Let the NHL fold

[Admin]

In My Opinion by Trevor Bothwell

Scrap the NHL season this year. And next year, for all I care.

Toronto's Globe and Mail reports that unless an agreement is reached between the National Hockey League and the NHL Player's Association by the weekend, league commissioner Gary Bettman "would have to cancel the season."

I didn't know there was actually anyone remaining who hasn't written off this season already.

According to the Globe and Mail, "Should the season be saved, Bettman said the NHL would play a 28-game season, which would begin late this month, with each team playing a home-and-home series with its conference rivals."

Titillating! A 28-game hockey season! If paying 75 bucks for one hockey ticket isn't enough to turn you against the sport, perhaps listening to the incessant whining of millionaire players and billionaire owners will be.

Don't get me wrong. I love pro hockey, but not enough to turn a blind eye to what unions have become today. We've come a long way from the days of protecting children from abusive employers and ensuring safe and comfortable working environments. In short, unions were created to combat big business; today, unions are big business.

Like all employees, athletes are well within their rights to demand as much money as they can command for their services. And, likewise, owners have every right to either meet or reject these demands. Problems arise, however, when team owners lobby their respective leagues to impose a salary cap, which limits the salary players can be paid. By and large, smaller market hockey teams (like Buffalo or Toronto) fight harder for these stipulations than larger market teams (like New York or Los Angeles) as a means of "leveling the playing field." In a nutshell, teams based in smaller cities argue they cannot command as much revenue as those based in larger cities, which inhibits their ability to attract the finest talent and therefore compete equally.

To many, this sounds like a perfectly reasonable argument. And it’s understandable that players would want to join a union to fight back. Indeed, both the NHL and NHLPA are entitled to form any union or internal organization they wish; it’s their club, their rules.

But while studies have shown that disparities in team payrolls have an effect on the competitive nature of sports, there is not necessarily always a direct relationship between a team's payroll and it's position in the standings. Put differently, a team's ability to compete is dependent upon much more than player talent and salary level alone. Arguments in favor of salary caps fail to take into account other factors that influence success, such as the effectiveness of recruiting amateur players, coaching, inspiring positive work ethics in athletes, and, of course, front office management.

Examples abound in baseball. In 2003, the Florida Marlins beat the New York Yankees in the World Series, even though New York's average team salary was about six million dollars. Founded in 1998, the Arizona Diamondbacks upset the Yankees in 2001. And just last year, the Boston Red Sox (which, admittedly, has no small payroll) rebounded in the AL Championship Series to take four straight games from the Yankees before going on to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

The Yankees are looked upon as the sine qua non when competitors argue in favor of "equalizing" measures like salary caps. And I can't remember the last time the Yanks weren't on the short list of favorites to win the Series. But last year, they were simply outplayed in their last four games.

Pro hockey has similar examples. In 1999, my Buffalo Sabres lost in Game Six after the infamous "skate in the crease" non-call on Brett Hull. I can tell you from years of watching the Sabres that they had no business being in the finals that year. Though Lindy Ruff was the coach in 1999, their success was due almost solely to the inspirational coaching of Ted Nolan, who in the previous two years convinced a bunch of young, tough, probably-should-never-bes that they could beat anybody.

More recently, the underdog Carolina Hurricanes surprised almost everyone by making it to the Stanley Cup finals against the Detroit Red Wings in 2002, and in only their third year of existence, and against the expectations of most, the Minnesota Wild made it all the way to their conference championship in 2003.

I love professional hockey, but I can't fathom (or afford) dropping a couple hundred dollars just to take my wife to a hockey game (I prefer to attend college or minor league games, where players seem to take the game much more seriously, anyhow). However, many people can. And until the market convinces team owners that fans aren't willing to pay big bucks to see their heroes shoot a puck, they might as well get used to paying players what they can demand -- or tell them to take a hike. If owners aren't willing to do either, they can do what any other businessmen would do and sell.

What many people don't realize is that the best players often bring much more money into an organization each year than they earn annually (think Wayne Gretzky, who personally brought revenue into every arena he played in). Imposing socialist structures like salary caps does nothing for the game; even if athletes make more money in one year than we do in 30, if they get paid less than they're worth, they know it and it'll eventually show in their performances. And at that point, there's no point playing the game in the first place.

©2005 Trevor Bothwell

Trevor Bothwell is a freelance writer living in Maryland. He maintains a web log at www.therightreport.com. Trevor can be contacted at bothwelltj@yahoo.com.

[scupper trout]

Originally Posted by Admin

Scrap the NHL season this year. And next year, for all I care.


Pro hockey has similar examples. In 1999, my Buffalo Sabres lost in Game Six after the infamous "skate in the crease" non-call on Brett Hull. I can tell you from years of watching the Sabres that they had no business being in the finals that year. Though Lindy Ruff was the coach in 1999, their success was due almost solely to the inspirational coaching of Ted Nolan, who in the previous two years convinced a bunch of young, tough, probably-should-never-bes that they could beat anybody.

©2005 Trevor Bothwell

Trevor Bothwell is a freelance writer living in Maryland. He maintains a web log at www.therightreport.com. Trevor can be contacted at bothwelltj@yahoo.com.

I went to a few summer camps that the Sabres had when I was a kid. I learned alot and they usually had them up in Wheatfield (Niagara County) which was a haul from Lancaster.

The the guys teaching in those days (the players weren't always there, but maybe once in a while, which was still cool!) were the real pros the likes of Rene Robert, Rick Martin and Don Luce. That experience really made a fan for life. Until now.

