{coyotes} A history of the NHL's labor stalemate

Wednesday, 12 September 2012

{coyotes} A history of the NHL's labor stalemate

The NHL's labor situation is coming to a head this week with players meetings and a board of governors meeting in New York and a Saturday deadline to reach a new deal or face a third lockout under Commissioner Gary Bettman.

A history of what has led us to his point:

July 13, 2005: The sides end a 301-day lockout with a deal that appears highly favorable to owners. It includes a salary cap set at 54% of revenues (with provisions to eventually rise to 57%), a team salary cap and floor, the establishment of escrow payments to ensure that everyone gets their proper share, a 24% salary rollback, capped rookie bonuses, salaries limited to 20% of the cap and the eventual lowering of the free agency age to 27 or seven years.

July 29, 2005: NHL Players' Association executive director Bob Goodenow, who had fought the salary cap, steps down. It's the start of unrest in the union. Over the years, Ted Saskin and Paul Kelly leave the post.

Aug. 5, 2005: Rick Nash, coming out of his entry-level contract, signs a five-year deal averaging $5.4 million a year. Ilya Kovalchuk, in the same situation, tops $6 million a year in an October signing. It's clear that the earlier free agency age will have an impact on the so-called second contracts.

July 2007: The Edmonton Oilers make a seven-year, $50 million offer sheet to Thomas Vanek, which the Buffalo Sabres match. The Oilers then go after Dustin Penner (five years, $21.25 million) and the Anaheim Ducks don't match. Fearful of offer sheets, general managers start locking up their restricted free agents early.

Jan. 13, 2008: Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin signs a 13-year, $124 million contract. It follows a 15-year deal for Rick DiPietro and a 12-year deal for Mike Richards. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly says the league had asked for a five-year limit on contracts in the last CBA negotiations, but it didn't fly because players had already accepted a salary cap.

Jan. 24, 2009: Though the NHLPA says it dislikes parts of the CBA, it agrees to extend it to Sept. 15, 2012.

2008-09: The slumping economy means that players give back nearly 13% of their salaries through escrow.

July 1, 2009: Marian Hossa signs a 12-year, $62.8 million contract with the Chicago Blackhawks. Though previous players have lower years at the end of their deal that decreased the cap hit, his contract goes further. It paid seven years at $7.9 million and then $3.5 million over the final four years.

November 2009: Months after Kelly is fired, Donald Fehr is hired as a consultant to help rewrite the union's constitution.

2009-10: The NHL's revenues top $2.7 billion, giving players a 57% share under the CBA.

July 20, 2010: The NHL rejects Ilya Kovalchuk's 17-year, $102 million deal with the New Jersey Devils as circumvention of the cap. It tops $11 million as its peak and has six years of sub-$1 million salaries to lower the cap hit to $6 million. The Devils submit a 15-year, $100 million contract to address league concerns.

Sept. 4, 2010: After negotiations with the union, the league agrees to a definition on cap hits on long-term deals that extend past a player's 40th birthday. It grandfathers in Kovalchuk's deal and others by Hossa, Roberto Luongo, Chris Pronger and Marc Savard. The Devils later are fined $3 million and lose two draft picks because of cap circumvention.

Dec. 18, 2010: The players elect Fehr as executive director. He says that he will need time to familiarize himself with hockey economics and the CBA and predicts that talks could start in the spring of 2012.

July 21, 2011: After a lockout, NFL owners get their share of revenues increased from 47% to 52%.

September 2011: New NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan hands out suspensions totaling 27 games of regular-season time for offenses during the preseason.

October 2011: A disagreement over hockey revenues delays the issuance of escrow checks and revenue sharing payments.

Nov. 26, 2011: The NBA lockout ends with players agreeing to drop to a 50-50 split in revenues.

Dec. 5, 2011: The board of governors realigns the NHL into four conferences. Every team will play each other at least twice and the top four teams from each conference will make the playoffs.

Jan. 6, 2012: The NHL postpones realignment for a year because the union wouldn't sign off on it. It was concerned about the uneven sizes of the conferences (less chance of making the playoffs) and said it didn't have enough information to determine travel burdens. The NHL talks about filing a grievance.

Jan. 28, 2012: At the All-Star Game, Bettman says there is plenty of time to get a deal done. He adds that the league didn't expect to file a grievance over realignment.

April 21, 2012: Shanahan suspends Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres for 25 games for a late, high hit. The NHLPA later appeals the length of the suspension.

June 29, 2012: Talks begin with an NHL presentation about the financial state of the league.

July 2, 2012: Bettman, who handles the Torres appeal, puts the suspension at 21 games. That saves Torres about $85,000.

July 13, 2012: The NHL makes its first proposal. It seeks a cut from 57% of revenues to 43%, plus a five-year cap on contracts and the elimination of salary arbitration. Players would spend up to five years in entry-level deals and would become unrestricted free agents after 10 years, up from seven.

Aug. 9, 2012: Bettman promises that the league will lock out players if a deal isn't reached by Sept. 15.

Aug. 10, 2012: Supplementary discipline -- including the Torrres case -- is brought up in talks.

Aug. 14, 2012: The NHLPA makes its proposal, offering to give up some of its future share of revenue in exchange for increased revenue sharing to aid financially stressed teams. In the fourth year, players could revert to 57%. The union says the proposal could save owners $465 million to $800 million.

Aug. 15, 2012: Bettman doesn't embrace the union proposal. "There are a number of issues where we see the world differently," he says.

Aug. 23, 2012: Bettman says a wide gap remains. "We believe that we are paying more than we should be. â?¦ It's as simple as that," he says.

Aug. 28, 2012: The NHL offers a counterproposal that would cut the players' share of revenues to 46% instead of 43%. It would do so over time, too. The league says the salary cap would return to 2011-12 levels in four years.

Aug. 29, 2012: Bettman says that the league would take care of the players' decreased share through an increase in escrow payments rather than a rollback. Says Fehr: "From a player's standpoint, it doesn't make much difference. If a player doesn't get the dollar value on his contract because there's a rollback in the contract, which is simply a name for crossing out one number and writing in another number or whether he doesn't get an amount because there's escrow, he still doesn't get it."

Aug. 31, 2012: The union makes a proposal in which the fourth year might be something other than 57%. The sides declare a recess and Bettman accuses the NHLPA of stonewalling.

Sept. 7, 2012: The NHLPA files challenges in Alberta and later in Quebec trying to prevent players there from being locked out.

Sept. 12, 2012: The sides resume talks.