TORONTO (July 7) – National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman spoke about the consequences of tampering as recently as 14 months ago, in his address to reporters prior to Game 1 of the 2008 Stanley Cup final. During that news conference, held on May 24th at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Bettman was asked, by former Toronto Sun columnist Al Strachan, about the Maple Leafs’ clandestine pursuit of Brian Burke, who was still under contract to the Anaheim Ducks as general manager. The possibility of Burke leaving Anaheim to assume the Toronto GM vacancy (then held by Cliff Fletcher) had been the subject of rampant speculation for nearly six months, and Strachan’s exchange with Bettman – taken from the NHL’s official transcript – unfolded as such:
STRACHAN: I was wondering if one of your teams were to hire a general manager who, say, stays there for a year and then conveniently moves away to have his friend come in as general manager and he’s under contract now, would that constitute collusion?
BETTMAN: That sounds like a pretty convoluted scenario.
STRACHAN: Not that convoluted in your League. It might happen.
BETTMAN: The answer is, if everybody is - first of all, people who sign contracts can be held to them by the other party to the contract. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And if tampering - collusion is not the right characterization. If there’s tampering going on, ultimately there are no secrets in this world. We will get to the bottom of it. And I’m no fan of tampering. And when it happens, it gets punished severely.
STRACHAN: What is the punishment for tampering at the GM level?
BETTMAN: I don’t have the constitution in front of me. My guess is it’s quite severe. It probably involves, for the club, the loss of significant amounts of money and draft picks. And for the person involved, it could involve fines and it could involve suspensions.
The exchange prompted ESPN.com columnist Scott Burnside to use it as the lead to his story that night. Burnside wrote:
"Dave Nonis, who recently was fired as Canucks GM and used to work for Burke in Vancouver, has talked with the Leafs about some sort of position, fueling speculation that the Leafs will wait out the coming season with a makeshift management team and then swoop up Burke a year from now.
"The optics of this aren’t particularly pleasant for a GM who doesn’t want to be where he is and a team waiting in the wings to hire him, but they are what they are.
"Bettman was asked, in a roundabout way, about the situation. He made it clear that if teams were tampering with personnel under contract to another team, he would move swiftly and decisively against both the team and the individual."
Burke, of course, “resigned” his position with the Ducks last November and was quickly snapped up by the Maple Leafs, ending the Anaheim-to-Toronto scenario as most everyone had figured. No evidence of tampering was found; Burke steadfastly refuted any speculation he’d be interested in the Leafs’ job. The fact Anaheim owners Henry and Susan Samueli had run afoul of the Securities Exchange Commission in the United States likely made it easier for Burke to part company with the franchise he led to the 2007 Stanley Cup.
The NHL’s tampering regulations have again become topical in light of an interview granted THE FAN-590 here in Toronto by Maple Leafs’ coach Ron Wilson. It was on the eve of unrestricted free agency last week (June 30th) when Wilson said: “You’re hearing right now, and this sounds very contradictory, but there’s a real possibility I would think that we would be going after the Sedins. Let’s just speculate there.” At the time of the interview, Swedish twins Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin were still under contract to the Vancouver Canucks, with the possibility of becoming unrestricted free agents if they were not re-signed by noon Eastern the following day.
As I listened to the exchange on radio, my immediate reaction was one of surprise… not that the Leafs would pursue the Sedins – that had been speculated on for months – but rather that Wilson would call the players by name in a public forum while their rights still belonged to a rival club. Implicit in Wilson’s remarks, obviously, was the condition of the Sedins’ availability the following day. What he was suggesting is that the Leafs would possibly go after the twins… if the Canucks did not re-sign them by the noon deadline. Any listener with an ounce of intellect would quickly come to that conclusion. But, it may not be good enough for the NHL.
What wasn’t known by anyone beyond the Leafs’ inner sanctum that night was that Burke had flown to Sweden. When the overseas excursion became public the following day – several hours after Henrik and Daniel had re-upped with the Canucks – it was strongly suggested that Burke went to Stockholm to be in position for a face-to-face meeting with the Sedins once the signing deadline passed. From my standpoint, that was nothing but exceptional strategy by the Leafs’ GM, who deftly maneuvered, while managing the Canucks, to select the twins second and third overall at the 1999 NHL draft. Henrik and Daniel were said to be indebted to Burke for arranging their co-passage to Vancouver, and were still friendly with the long-time hockey executive.
What better way to sweep them off their feet in free agency 10 years later than to show up at their front door at 12:01 p.m. Eastern in North America?
Well, you know what they say about the “best-laid plans”. If, in fact, he was in Sweden for such a purpose, Burke had no opportunity to talk to the Sedins, who chose to remain with the Canucks in the final hour before the clock struck zero. There is no way, of course, to prove that Burke went to Sweden for a prompt gathering with his former players and there is obviously nothing in the NHL constitution that forbids a GM from flying to any destination on earth. Burke has insisted, in the interim, that he made the journey solely for the purpose of continuing his pursuit of free agent goaltender Jonas Gustavsson, who will officially join the Maple Leafs today after an exhaustive courtship.
As for Wilson’s remarks about the Sedins, the league must decide whether they constituted tampering. The optics of Burke being in Sweden on July 1st could complicate the matter, but the Leafs’ GM has the Gustavsson “alibi”. Wilson is an intelligent man and is fully versed in the NHL’s by-laws after coaching in the league for more than a decade-and-a-half. Occasionally, while talking in a live forum, an individual will leave words unspoken; it happens all the time. And, that appears to be the case with Wilson in his June 30th radio interview. It’s unimaginable he’d be so careless as to unveil Burke’s covert intentions the following day, while boldly ignoring the most basic of tampering regulations.
But, he did call the Sedins by name. That much is on the record. And, the league has to decide whether it wants to treat tampering as a black-and-white issue. Clearly, it chose not to when Burke accused his mortal enemy, Kevin Lowe, of doing the same last year, after the former Edmonton GM had mentioned Anaheim’s Corey Perry by name in an interview. The NHL found no evidence of wrong-doing, as tampering is extremely difficult to prove.
Such is likely to be the case in the Wilson scenario, though I’d imagine the Leafs’ coach will be sternly warned to avoid making such statements in the future.
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