I wish players now had the spirit of the older guys like Gordy Howe, Bobby Orr, The Espisito Brothers just to name a few. The players now wouldn't last 10 minutes with some of the old guys if they were playing then.

I am tired of having to shell out mega-$$$ to go a game. What is going to happen to the people that have season tickets? Are they getting a refund? Or will the owners pretty much say too bad and run?

You seem to be basing your claim that salary caps have a less-than-major impact on the performance of teams based on their performance in the playoffs, and that's not a valid metric. The playoffs pit one very successful team against another equally, or near equally, successful team. Compare that to the season as a whole, when teams with a disproportinately high number of proven performers and a high payroll, play teams with low payrolls and a low number of proven performers, and the disparity becomes more blatant. Lately, almost every time a Grade A player becomes a free market player, you're going to be hearing that he's signed with the Yankees if the Yankees want him. And while the Yankees might blow it from time to time during the playoffs, the fact that they are in the playoffs year after year is more indicitive of the effectiveness of unlimited payrolls than their performance in the playoffs.

The basic rule of sports, and most business, is that talent follows the money. If one team has limited resources while another has unlimited resources, talent will sign with the later. This may be the way of free enterprise, but eventually people get tired of the same teams always winning and losing, and lose interest. Football was going the same way until salary caps made the games more interesting.

As for hockey, studies have shown that the team owners' claims that they are running out of money are true. This has been due to a steadily declining interest in the sport. The last real burst of energy that the NHL has had was when Mario Lemieux strapped the skates back on, but even that faded away. If hockey wants to get the fans back, they need to impose salary caps to make all of the teams more competitive, and lower the ticket prices as you said. I would prefer that the NHL owners fire every player and start from scratch. Bring players up, pay them a good salary but not one that'll break the bank, and lower the ticker prices to $10-$15 a game. There will be lots of screaming about second-rate play, but after a season or so the fans will be back and the new players will be up to form.

One need only look at the empty outfield seats at MLB games to know that fans take a long time to forgive when the players get greedy.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

...at what point the players realize most of the U$ does not miss them.

The owners need to abandon dealing with the players at all.

Make up a salary cap everyone can afford, hire minor leaguers, today, and make tickets cheap enough that people will bring the family. While you're at it, eliminate fighting, get rid of the thuggery and open the game up by making the rink Olympic size.

The league needs exit plans for the teams that simply shouldn't exist.

Get back on cable TV.

Get back in business.

Hockey is not major league and the players need to accept that. The big TV dollars are not and never will be there. The owners made a mistake expanding and paying you guys so much.

END OF STORY

Or keep doing what you're doing. I guess.

Originally Posted by Larry Gude

Hockey is not major league and the players need to accept that.

Hockey may not be major league now, but it sure was when I was growing up. There are still a lot of fans out there, the problem is that they have lost interest. As they lost interest, they quit watching the games. As they quit watching and going to the games, the networks quit carrying them.

I can also remember the days when hardly anybody I knew watched football, and hardly anybody in Pittsburgh ever watched basketball (Pittsburghers disliked b-ball so much that when they needed people for crowd shots for the movie "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh" they had to film the shots in Cinncinati because only a couple of people showed up at the Civic Arena for the movie game.) This was back in the 70s and early 80s when there was serious consideration to dropping Monday Night Football due to low ratings. I used to watch the Pirates games religiously, as did most everybody I knew.

Now jump to the current day. Who are the biggest draws on TV? Football and basketball. Who are the lowest? Baseball and hockey. Is it coincidence that the NFL's fortunes have greatly improved since 1987, when the salary cap was implemented, when before 1987 there was nothing but decline? How about basketball's fortunes since 1985 as compared to before? Basketball and football were just about where the NHL and MLB (the leagues without salary caps) are today. The same teams are always in the playoffs, there's no excitement anymore, and people are having to pay too much to go see their team lose. Implementing a salary cap would force players to move between teams more frequently, which will change team dynamics and allow different teams to take the lead.

I think the ambassador for salary caps would be Shaquille O'Neal. That guy changes teams so often that you either cheer for him because he's now on your team, or against him because he left your team, but in either case he generates interest.

[Steve]

I remember watching hockey when I was a teenager. What ever happened to that sport?

[KCM]

The DH and I are really big hockey fans. But over the last year or so the prices of tickets are outragous. We stick to the minor hockey leagues and try to go to those games when we can.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Hockey may not be major league now, but it sure was when I was growing up.

Yes, and when you and I were growing up some Skins games weren't televised because they didn't sell out and basketball was hard to find and baseball was on the local channel with a national game of the week. And bleacher seats were $3.

Everybody and everyone grew up...except hockey.

Everyone from Miami to Minnesota likes baseball and football and basketball, at least in enough numbers to justify the titanic numbers that come from TV.

That's simply not the case with hockey. Everyone 'get's' slam dunk. Everyone 'get's' home run. Everyone 'get's' touchdown pass.

Hockey is to the casual fan, the fan$ that made the other leagues major...what?

Soccer with skates.

We don't like soccer either.

[Kain99]

It's all total BS. I say we cancel football and baseball at the same time.

TYVM

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

...we find some of the news, the details and the guesses about the future.

The only thing that matters: The owners are doing better financially by NOT playing. No fan revenue. No TV revenue. And they still are better off because...no player salaries to pay.

I wonder if the players get it yet?