Infighting puts NHL regular season on hold
Gary Bettman isn't used to losing any negotiations.
Or anything else for that matter. But the commissioner of the National Hockey League is in the kind of fight he has never been in: one in the middle of a global pandemic.
And for now, he doesn't necessarily have a way out.
Normally when Bettman negotiates a deal — or in this case tries to renegotiate a deal with the players that he has already made — he is doing so on behalf of the owners he represents. The problem here is, Bettman made a good faith deal in the summer with the players, further chipping away at salaries for the next several seasons.
He made it without NHL owners being fully aware of what the coming season or seasons were going to bring.
Now owners are demanding a new deal, a better deal. Without paying customers and ticket revenue, they don't want to pay players the amount they've agreed to. They want more cuts.
The players, having agreed to the deal, don't want to give any more money back. They figure 72 per cent of their salaries is a good enough chunk to have relinquished, even if 72 per cent of the games aren't necessarily going to be played.
The challenge for Bettman is immense, with owners as angry and divided as they have been in a long time, and players not wanting to budge.
Historically, Bettman is basically undefeated in negotiations with players and in keeping owners in check. Now all sides seem alarmed, with a season that is supposed to start on Jan. 1 and no agreement apparently close to getting done.
The year in Tampa: The Lightning won the Stanley Cup. The Rays won the American League pennant. Tom Brady signed with the NFL's Buccaneers and the Super Bowl will be played there. Now Tampa is home for the Toronto Raptors, probably for most of the regular season. Or as Lightning star Steven Stamkos tweeted on Friday: “We The South.” A 30-minute drive or so from the Tampa airport, Dunedin will host Toronto Blue Jays' spring training, whenever it will be ... Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet bet on himself and got paid. Big money. Deserved money. And you have to love the story of the undrafted little guy who hits it big. It's a short list of undrafted NBA players of consequence: Starts with Ben Wallace. Then maybe John Starks. And right after that, VanVleet. And he even got a raise of sorts. He'll be playing home games in Tampa, not Toronto, where taxes will work in his favour. Any player cheering for dollars and weather — two of my favourite things — won't mind the home games in Florida. For now.
What I'd love to witness: An NBA general manager who says no. Stars don't just ask to be traded anymore. They want to be traded to Brooklyn. If I was James Harden's GM, I'd trade him in a second, to Sacramento or Minnesota or some other NBA outpost ... Hayley Wickenheiser can do just about anything and I suspect that means if she wants to, she can be an NHL GM one day ... Football players I'd pay to watch (and I'm cheap): DK Metcalf, Kyler Murray, Dalvin Cook, DeAndre Hopkins, Patrick Mahomes (my MVP) and Canadian Chase Claypool, who became the first wide receiver in the Super Bowl era to catch at least 10 touchdown passes in his first 10 career games on Sunday — all of them wins for the Pittsburgh Steelers ... Previously, the most touchdowns scored by any Canadian in an NFL season was eight, by the 1986 rookie of the year, Rueben Mayes. Claypool still has six regular season games to play and is clearly a favourite target for veteran quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.