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301 days and it may be over - will the fans care?
By Gary Araki July 14, 2005 |
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After 301 days of what will go down in the annals of sports history as one of the longest labor disputes, things finally turned the corner as the NHL and the NHL Players association announced a tentative collective bargaining agreement had been reached Wednesday. A new CBA will now be presented to the players for their ratification during the next week. Both sides aren't giving complete details of this agreement yet since it still needs to be approved by the players to make it official. From the wire services, the CBA contains juicy items such as a 24 percent cut on all salaries throughout the NHL. Also, a payroll cap on each NHL team will definitely part of this agreement. So who won and lost in this deal? When it's all said and done, it has to be the players. Taking a 24 percent salary cut, starting in the 2005-2006 season, means players will have to get used to having less in their pockets. And then a payroll cap on each team will then end the years of seeing big money going to a few key players on a team without being worried about a "ceiling" on how much a team can spend. And then we have the players who lost an entire year's salary with the lockout of the 2004-2005 season. That's one year of earnings that these players won't get back. And yes, there were some who headed to the European and other leagues of the world and played for other teams for the year. Sure, some of the players on the big clubs were able to play for their minor league clubs, but they sure didn't get paid at the rate they were used to. And who else lost on this lockout? The individual business and the cities in each hometown for each of the NHL teams which livelihood depends on the arena or rink where these teams play. Thousands of nights of hockey through out the cities of Canada and the United States adds up to a lot of meals and beverages that weren't consumed both inside NHL arenas and in the local restaurants and other dining areas. The schedule for the 2005-2006 season hasn't been released yet, but it's well known that there will probably be an elongated break in February 2006 as the All-Star weekend became a concession by the owners, and the players will be released to be able to participate in the Winter Olympics. This will mean, as it was for the Salt Lake City games in 2002, we might see the "condensed" schedule where we'll have more back-to-back games and shorter breaks between games as the league tries to get all 82 games in between October and April. It's not a done deal yet. The players need to ratify this contract, but it's probably a given that the players will give their blessing to this CBA which is nothing near to what they originally were going for in order to bring hockey back this fall. But the other question that hanging like a sword over the entire pro hockey world, does anyone really care that there's a tentative agreement, and will the fans return to this new "NHL" that we'll see with teams trying to meet the salary caps? Let's get a CBA ratified first, and then see what's going to happen with the larger question.. Do the fans care anymore? Gary Araki is in his third season of covering the San Jose Sharks for SportsRadioService.com, and is also Sports Director for KLIB AM 1110 in Sacramento, who caries SportsTalk at 2AM every Saturday Morning. |
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