Is Hockey Really coming back?

[Guest]

NHL deal is all but done

League, union just adding final touches

BY JOHN DELLAPINA

DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

The new agreement, when ratified, reflects what commissioner Gary Bettman wanted: a new economic model that caps team payrolls and ties that cap to a percentage of league-wide revenues.

The short, official answer remains: No, representatives of NHL owners and players have not yet agreed to a new, lockout-ending collective bargaining agreement.

But that's only a matter of days, maybe a week, from changing - followed by perhaps two weeks of waiting for ratification votes by the 30 owners and NHLPA rank and file. Fact is: it truly is down to the minutiae now.

Expect the owners to quickly affirm the document with rousing acclaim, as its gist will reflect exactly what NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wanted for them all along: a new economic model that caps team payrolls and ties that cap to a percentage of league-wide revenues.

Desperate to resume playing and stop hemorrhaging money they'll never recoup, players are expected to ratify the deal as well. But their vote undoubtedly will be a more acrimonious affair, with a significant number enraged that NHLPA head Bob Goodenow asked them to fight for a moral cause (no cap or no hockey) only to abandon that cause without saving the 2004-05 season.

As has been reported here and elsewhere, the lawyers/negotiators from both sides have been in tentative agreement for a month that the new CBA's core will be a salary cap tied to a percentage of league-wide revenues. For this season, that cap has been set at $39 million with no team permitted to spend less than $21.5 million in payroll - in subsequent seasons, the cap and floor will be separated by $16 million with the thresholds tied to between 54% and 57% of revenues.

What's more, the sides have subsequently agreed upon just about every other significant facet of the new CBA.

The Daily News has learned that those points of tentative agreement include a 24% rollback of the value of existing contracts, a gradual reduction in the unrestricted free agency age from 31 this summer to 27 by the 2008 offseason, restricting individual salaries to no more than 20% of each season's team cap ($7.8 million this season), and a one-time amnesty that permits teams to buy out current contracts without the cost counting against their cap number.

According to sources familiar with the internal discussions, the team making the 2005 entry draft's first pick is almost certain to be determined by a lottery that is slightly weighted toward clubs that have been bottom feeders in recent seasons.

The Rangers, who haven't made the playoffs since 1997 and haven't won a recent draft lottery, would have their odds at selecting junior phenom Sidney Crosby minimally enhanced.

Though NHL executive VP Bill Daly, NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin and their respective posses of lawyers continued to hammer away at the final document yesterday in midtown, Bettman already has called a Monday meeting of the executive committee of the league's Board of Governors.

At that meeting, Bettman is expected to tell the league's most powerful owners that they have a last chance to request changes to the final document before it is put to all 30 owners for a vote. Any CBA endorsed by Bettman would require only a simple majority (16 of 30 votes) to be ratified by ownership.

Once the deal is ratified by both sides, there is certain to be a moratorium period during which no deals can be made while GMs and agents get to study the new rules. After that, the wildest NHL offseason in history will ensue, with a majority of the league's players unsigned and with many teams having to reconstruct nearly their entire rosters.

The Rangers are one such team. They have only six players under contract for the upcoming season - Jaromir Jagr, Bobby Holik, Darius Kasparaitis, Michal Nylander, Dale Purinton and Jason Strudwick. And they are not yet sure how much of Jagr's annual salary ($8.36 million, rolled back from $11 million) will be charged against their cap - the Washington Capitals are paying half under terms of the clubs' 2004 trade.

Originally published on July 8, 2005

[Guest WolfEMT]

The owners' greed was the only motive for the lockout, and after the "yes-we-have-a-contract, no-wait-we-were-just-kidding" incident from back around January or February, many speculated that the NHL was dead. Hockey, if it does in fact come back, will probably suffer from decreased television viewership, decreased ticket sales, and decreased concession revenue because of the whole debacle. If both sides removed the politics and bickering, and the players just went out and played for the sake of the game, then perhaps the NHL won't suffer from those adverse affects. All-in-all, the NHL needs some serious reforms, which sadly this new CBA does not address, in order generate the same public interest as it did before the lockout.