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Hicks on The Ticket

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks was on KTCK-1310 The Ticket this morning to talk with Dunham and Miller about the NHL lockout and the future of the league. Here are some of the highlights.

On whether the players agreeing to a salary cap was a good sign

"Well, I talked to the commissioner [Gary Bettman] late last night and I think the reports of progress were apparently a little bit overstated. It does not look good at this time. I said the other day -- I mean it -- I think the players unfortunately have turned down the best offer they are going to be presented. We'll just see where it goes from here."

On whether he expected this to go as far as not having the Stanley Cup not awarded this season

"We all hoped it wouldn't be, but I think everybody on both sides went into this thinking there's a possibility. It's real fundamental. The owners have absolute 100 percent solidarity that they want to fix this system once and for all. Our definition of fixing is you have to have some relationship of player costs to overall revenues. That's what football has. That's what basketball has. Even baseball is headed in the right direction. Right now, unfortunately, the hockey fans are paying more than any other fans for tickets. They've escalated dramatically. It's all gone to the players and the teams are losing a lot of money. That can't continue."

On far how the owners would go before the league would consider turning to replacement players

"I'm going to sit down with Jim Lites and Doug Armstrong for breakfast Thursday. We'll know the answer either way by then. We are going to start making plans. We will be playing hockey in Dallas next year. I don't know who is going to be playing for us. A lot of players in the NHL I think would like to play. I think if they had a vote today you'd have a lot of players that would like to play today. So, we'll see what happens. But we are going to be playing hockey. I think the other thing is we are going to surprise the fans with a lot of rule changes this summer that are necessary to improve the attraction and added scoring of the game, get a better game, a more exciting game. I think hockey's had its head in the sand so to speak for too long, saying 'Our game is doing just fine.' Meanwhile, we have a lot of 1-0 games. I think that is going to change. That will be good too."

When asked if it will be anything radical, like no goaltenders

"(Laughs) Well, you may not recognize the goaltenders when they start wearing the equipment we make them wear. They won't look like -- who is that guy for the Ducks who killed us couple years ago, [Jean-Sebastien] Giguere -- the Pillsbury Doughboy."

On other rules changes

"Clearly, the whole direction of goaltending. Maybe changing a little of the the configuration of the ice behind the net. Treating icing a little bit differently than they have in the past, kind of open up the game. Just enforcing the rules. The tendency of players to grab hold of each other in the neutral zone, essentially obstruct, has gotten out of hand. So, we are going to try to open up the game and let the star players have a chance to score."

On the suggestion that owners to blame for the economic problems due to their inability to control spending

"It's a tough thing but intellectually it's hard to argue. The owners have done this to ourselves. It's just the way sports work. There's always a George Steinbrenner or whomever that wants to approach it that way. Then, of course, every agent takes that comparable and raises his player's marketability to that level. At the end of the day it is what the total percent is. In hockey the players' total share of the pie is 77 percent. Any other sport -- the other three -- it has to be low to mid-50's to have it be any kind of business that can be sustained. Hockey just went too far."

On whether he regrets some of the deals he agreed to

"Sure. Sure. I think the Stars have been one of the guilty parties. We pay Mike Modano $9 million. We pay Bill Guerin $8.5 to $9 million for a long-term contract. It was a lot of fun to win the Stanley Cup. Our fans loved it. We loved it. We said, 'Let's try it again.' What happened is our fans quit paying the prices. All of sudden our payroll didn't stop rising and our ability to pass it onto fans did. Our fans said enough is enough."

On talk that the players could form their own league and compete with the NHL

"I don't think that will ever happen."

On the perception that the players have given ground on the salary cap

"They really haven't. So much of this has been PR going back and forth between the Bob Goodenow and the league. I've talked to the commissioner every day for the last three weeks. I know what has been offered and a lot of this is just media spinning by the union. The fundamental issue is do you have any kind of relationship of total payroll to revenues. I call that a partnership. At this point they refuse to enter into any kind of arrangement that would have salaries tied to revenues of the league."

On whether tomorrow's Noon CST (1 p.m. EST) deadline is firm

"I think we will reach an end and I think it will be this week."

On hockey will overcome the lockout

"We're going to have to work real hard. I think hockey fans are fewer than the other leagues, but they are very ardent fans. They are very passionate fans. I think we can get them back. We have to give them what they want, which is old-fashioned hockey where you open up the game and let the great players skate. You have more 6-4 games than 1-0 games. We try to produce the best possible product we can produce."