NEGOTIATING NHL RETURN
Hot-button issues intertwined
A few days of soul searching this week to balance health and wealth will determine the National Hockey League’s path through the COVID -19 conundrum.
As the league and players conduct a dual negotiation, ground rules for the 24-team playoff tournament and a revised, multi-year collective bargaining agreement, hot-button issues such as COVID safety, the salary cap, escrow, and participation in the Olympic Games have become intertwined.
The arrival of a new NHL fiscal year on Canada Day, with barely a week remaining until the playoff training camps are due to start on July 10, has fired up talk at a time of year when the sport usually fades from view on summer hiatus.
The one bit of good news north of the border is that, if the tourney goes ahead late this month or in August, Toronto and Edmonton will be the hub cities. That’s by process of elimination after worsening COVID conditions took Las Vegas out of the mix.
While no fans will attend games at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and Rogers Place in Edmonton, there will be plenty of interest in having 11 visiting teams come in and at least some boost for hard hit sectors of the two cities’ economy such as hotels and restaurants. The NHL will also save some money thanks to the low Canadian dollar.
Playing in the midst of a pandemic, even if COVID numbers are under control in Canada, still won’t be ideal for the players. There are some dissenting family men in their ranks who are concerned about being separated for weeks. But if there’s progress elsewhere on the business and CBA issues, they’ll be more agreeable, especially if the league is willing not to plunder their salary escrow payments to recover Covid-related losses and change its stance on not going to the Olympics.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman tweeted on Wednesday morning that — subject to approval — 10 per cent of next season’s salaries could be deferred and the league wants changes to contract structure, limits on signing bonuses, and less salary fluctuation yearto-year. There’s also talk of a flat salary cap of US$81.5 million for the next couple of years that would take into account the anticipated drop in profits, at least for 2019-20 losses.
Escrow, that portion of salary withheld from players to help address any significant losses by owners, could get as high as 20-25 per cent, according to some projections, with a $1 billion loss for the league if 201920 isn’t completed. TSN’S Frank Seravalli reported on Wednesday that escrow might be capped at 20 per cent in the new deal.
The players are looking to stave off such a hit and get two other concessions from their bosses: the right for individuals to back out of this month’s return to play and getting the league to bend on going to the 2022 and 2026
Olympic Games, in China and Italy, respectively. The latter also means a separate dialogue with the league and International Olympic Committee after NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was adamant they not go to another unfriendly TV time zone after skipping South Korea in 2018.
All of this is subject to final documentation, a simple majority vote by players, and by two-thirds of the league’s board of governors, expected to come by this weekend.
July 1 is usually the start of the league’s new fiscal year, but the 2019-20 season isn’t technically done. Free agents who signed recent deals can’t join their new teams until 2020-21, which itself might not start until late into this calendar year, depending on the playoff tournament and where COVID numbers go. Player signing bonuses that were due on Wednesday were paid by teams as scheduled, costing them more than US$300 million.
There’s still no firm date set for the playoff tourney to begin. Six of the seven Canadian teams, with the exception of Ottawa, will participate. Fans won’t be allowed in the rinks.
NHL teams have already been granted permission for a “cohort quarantine” by the Canadian government, allowing up to 50 people per club to get around the 14-day isolation rules for incoming guests. They’re obligated to stay mostly in their “bubble” of the rink-hotel-practice facility and undergo frequent tests at league expense.