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THE NHL’s PANDORA’S BOX…
By Anthony | August 13, 2010
Greetings,
It’s been a while, and I will make every effort to not be such a stranger to my own blog.
Let’s talk hockey, the National Hockey League in particular, here in August as much of the United States craves for a frozen pond to cool off.
Five years ago the league staged its version of Armageddon when the entire 2004-05 season was iced in an effort to bring players salaries in line with the league’s economic structure.
A hard salary cap was imposed with a minimum floor and maximum ceiling for teams to field their respective rosters. You would think that after league president Gary Bettman, the owners and players went so far as to nullify an entire season they’d get it right and there would be no such thing as “circumvention” of the very cap they all agreed to in the collective bargaining agreement.
Enter the recently voided contract negotiated by the New Jersey Devils and high scoring winger Ilya Kovalchuk. Less than 24 hours after team CEO, president and general manager, Lou Lamoriello, won the most coveted prize of the free agency period the league rejected it.
The 17-year, $102 million contract offered the 27-year old Russian – not unlike the contracts of some star players on other franchises post-lockout – was unusually long and front loaded with the bulk of the money coming in the early years of the deal, as in each of the last five seasons the all-star was slated to earn $550,000.
On August 9th arbiter Richard Bloch - the same arbitrator that now deceased NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw removed in 2005 after Bloch’s upholding of the Terrell Owens suspension for what Mr. Upshaw termed a misinterpretation of the CBA - agreed with the league’s stance on the contract, thus placing Kovalchuk back into the open market and creating revisionist history as suddenly the league is also looking at the deals of Vancouver Canucks’ goalie Roberto Luongo, Boston Bruins’ center Marc Savard, Chicago Blackhawks’ winger Marian Hossa, Philadelphia Flyers’ defenseman Chris Pronger and quite possibly several others in the days to come.
It should be noted that Mr. Bloch has been involved in several NHL rulings prior to the Kovalchuk decision with evidence of no clear bias to either side.
However, this ruling comes at a time when, as illustrated by the list of similar deals being investigated, so-called cap circumvention has become the norm for several teams throughout the league, and rightly or wrongly Lamoriello’s signing was just the opportunity for Bettman to take advantage of the NHLPA’s lack of leadership and state of disarray after they jettisoned former president Paul Kelly roughly a year ago.
There have been rumblings that the former head of the major league baseball players union, Donald Fehr, would take the vacant position, but he’s just come on board as an advisor and clearly the level of his involvement is murky after this power play from Bettman. Subsequently, the players union comes off as leaderless, perhaps even impotent and certainly ripe for the picking.
Again, I am at a loss to see this kind of confusion from the teams, the league and the players union after ripping the system apart and voiding an entire season. This is the kind of save me from myself attitude that a season long work stoppage was suppose to address.
For what it’s worth the current collective bargaining agreement ends in September of 2012.
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