Collective Bargaining Agreement Won’t Come Easy

The 2011-12 regular season has been filled with drama and headlines. Whether it be the concussion “epidemic” that has seen Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, Claude Giroux, Chris Pronger and other key players miss significant amounts of games, the NHL’s intriguing Winter Classic build up, the swift hammer that has been laid down by the new sheriff in town (Brendan Shannahan) or the night-to-nigh highlight reel plays that come with the fast paced, skilled game of today’s NHL. With the constant intrigue in the developing stories what has almost been forgotten is that in order to create this high speed game there was a period of darkness for the NHL. That period fell in 2005 when the discussions between the NHL and NHLPA on the “Collective Bargaining Agreement” didn’t exactly go as planned. Barring the talks of the NHLPA rejection of the proposed new realignment the looming 2012 CBA really hasn’t gotten much focus from fans and media alike. Unfortunately for hockey fans the proposed realignment isn’t the only place the two parties might struggle to come to terms on, perhaps hindering the start of the 2012 season this coming October.

Upcoming “smaller” discussion points include:

1. Mandatory visors for all players. Is it appropriate for the NHL to better protect their players or should the players have the right to decide?

2. Touch icing versus a hybrid or classic no touch system. Touch icing is exciting but is it too dangerous? A hybrid system might keep the compete level up but do the refs need another judgement call over the duration of a game?

3. Draft age. An older draft age would benefit education, development and increase the level of play through Junior Programs, NCAA and internationally (the World Juniors would feature the top under 20 players with no exceptions). Should young players finish school before their drafted? Young players (see Skinner, Tavares, Stamkos, Duchene etc…) are showing more and more they can bring excitement and production at 18, why change now?

Upcoming “bigger” discussion points include:

1. The upcoming Olympics. It has been made quite clear by most players that they wish to represent their respective country in the Olympics. The league’s stance will likely differ. The league stands next to nothing to gain from player participation in the Olympics. Injuries happen, players are take a beat from travel and schedule’s on Olympic years are less than favourable. Alex Ovechkin has stated that if the NHL doesn’t allow players to participate in the 2014 Olympics that he’ll go regardless and face the punishment that’s in place. Important to note that the 2014 Olympics will be held in Russia. Is the NHL willing to fall into embarrassing disputes with players over a two week international even?

2. The cap (pending World War 3). The players want to make money. The wealthy teams want to spend more money to acquire better players. The poor teams want to stop losing money. The cap needs to find a common ground. The larger the cap grows the bigger the divide becomes. In 2005 the cap system was put in place to level the playing field. The larger the gap between the cap floor and ceiling the bigger advantage the wealthier teams possess. For the teams struggling financially they want to build their team in the best way possible. This often does not include taking spots away from more deserving or younger players with “cheaper” contracts by signing over paid and often past their prime veterans just to meet the floor, only to put a weaker team on the ice leading to more failure and a continually small fanbase. See the trend? Florida GM Dave Tallon isn’t too keen on the current floor for those very reasons.

3. Contracts. I repeat: “The players want to make money”. The recent debacle that became of the Kovalchuk signing as well as many others including current or former members of the Flyers in Pronger (done for the season, not surprisingly he may never play again but his cap hit has helped the Flyers), Bryzgalov and even Carter and Richards. Something needs to change. Firm regulations will have to be put on contracts that affect both the length and the drop off in yearly dollars. Using the system will likely become much harder.

These are just 6 of the many discussions that will have to be solved by September 15^th. Nothing is certain and the two sides will walk a difficult line. Will the season start on time? Who knows.

Scott (@scottcwheeler)