Can the CBA still be torpedoed?
Jul 01, 2005
Racing’s Triple Crown is long gone but the NHL’s Run for the Rubles is just into its homestretch.
And if you’re wondering what hockey’s Triple Crown is these days, I’ll be happy to tell you. It goes as follows:
1. A brand new Collective Bargaining Agreement completed, hopefully, by mid-July.
2. The Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes; otherwise known as the 2005 Entry Draft. Target date is August. Probable venue: Ottawa, as originally planned.
3. Unveiling of the New NHL’s array of entertaining, speed-up-the-game rules.
As any racing fan knows, to win the Triple Crown, you first have to take the Derby. Likewise, if this NHL Triple Crown is to be achieved, the absolute first victory must be completion of the CBA.
And, therein lies the problem.
Getting the darn thing completed is fine but even as the ink dries, there remains the threat of a build-up to a let-down.
Assuming – as many insiders do – that the agreement can be packaged by July 15th, it still does not mean that the deal is completely sealed.
There still remains what could be the most difficult obstacle of all to surmount; and that is final CBA approval by the NHL Players’ Association rank-and-file membership.
Horrific as it may seem, it is in NHLPA waters that the armistice ultimately could be torpedoed and sunk.
I am told that there remains a group of hyper-militant union members determined to scuttle the agreement.
According to my sources – which includes one present NHL coach and a former NHL coach – union boss Bob Goodenow still has a loyal cadre among NHLPA card-holders who are determined to blow up the CBA.
One report has it that two players – ironically one an NHL goon and the other a retired enforcer still active in the union -- have been actively lobbying Association members to reject the pact.
It is not known precisely what impact these dissidents have on the overall membership nor what powers of coercion they might be attempting.
What is known is that more and more players are standing front-and-center, complaining about the union’s CBA strategy since last September.
Jaromir Jagr did it last week as did Jeremy Roenick among others. Still to be heard from are name players – reportedly Chris Pronger, Jarome Iginla and Robert Esche -- who privately challenged Goodenow’s position last February.
Considering the amount of painstaking work that has gone into completing the current document, it would be calamitous if a rump group of dissidents manage to Deep Six the deal at this time.
But as I’ve said for ten months, in my opinion Goodenow does not want a deal and, as a result, will do all in his powers to prevent a pact that has linkage and a Cap from being accepted.
A high profile NHL player confirms my thinking.
"If it wasn't for Goodenow's ego, this deal would have been a slam-dunk already," the prominent stickhandler asserts. "I'd say there are at least 80 percent of the NHLPA furious with Bob over his handling of this."
Red Wings player rep Manny Legace told Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News, “If everything I’m hearing is true, we should get something done here in the next few weeks.”
In another interview, this one with Booth Newspapers Group, Legace ripped union negotiators.
"The whole thing is a farce. We basically sat out for nothing," added Legace.
Asked whether Goodenow is to blame, Legace told Booth Newspapers, "It's not just him, it's the whole (executive) committee."
Meanwhile, the two sides continue meeting in New York amid sloth-like progress -- but progress nonetheless.
One high team executive says that the agreement is basically complete. However, he adds, "this won't be like 1995, when the owners rushed to get the deal done and we didn't read the fine print. This time, it won't be signed until every word is in its proper place."
More proof that the deal is close to being finished is offered by optimistic team marketing officials.
Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter Sarah Talalay reveals that next week, the Panthers will begin planting thousands of lawn signs across South Florida.
The message: "There's a cold front moving in." Talalay adds, "That's how confident the team is that a new labor agreement will be signed soon."
Two sources privy to the negotiations tell me that July 15 is a realistic date for completion of the complicated document.
"We're still working hard trying to finish this," says a key negotiator involved in the bargaining.
And that may be an understatement. The Thursday night negotiations was more than a marathon.
"We wound up talking until 2:00 Friday morning," one of the participants revealed.
“In a legal sense,” another of the CBA architects tells me, “this is like re-inventing the wheel.”
True enough.
Word around the league continues in a positive vein.
Detriot’s GM Ken Holland concurs. “I’m cautiously hopeful,” he says.
Now let’s just hope that there are no NHLPA naysayers out there to flatten the wheel a moment after it is built. If that should happen, the Triple Crown of Hockey will have disintegrated at the finish line!
The absurdity of the anti-deal position appears obvious to all but the union hotheads themselves.
It is clear that the longer they stall, the less money will be available to the NHLPA in the long-run.
Or, as Manny Legace wisely points out, "We basically sat out for nothing!"
