Here we go again — the lockout of 2012.
Let’s just hope it’s not the lockout of 2012-2013, or worse.
It doesn’t matter how you describe it — NHL versus NHLPA, owners versus players, Bettman versus Fehr — you are left to wonder: why can’t $3.5 billion be split up in a manner that satisfies 30 owners and 720 players?
Having been around for all four of the NHL’s labour disputes (10-day player strike of 1992, and the previous lockouts of 1994-1995 and 2004-2005), I am starting to take it personally.
But this time around it’s different. While Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr have thrown a few barbs at each other in press conferences, there certainly is not the emotion, the passion or the bitterness of the previous collisions.
Take Saturday for instance. Steve Fehr’s very factual, very simple announcement that ended with, “… There have been and continue to be private, informal discussions between representatives of both sides.”
Minutes later, Bill Daly told the media, “… I’m sure that we will remain in contact in the coming days.”
The emotion and passion exhibited by both sides over the past two decades just doesn’t exist this time around. Who can forget NHL spokesman Bill Wilkerson in 1992 actually crying when he announced the season was on the verge of collapse, and Bettman and former foil Bob Goodenow spitting bullets at each other time and time again.
Not this time. There may be some rhetoric, but even the always readable Bettman has been for the most part cool and very polite in talking about the PA and Mr. Fehr. And Fehr has been surgeon-like in his ability to stay almost emotionless in front of the press, all the while talking like the Midwestern lawyer he is.
Quite simply, this is business — classic employer-employee negotiations. I was told on the weekend by one senior official that trust is not the issue; told by another on the other side that there is respect at the table.
And while the earlier sub-committees that met to discuss the non-economic issues probably got a little heated over topics like the conditions of visiting dressing rooms, practice times, and supplemental discipline there just doesn’t appear to be vicious, political rancour we have seen in the past.
This is a simple dollar and cents issue. The owners want the players to take less. The players refuse to take less. And until one of those two stances change, there probably won’t be many face-to-face meetings.
There is certainly not any of the emotion and head-banging that we see every night when the players go to battle in the 30 NHL arenas.
It seems for now, the most passionate group in this debacle, is the fans. And even that might be a stretch.