Bettman announces no NHL Hockey this season
- by Sherry Ross: KRT Newswire

Until the moment that National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman strode purposefully into the hotel meeting room, at 1 p.m. sharp, John Davidson had been sharing the same fervent hope of hundreds of thousands of diehard fans. This sentence would not be commuted. Bettman unflinchingly drove the NHL into wholly uncharted frozen waters, after letting more than 13 hours pass with no communication with the Players Association as the deadline for saving the 2004-05 season came and, finally, went.

“As I stand before you today, it is my sad duty to announce that because that solution has not yet been attained, it no longer is practical to conduct even an abbreviated season,” Bettman said. “Accordingly, I have no choice but to announce the formal cancellation of play for 2004-05.”

The last and supposedly best offer from both sides was a $42.5 million hard cap by the NHL and a $49 million cap with luxury tax exemptions from the players. That $6.5 million gap - less than the average cost of a Ranger last season - plunged the league and its players into the darkest day in NHL history.

The NHL’s last lockout, in 1994-95, resulted in a settlement in time to play a shortened 48-game season and award a Stanley Cup. Not this time. Instead of getting ready for the tentatively planned March 1 opener of a 28-game semi-season, the NHL says it is going to begin preparations for a 2005-06 season. Getting both sides to agree to a new CBA in time for that to become reality will be a task worthy of Sisyphus.

The “progress” over the past five months — the time elapsed between the Sept. 15 expiration of the old collective bargaining agreement and Wednesday’s cancellation — was so excruciatingly slow that in contrast, a snail moves at the pace of Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 car.

It wasn’t until last weekend that the players, led by NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow, finally yielded on discussing any form of a hard salary cap, and the NHL relented on its insistence on salaries being linked to no more than 55 percent of revenue. Now the Zamboni has scraped the bargaining table clean. Likewise, the 24 percent salary rollback offered by the players is now history. How will the NHL and NHLPA come to an agreement, the partnership that Bettman claims to seek, in the next seven months by going backwards?

“Impasse” is a word that will surface between now and the potential opening of training camp in September. The NHL has tiptoed around the topic, with both Bettman and NHL chief legal counsel Bill Daly being careful to use a phrase like “exploring options” instead of “hiring replacement players.”

Were the NHL to declare an impasse, the players union would then be able to file a grievance (in the U.S., with the National Labor Relations Board) and vote to strike. The NHL could then impose its collective bargaining agreement and hire replacement players, although immigration laws would have an impact on which players would be allowed to be hired (by restricting the availability of foreign players).

The NLRB would then review the last offers made by the NHL and the NHLPA, and if it found that the NHL failed to bargain in good faith, could negate the impasse and rule in the players’ favor, with substantial financial penalties incurred. There are very good reasons why the NHL would not want to travel that road. But it was once unfathomable to think the league would have followed this self-destructive path.