CBA Works and Shoots
There is no way on this green earth that Donald Fehr believed that the NHLPA was on the brink of an agreement with the NHL when he stepped up to the podium for his first of two press conferences following a brief meeting with deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHL attorney Bob Batterman.
If he believed an agreement was all but done, he would not have asked earlier in the day for federal mediators to return. He would not have allegedly told players in internal meetings that there was a better deal to be had from the NHL than the one discussed in player-owner meetings on Wednesday. The union would not have played up the fact that Gary Bettman was not present at the earlier meeting. And Fehr sure as hell wouldn't have held a press conference giving out as much detail of union concessions if he knew the two sides weren't back at another impasse.
In wrestling parlance, what Fehr was doing was a "work" (i.e a pre-determined script) geared to evoke specific responses.
He knew the NHL had demanded a yes-or-no answer to the issues the owners and Daly presented on Wednesday. He also knew a rejection of the NHLPA's newest counter-offer was going to come swiftly; albeit perhaps not as swiftly as it did, and not by Daly leaving a message on Steve Fehr's cell phone. When that rejection came, he could then paint the other side to his constituency and to the public as the bad guys who weren't negotiating in good faith.
Finally, Fehr had to know full well that his sunshine-and-rainbows press conference would provoke an angry "heel" response from the NHL. Boy, did it ever.
All that was missing from the charade was veteran wrestling broadcast Jim Ross shouting, "Why that's.... that's Gary Bettman's theme music! What the hell is going on?! He's not supposed to be here tonight!"
Bettman did his own fair share of "working" and PR spinning in his own press conference. It's a crock that everything presented this week is now off the table. What it really means is that steps will be retraced. Of course, Bettman spun the situation as one where the owners painstakingly and magnanimously conceded everything possible to address the players' main concerns but the stated key concerns keep changing.
What was very much real (a "shoot") in Bettman's speech was the level of anger and frustration he was feeling. Likewise, the stoney and angry responses from many people on the players' side was also very much genuine.
The other reality I took away when you remove the drama and posturing is that the sides are not as far apart as Bettman spun it, just as they were nowhere nearly as close as Fehr portrayed in his disingenuous first set of statements.
I know that Fehr is pushing hard for a short CBA (with what essentially amounted to a one extra year concession before an opt-out clause could be exercised). But I would have to think that a large part of his constituency -- even those who stand totally behind him on other issues -- would be willing to agree to a 10-year CBA with a year-eight opt-out by either side.
For one thing, no one wants to go through another lockout in a few years. For another, a future CBA may very well hinge on a lower than 50-50 split of revenues (albeit on a larger revenue pie if the game is allowed to get back on the ice and hopefully start to recover the lost momentum of annual growth).
As for the contract-term limits, this issue really goes hand-in-hand with the salary variance question. The NHLPA's most recent proposal apparently was based on a different scale that the five percent yearly variation maximum the NHL is still calling a must-have. There is perhaps a little more wiggle room on the contract length limit issue if there is less incentive for teams to front-load ultra-long-term contracts with steep decreases in latter years to lessen the cap hit.
Few non- All-Star caliber players -- meaning the vast majority of the league -- ever get to sign a contract longer than five years, much less the maximum seven years that would be allowed for teams to re-sign their own impending restricted and unrestricted free agents. It is the year-to-year salary variance maximum that still seems to be what is really the sticking point here.
I think the NHLPA has made two massive miscalculations in the last 48 hours, of which I think Don Fehr shoulders a large part of the blame. First of all, with the press conference stunt he pulled today, he has ticked off even the moderates on the owners' side. Secondly, I don't think there is enough of a "better deal" to be had to create a situation where the two sides are now almost certain to come right to the brink of a drop-dead date to have an agreement or cancel the season.
Meanwhile, I think the NHL has also screwed up once again on three fronts.
First, the "ultimatum" approach that Bettman and owners such as Jeremy Jacobs favor has been a failure time and time again when dealing with the union, going back before Fehr. The progress that was made earlier in the week came from owners who were trying to build common ground for compromise. Saying "take it or everything goes off the table" was setting things up to fail again this week.
Secondly,even though many of the owners detest Donald Fehr nearly as much as the players despise Bettman, telling union members that having Fehr come back to close the negotiation "could be a deal-breaker" was sure to raise player suspicions of the kind of deal they were really getting. The fact of the matter, like it or hate it, is that union leader Fehr must get involved in the process as long as the constituency backs him.
Finally, the NHL should absolutely have made a formal counter offer to the NHLPA and let those in favor of compromise push for the rank-and-file to put it to a vote. Ultimately, it's Fehr's duty to do what the majority of his constituents feel is agreeable. He may strongly urge them to reconsider the owners' offer but he'd ultimately have to go along with it.
Instead, the NHL has done Fehr's job for him yet again. The players hate Bettman more than ever, and this has one again become a game of chicken.
OK, let's close this with the silver lining to the whole sordid mess. There was a deal to be made even before this week, and further progress toward salvaging some sort of season was made on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Now the two sides have put aside the battle of hubris, PR spin and internal politicking for long enough to work out the remaining issues. Scorched earth tactics and egotistical posturing won't get it done.
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Friday Fix Forthcoming
I do not usually post more than one new blog per 24-hour period, but Thursday's events immediately overshadowed any of the Flyers-related games taking place in the minor leagues, Europe or among prospects in the junior or collegiate ranks.
Some time around midday, I will post a separate new blog previewing the Phantoms and Titans games this weekend as well as a game-result rundown of Flyers in Europe.
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