Could the NHL face legal action if it decided to rip up approved contracts?
We'll have to admit, even though the Ilya Kovalchuk saga has become as stultifying as the Hamilton stadium debate, some of the ancillary angles are beginning to capture our fancy.
Like on Friday, when the specter of what really faces the National Hockey League in all of these contracts under review reared its head in an interview with Marc Savard's agent, Larry Kelly, on the Team 1200 in Ottawa.
"If the league were to arbitrarily do something it would be a very, very serious issue," Kelly told the Team 1200, "because Marc Savard had a very serious concussion last year. He came back to play in the playoffs to try to help his team but he was not anywhere near the player he had been.
"If Marc is without a contract now and is a so-called free agent after he has missed the free agent period, you can imagine the lawsuit that would ensue."
What if the NHL ripped up Roberto Lounge's 12-year contract, and he got hit by a car three days later? Or what if -- and this is really stretching it -- Luongo actually was forced to play under a new contract that was commensurate with his work in the post-season?
There is no end to the scenarios that would give the players and their families the right to sue for income that the NHL had denied them. That is why it is easier for the league to grandfather the few contracts that are at issue, and set out some guidelines so no more of them pop up between now and the 2012 CBA negotiations.
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Fehr and Loathing
The question is, will the NHL players find a way to screw this leadership decision up as well?
The most obvious conclusion in the recent history of the union is now before them: Hire Donald Fehr, and give him total control of the listing ship that is the NHLPA.
Fehr, the New York Post’s Larry Brooks reported, gave the NHLPA search committee a series of conditions this week under which he would take over the helm of the NHLPA. They included a $3 million salary (about 75 per cent of what Bob Goodenow made in his last season); the ability to hire his brother Steve Fehr, who has served as outside counsel to the MLBPA for 23 years; and autonomy to make any personnel decisions he chooses within the union.
The players have not yet voted on their new leader, the NHLPA tells us. Reports that a vote was scheduled are not true, according to the union.
Clearly however, Donald Fehr is the best thing to happen to the NHLPA since Goodenow split. The best sports union leader of our time, he literally fell out of the sky when the union was at its nadir.
If they don’t leap at the chance to put him in charge, these players are truly, truly lost.
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The Golden Nyet
While we have a moment, was that "expert" from HNIC we heard on talk radio the other day serious when he spoke of the KHL as "trying to get their Bobby Hull," in Kovalchuk?
Are we really drawing parallels now between the old World Hockey Association, which spent money the early-70s National Hockey League was not willing to spend, and the KHL, which has been an option that Kovalchuk has chosen all along not to explore? The entire premise of the Golden Jet signing was that Winnipeg and the WHA stole a superstar from the tight-fisted NHL by spending money the NHL wasn't willing to spend.
This is not that.
Or is the inference that, if the KHL gets their Kovalchuk, the floodgates will open? Suddenly, the way Gerry Cheevers, Jacques Plante, Derek Sanderson et al flocked to the WHA, scores of NHLers will choose The League of Ten Time Zones, opting for Aeroflot and shaky sponsor-backed paychecks over the charter planes and guaranteed money of the NHL.
That, friends, is an opinion so obtuse, even Hockey Night wouldn't go there.
The NHL is paradise compared to the KHL. Tax-free money or not.
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One more thing …
Bad news for Maple Leafs and Oilers fans. Eklund says your teams will make the playoffs.
That gives you about a four per cent chance. Have fun with it!
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