Siding with the Players

Less than two weeks from today on September 15th the current NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement ends. Where are the NHL and NHLPA right now with this date looming? “Far apart” and with “no current plans to resume talks” is where. Hope that the NHL season will start on time is all but gone for most and frustration for fans mounts.

Most fans don’t care who is to blame and just want hockey. I count myself among those but at the same time I side with the players. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel sorry for players making millions while many just struggle to get by in their normal lives and many, many others will be out of work should a lockout occur and games not be played … but I do feel that this potential lockout is completely on the owners.

Last time there was a lockout I sided with owners. I agreed that something needed done and while I hated missing hockey and wish it hadn’t come to that I knew that the health of the league was in trouble. A salary cap among other things was needed. We lost an entire year of hockey that year but the game when it returned came back better than ever and has only grown since then. The league locked out the players and got their cap in addition to a 24% rollback to all the player’s salaries.  The owners got the CBA they wanted, a CBA that was supposed to fix the issues. That would be reason one I blame the owners for this situation now and any missed hockey.

However since then the cap has rose from $39M that first year to what would have been $70M this year. Salaries have climbed and now the owners are claiming that they can’t afford the big contracts and the long terms that are becoming more commonplace. Just this summer we saw Shea Weber sign a 14 year, $110M deal with $27M of that coming in the next calendar year alone. Ryan Suter and Zach Parise signed matching 13 year, $98M deals with the same team. Since the initial NHL offer for a new CBA which included a limit of 5 years on contracts the owners couldn’t even stick with that as we’ve seen a half dozen players sign extensions or new contracts for more than those 5 years, Eberle and Hall being just two of those and each of them making $6M a year. Reason number two why I am against the owners in this should be obvious, they are claiming they can’t do something but are the ones offering these contracts and continuing to do so even after they claim they can’t do them. Sure, they may need to make the best offer to get players to improve their team, but it is still owner versus owner and the owners responsible for giving out contracts for big money and decade long terms.

The owners’ solution, or initial proposal, was another huge rollback in player salaries along with severe limits on contract length along with extending how long a player is kept with a certain team before become free to seek employment where they want. It was an insulting offer but the NHLPA took the high ground instead coming back later with a proposal of their own, giving the NHL back but also asking owners to help solve the problems as well. The NHL owners of course rejected it and things have since broken down in the talks.

It is also the owners who are stating they will lock out the players, just as they did before, if no agreement is in place. The players will play and want to play, and yes part of that I am sure is to get a paycheck … but they are still willing to play. The owners won’t have any of it though and are going to shut down the season if they don’t get their way, this after getting their way last time we lost hockey.

Reality is Bettman will get much of the hate if we lose hockey again, and he does deserve his share, but the owners as a whole are at fault here. They got the system they wanted and things are still broke, they presented a horrible first offer for a new CBA but the players didn’t respond in kind but put forth something that could have been worked with, they continue to do what they say they can’t, and in the end it is them, not the players or the fans, that would see that there is no hockey this year should they not get their way once again.

Ideally the fans would have a voice, but realistically even though it is the fans who pay for the tickets, the concessions, the jerseys we don’t. For people like me where the game is a passion we’ll return when hockey does. For those who casually watch they will go on with their lives and may or may not return when hockey does. It would be nice to see the fans “lockout” games not attending a single one for the same amount of time games are lost, or to have fans boycott all NHL merchandise in protest, but in the end the fans just aren’t going to be unified enough to have a lasting impact or even be heard. In the end what the fans do won’t matter to a bunch of owners who show already that they don’t concern themselves with the damage they are doing to the game right now with another potential lockout. Still I’m going to try to make my voice heard taking to social media or wherever else I can go. I am mad enough even that I don’t think I will attend a single game this year in protest, and I won’t purchase any memorabilia where the owners will collect a dime. Sure, I am only one person and one voice but if enough fans take a hard stance in this perhaps we can do what is thought impossible … to be heard.