This was not exactly what NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had in mind. Once thought to be a formality, the NHL Players’ Association has refused to provide its necessary consent to allow the league to go through with a realignment plan for the 2012-13 season. That proposal had been adopted by NHL owners at their most recent Board of Governors’ meeting on Dec. 6.
That means the six-division, two-conference format remains in place next season along with the current playoff structure. The NHL released a statement early Friday evening lamenting the NHLPA’s decision, which likely signals contentious negotiations upcoming as owners and players prepare to craft a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The current CBA expires at the end of this season and a new one must be negotiated.
“It is unfortunate that the NHLPA has unreasonably refused to approve a Plan that an overwhelming majority of our Clubs voted to support, and that has received such widespread support from our fans and other members of the hockey community, including Players,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said in a written statement. “We have now spent the better part of four weeks attempting to satisfy the NHLPA’s purported concerns with the Plan with no success.”
The reason the NHL released the statement at 7 p.m. on Friday night? It is textbook public relations, of course. But also because it had finally reached its self-imposed deadline for creating next season’s schedule. Unable to switch to its new format without the NHLPA’s agreement, the league had to move on. Now, the realignment plan will become part of the CBA negotiations. It’s just one more chip in the players’ favor. And after the beating they took in the last round of negotiations, when owners were content to miss an entire season in 2004-05 to get the concessions they wanted, the NHLPA must feel it needs every single one it can get.
“We believe the Union acted unreasonably in violation of the League’s rights,” Daly continued in his statement. “We intend to evaluate all of our available legal options and to pursue adequate remedies, as appropriate.”
In a written statement, NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, an experienced veteran of pro sports labor wars in his years in the same position with the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, disagreed with that interpretation.
“The League set a deadline of January 6, 2012 for the NHLPA to provide its consent to the NHL’s proposal,” Fehr wrote. “Players’ questions about travel and concerns about the playoff format have not been sufficiently addressed; as such, we are not able to provide our consent to the proposal at this time. We continue to be ready and willing to have further discussions should the League be willing to do so.”
After canvassing its players over the past month and talking with NHL executives, the NHLPA says it grew concerned the league hadn’t adequately studied whether the new format would actually decrease travel for most clubs. Players apparently also expressed concerns about an unequal opportunity for some teams to make the Stanley Cup playoffs.
This is not the NFL, obviously, or even the NBA. The NHL recovered from the last lockout in large part because it tweaked its rules to create a faster, more offensive game. It also benefited from a new generation of marketable stars – Sidney Crosby, Alex Oveckin among them – a resurgence among major-market clubs (Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles) that had stagnated early last decade and a healthy exchange rate ($1.02 CA = $1.00 US) that once threatened to sink smaller Canadian teams, but now leaves most competitive. They’ve even added a team to a city (Winnipeg) that had lost its previous franchise to the American Sun Belt (Phoenix) in 1996.
The NHLPA’s decision impacts the Capitals, of course. Washington expected to rejoin its old Patrick Division/Atlantic Division rivals in the new structure – the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers. That’s long been a goal of owner Ted Leonsis, who often struggled to fill dates against Southeast Division opponents that held far less cache with his fans. That became less of an issue as the Caps began winning consistently again, but one that still lingered. Instead, the Carolina Hurricanes were expected to join Washington in the new unnamed “conference”. The Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning were headed to a hybrid conference that included all five Northeastern Division teams (Boston, Buffalo, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal).
Meanwhile, the Winnipeg Jets expected to stay in the Southeast Division only for this one season after their move from Atlanta last spring came too late to alter the schedule or realign. But their switch to a more time zone friendly conference is on hold now and they apparently must endure another season of long travel to the southeastern United States.
The NHL hoped that the new regular-season schedule would cut down overall travel for its teams – especially those in the Western Conference, where the Dallas Stars were in the same division as Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Jose and Phoenix and had to play three road games at each of those arenas. The playoffs would have reverted to the old division format meaning the top four teams in each of the four reconfigured conferences would make the postseason. But they would have to battle each other to reach the league semifinals. The idea there was to juice existing rivalries. Familiarity does breed contempt, after all. That’s a lesson the NHL and the NHLPA may be demonstrating again.
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