The Province

TORCHING NHL SEASON FOR CHANGE

Everyone agrees bitter 2004-05 dispute was historical­ly important — but that’s where consensus ends

- ED WILLES

Trevor Linden believes the league and its players benefited from the labour disruption of 2004-05. But those feelings aren’t held by everyone who had a stake in that divisive feud

ifteen years after the NHL burned a season to the ground, Trevor Linden looks back and sees there was a purpose to the madness.

The league has grown from a $2-billion business to a $5-billion business. The game has never been in better shape, aesthetica­lly or competitiv­ely, and two new franchises have been added.

As for the players, the average salary in 2004 was about $1.8 million and it’s now around $2.8 million. This, of course, is all before the novel coronaviru­s pandemic.

“I think the game is in a great place now,” says Linden, the former Canucks’ president who was president of the National Hockey League Players’ Associatio­n during the 2004-05 lockout. “It works for the players on all levels. People can criticize, but I’m proud of the work we did on the executive.”

That’s one assessment.

Here’s another:

“The top players make about the same as they made in 2004-05 ($11 million, give or take),” says agent Allan Walsh. “That’s 15 years. That’s a joke.

“The NHL sold this false premise that teams were bleeding cash and cost certainty was necessary to save the league. That was total BS. When has the NHL ever admitted to being profitable? There are two things you can count on from the league: It’s losing money and there’s never enough goaltendin­g to go around.”

Fifteen years after the fact, the 2004-05 lockout remains as bitterly contentiou­s and divisive as it was when NHL commission­er Gary Bettman cancelled the season.

Linden is either the traitor who sold Bob Goodenow and the PA down the river, or the man who saved the game. Goodenow, the former PA executive director, is either martyr to the cause or a necessary casualty of war. The players either benefited greatly from the new CBA that came out of the lockout, or they were slaughtere­d and have never gained back the ground they won before that nuclear winter.

But there is one point on which most everyone agrees. The lockout was the single most important event in the NHL’s modern history, a force that continues to shape the game on and off the ice. True, the irreparabl­e damage it was supposed to inflict never materializ­ed, but it upset the balance of power between the PA and the league and cemented Bettman’s position as the game’s czar.

One other thing: It shut down the league for a season, something the COVID-19 outbreak has yet to achieve. Chew on that one for a while.

“What happened in 200405 still impacts the relationsh­ip between the league and the PA,” says Walsh.

“Have (the wounds) been healed?” Linden asks rhetorical­ly. “I don’t know about that. I think the divisions run pretty deep.”

And it’s likely they always will.

After all this time, it’s still impossible to compress the events and emotions of the lockout into a single page of newsprint but this much is certain: it revolved around one issue — the NHL’s insistence on a salary cap.

Goodenow vowed the PA would never accept a cap. Bettman and the owners vowed they’d shut down the game until a cap was in place.

It was that simple and that complicate­d but the odds were stacked against the players in the resulting game of chicken. On the league side, Bettman had to keep a handful of owners onside to prevent divisions in the ranks. Goodenow had to keep 700 players and their agents united. Those players lost one year of their careers and were in danger of losing another, which wasn’t exactly a pressure point for the billionair­e owners.

In the end the players put up a brave front before they capitulate­d, but Walsh says Goodenow had prepared the union for the fight. No one should have been surprised by the league’s strategy as the lockout unfolded.

“(Bettman) had one singular marching order,” the agent says. “Bring a salary cap to the NHL. Bettman needed a cap. The only way to get a cap was to burn a season. The owners gave him that power.”

Goodenow knew he was in for a bloody battle. As early as 2002 he was meeting with teams individual­ly and telling them they could be out of work for a year-and-a-half. The PA was willing to sacrifice one season, believing they could win the negotiatio­n in December or January of 2005 when the owners were staring at the loss of a second season.

The problem was the union broke first.

“Bob said, ‘If any of you guys think the NHL will throw in the towel before 18 months you’re wrong,’” Walsh said. “The players said, ‘Bob were behind you.’ He went into the lockout with a mandate. There was zero dissent, and I mean zero dissent, before September 2004.”

Bettman needed a cap. The only way to get a cap was to burn a season. The owners gave him that power.” Player agent Allan Walsh

That didn’t last. The NHL fired the first shot, releasing the infamous Levitt Report in late October. The report, commission­ed by the league, was chaired by Arthur Levitt, the former head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Levitt, predictabl­y, painted a dark picture of the NHL’s finances, saying the league had lost $273 million collective­ly in 2002-03.

The PA was unimpresse­d by Levitt’s claims but the report underscore­d the essential conflict of the lockout. The NHL said the game is in trouble. The PA said it was healthy and profitable.

“Everyone knew it was BS,” says Walsh. “It was a review of the revenue provided by the CFOs of each team. There was no audit. It was a farce.”

“Bob’s big thing was you can never account for the revenues,” says Linden. “It’s impossible. I thought, ‘They can put a man on the moon. We can figure out how much money teams are making.’”

Eventually the two sides would find common ground but getting there was messy. Again, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment fissures started appearing in the union, but by Christmas the ranks were breaking.

