual loss of more than $200-million - as the league has claimed - but put the losses at more like $96-million.

A union official immediately praised the integrity of Forbes and said the report was evidence owners were exaggerating.

Uh, hello?

Even at $96-million, the loss is a heck of an argument for a salary cap. That's like a defendant proclaiming his innocence because he didn't shoot and stab the victim. Nope, your honor, it was strictly a shooting.

Of course, union leaders have not been the only ones to err. The commissioner has been - oh, what's the word - an idiot.

Bettman has sounded arrogant and has behaved unnecessarily antagonistic. He has essentially made the union's job easier by uniting players in anger.

When you've got the advantage, it pays to be conciliatory. Bettman would serve the NHL's position much better if he pushed the idea of a new CBA as a partnership. And you don't enter partnerships with ultimatums.

How hard can this be? They're not talking about pensions or health insurance or safe working conditions. They're just divvying up piles of cash.

Meanwhile, fans who were lukewarm about hockey are figuring out other ways to spend their time. Not to mention their money. And heaven knows how many of them will return to arenas once the players and owners decide how to differentiate between filthy and stinking rich.

In a way, it's similar to the fable of the goose and the golden egg.

If you recall, the goose would lay one solid gold egg a day for its newly rich owner. This continues until the farmer gets so greedy, he kills the goose and cuts it open only to find nothing inside.

Yup, it's the same thing.

Except, this time, the goose is suicidal.

[Last modified December 2, 2004, 00:07:13]