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Behind the scenes buzz as cancellation looms

Saturday, February 12, 2005

This is the weekend when many of hockey's brightest stars were supposed to be in Atlanta for the NHL All-Star Game. Now it is has turned into the dark deadline weekend. The weekend by which the NHL and the NHLPA must be drafting a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in order to keep the season from becoming the season that never was. Although all was quiet on the negotiations front, there were rumblings of a lot of behind the scenes buzz.

While there is an overwhelming sense of pessimism about NHL hockey being played this season, Pittsburgh Penguins owner-player Mario Lemieux remains one of the few optimists out there that something of miracle status could still happen this weekend.

"I think they'll figure out a way to make a deal," Lemieux told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "It would be devastating not to play this season, for everybody involved. The fans and the game in general. The business, especially. A lot of people are going to get hurt.

"A lot of people are talking. A lot of the players are starting to get together. Hopefully, they can come to a solution before it's too late. ... It's a long shot, but, if you look at the future of the game and how much it's going to affect the business, I don't see the future being any brighter for everybody involved six months from now or a year from now. It's only going to get worse."

Sportsnet in Canada reports that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is trying to open a direct channel of communication with the players. He has reportedly issued a memo that lifts previous restrictions on team management from speaking with players.

"In essence he has opened up what has been closed before, allowing us to go directly to the player," an NHL executive told Sportsnet.

The NHL executive told Sportsnet that team managers aren't supposed to be negotiating with players, but "are free to discuss all lockout concerns in hopes of a change of heart in the next 48 hours."

There have been reports of that there is plenty of behind the scenes buzz going on. Players calling Bob Goodenow. Owners calling Bettman. Players talking to team management.

The key question is if the top guns at the NHL and NHLPA are talking to each other? The Canadian Press reported that both sides said there was no communication between the two sides on Saturday.

Despite that, there's been a hint of where compromise could come between the two sides. It may be too late to save this season, but it could lay the groundwork for moving forward towards next season.

That would be for the league to drop the insistence on linking the salary cap to league revenues. In other words, the league would not cap overall player compensation league wide although there could still be a cap on individual team payrolls.

"I would say it’s not a nonstarter. It is a subject we could have discussion on," NHL executive-vice president Bill Daly told Canada's The Score Friday when he was asked about the prospects of a salary cap without the link between player costs and league revenues.

"It’s an interesting question and it’s one that has become a hot topic over the last couple of weeks and I don't know where it's coming from because it's certainly not coming from the players' association.

The NHLPA's response?

"They've always presented it as one concept, not two concepts," NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin told The Score. "We're not interested in negotiating any arbitrary cap. If (Daly) has other ideas he would like to present, he should present them to us."

Daly said it was something the league was willing to discuss, but said it should have come earlier.

"I'm inviting that conversation if it's something they're interested in," Daly said. "But the time to for that was four, five or six months ago."

There's also the issue of the four "trigger points" in the NHL's last offer, under whichr the next CBA would start with the NHLPA's December 9 proposal. If one of four trigger points were hit then the NHL's February 2 proposal would go into effect.

The league insists those trigger points were negotiable as was the amount of time the NHLPA's plan would be allowed to work. The NHLPA disputes that, saying the triggers and timing weren't presented as items to be negotiated.

But despite all the buzz and speculation there is still one major sticking point -- meeting Bettman's deadline to be drafting a new CBA document by this weekend.  Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks isn't holding his breath.

"Short of some miracle occurring in the next few days, which I don't personally think there is a chance in hell of happening, we won't be playing hockey this
[season]," Hicks told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.