Tie Domi, of all people, brokered a meeting that included Leafs owner Larry Tannenbaum, Mario Lemieux, Linden and Bill Daly and Ted Saskin, the No. 2s at the NHL and the PA, respective­ly, in January. Daly and Saskin met again later that month.

Linden says traction was starting to develop in some of those smaller meetings. It was just too late to save the 200405 season.

“The big thing was once we started to sit down and talk to people like (Flames owner) Harley Hotchkiss things changed,” said Linden. “Before we had 14, 15 people on either side exchanging proposals. It wasn’t conducive to understand­ing each other’s issue. I think we made it work.”

Eventually. With the league hurtling toward a lost season, a last-ditch effort was made to save 2004-05 in February. Bettman finally proposed a system that “delinked” the cap from revenues. His offer placed the ceiling at $44.7 million with the warning this was the league’s final offer.

Goodenow made a counter-proposal of $49 million while sniping at Bettman: “We wish that the NHL had offered a no-linkage proposal before yesterday.”

Bettman fired back, saying the $49 million represente­d more than 75 per cent of league revenues.

Goodness scoffed at this, then sent one last message: “You will receive nothing further from us.”

The next day, Feb. 16, the season was cancelled.

“It was a solemn flight home,” said Linden.

“There was no chance it was going to happen because Bettman didn’t want it to happen,” said Walsh. “He knew there was a coup afoot (in the PA). The last thing Bettman wanted was to give his arch-nemesis (Goodenow) a lifeline.”

Goodenow, in fact, had pummelled the NHL in negotiatio­ns beginning with the 1992 player strike and running through the 1994-95 lockout right up until the 2004-05 season was cancelled. His acrimoniou­s relationsh­ip with Bettman was at the core of the lockout and it’s difficult to see where a deal would have been reached with the two men butting heads.

That changed after the cancellati­on of the season. At a critical PA meeting at Pebble Beach in March, Goodenow said the PA should delay negotiatin­g with the league. He was overruled by Linden and, from that point, Saskin was the union’s lead negotiator.

That led to another round of vitriol between the pro-Goodenow group in the PA and the pro-Linden group. Later, Chris Chelios accused Don Meehan, Linden’s longtime agent, of “underminin­g our union.”

Meehan then threatened to sue Chelios. There were other factions involved but Linden and Saskin were now leading the PA and they were moving toward conciliati­on with the league.

“My biggest concern was where are we going to be in September,” said Linden. “The best deal for us to make was in May or June where the league said they could sell the game. That was the big motivation.

“It’s easy when you don’t have skin in the game, but when you’re talking to players who are missing years of a finite career, it’s not as easy.”

A tentative agreement was reached on July 13. The key components were a $39-million salary cap and unrestrict­ed free agency kicking in at age 27 or after seven years of service. Equally important was the work of the summit meetings convened by Brendan Shanahan, then a player with the Red Wings, that reimagined the game along faster, more skilled lines.

“I think it’s been a good system,” Linden said. “The league is better, the game is better. We had to lose a season for it, but I think the players came out all right.”

Which is more than you could say for the PA. Goodenow was replaced by Saskin two weeks after the new CBA was negotiated. Saskin didn’t last two years before he was fired for hacking into player’s private emails. His replacemen­t, Paul Kelly, lasted another two years before he was bounced.

Don Fehr took over the union in August 2010. He’s been in power since.

“Ted was the right guy to lead the PA,” Linden said. “I’ll go to my grave believing that.”

Others will argue that point. Others, come to think of it, will argue anything to do with the lockout that changed the game.

 ?? POSTMEDIA FILES ?? Trevor Linden, a former Canucks captain and one-time president of the NHLPA, insists the league is much healthier thanks, in part, to post-lockout negotiatio­ns.
POSTMEDIA FILES Trevor Linden, a former Canucks captain and one-time president of the NHLPA, insists the league is much healthier thanks, in part, to post-lockout negotiatio­ns.
 ?? GLENN BAGLO/POSTMEDIA FILES ?? As head of the National Hockey League Players’ Associatio­n during the 2004-05 lockout, Trevor Linden was central to negotiatio­ns. He believes players came out of the dispute in better shape than before and hockey emerged “in a great place.”
GLENN BAGLO/POSTMEDIA FILES As head of the National Hockey League Players’ Associatio­n during the 2004-05 lockout, Trevor Linden was central to negotiatio­ns. He believes players came out of the dispute in better shape than before and hockey emerged “in a great place.”
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 ?? — GETTY IMAGES FILES ?? The National Hockey League Players’ Associatio­n has had several executive directors since the 2004-05 lockout, including Donald Fehr, left, but the league has had only one commission­er, Gary Bettman, right.
— GETTY IMAGES FILES The National Hockey League Players’ Associatio­n has had several executive directors since the 2004-05 lockout, including Donald Fehr, left, but the league has had only one commission­er, Gary Bettman, right.
 ?? BAZSO/POSTMEDIA FILES LES ?? Trevor Linden was playing for the Vancouver Canucks while the head of the players associatio­n.
BAZSO/POSTMEDIA FILES LES Trevor Linden was playing for the Vancouver Canucks while the head of the players associatio­n.
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