Fehr

Here at The Bruins Blog, I try to stay out of the labor aspects of the NHL unless there’s obvious news that needs covering – as in a renewal, renegotiation or alteration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, or a declaration from either side about negotiations.

Both sides are very secretive when it comes to labor talks, and there’s just way too much speculation and misinformation to form an opinion most of the time. Even the most connected and in-tune reporters have been burned by bad information when it comes to the NHL-NHLPA relationship. Remember the so-called agreement reached in February 2005?

Anyway, I still feel the need to weigh in on the apparent hiring of Donald Fehr as the new NHLPA executive director. While I agree with most that this is a sign that the next round of CBA talks are going to be a bit more combative than they would’ve been had Paul Kelly stayed in charge or another person was hired, I believe what everyone is missing is that a potential labor stoppage won’t be all Fehr’s fault.

Right now, we’re looking at an NHL under a CBA that features a salary cap system, which many thought at the outset was a winner for the players. Alas, that has proven to be a miscalculation. While the established stars of the game, and the potential top-notch performers, have been rewarded with some extremely rich and lengthy contracts, the middle-of-the-road players and aging veterans have slowly been squeezed out. If you think the current CBA is fair, just ask Bill Guerin, Paul Kariya, Miro Satan and the dozens of other players that haven’t been able to land a new contract this summer.

For the next CBA to work, it’s going to have to work better for all the members of the PA – not just the stars. That’s something that Fehr managed to do during his 26 years in baseball, and will hopefully accomplish in hockey.

“All I can tell you is that, in my experience, one of the reasons the baseball players’ association has been effective is that it’s a unified whole,” Fehr said in a Globe and Mail story by James Mirtle. “And one of the tasks of this organization is to make sure the hockey union functions that way, too.”

It’s not going to be easy to bring all the players together. Many are still reportedly angry over the Kelly firing, and many still don’t pay any attention to their union’s activities. One glaring example was the union’s decision to vote for the cap inflator, which raised the cap maximum in return for more money getting put in escrow. While I agreed with the PA’s decision to do so every year since the first vote, that first vote showed very little forethought on the part of the players. As the cap high point has increased, there has been more money for the best of the best and less for the role players and character guys. Once the PA voted for the inflator the first time, it couldn’t really go back and vote against it because that would’ve been seen as a shot at the players hitting free agency that particular summer. Oh what a tangled web they weaved.

But enough of this CBA ‘mumbo jumbo.’ That’s all in the past. And I’m certainly not advocating that we feel bad for guys whose minimum salary is around half a million dollars playing in a league where the Bruins might be paying two-thirds of their fourth line more than $1 million. Despite the flaws, the CBA has been pretty lucrative for the players.

However, let’s not feel sorry for the owners either. There isn’t one of the 30 men in charge of the NHL’s franchises that clips coupons or takes a brown-bag lunch to work. Commissioner Gary Bettman doesn’t miss an opportunity to spout off about the growth of the game, the increase in visibility and, most important, the rise in revenue. The NHL teams are doing great.

Too often, the owners are looking to create a CBA that saves them from themselves. No one made the New York Islanders give Rick DiPietro a lifetime contract, just as all the other teams that have handed out deals of eight years or more to its stars did it on their own accord. When you start with the false assumption that spending equals winning (obviously the late-90s New York Rangers disproved that notion), then you need a salary cap. Of course, now most of the owners and general managers have spent the last five years trying to circumvent that cap. Now there’s talk that the next CBA should limit the length of contract, or allow teams to pay the salary of a traded player, or allow teams more leeway for buyouts.

Even talk about more revenue sharing is ridiculous when you consider the recent revelations about the Pittsburgh Pirates and Florida Marlins’ financial situations. Billionaires take money from other billionaires under the pretense that money will be used to better a sports team, and instead it winds up in some Richie Rich’s pockets. Beautiful, especially considering the decision of almost every sports team to never open up their books and show where the money, if needed, actually goes.

It’s been the story in all of sports over the last 30 years: owners can’t control themselves and can’t enough of the green stuff, so they try to force the players, and the players’ unions to help them tie their hands. Of the four major pro sports leagues in North America, one still doesn’t have a salary cap: baseball. That’s a sign that Fehr is the perfect choice to earn the NHLPA a level of legitimacy that it has lacked ever since the lockout, and maybe even before. He knows it’s not up to the players to concede every point to the owners and knows that from the No. 1 center to the backup goaltender to the 13th forward, every player deserves equal representation and a CBA that looks out for his best interest.

Hopefully, Fehr will be flexible enough to not make talks so contentious that we have any sort of work stoppage. Just remember that there are two sides to any negotiation, and the blame for any stoppage will be equally shared between Fehr and the owners.