Matt Cooke. What else do you have to say?

Karlsson is done for the season after Matt Cooke’s skate blade sliced into his achilles tendon.
Was it accidental or not?

I originally thought it was.  I tweeted as much saying I thought it was accidental.  In our radio booth in Pittsburgh we only get the Penguins TV replays and the first two I saw quickly while also trying to keep an eye on the ice, made me think it was a fluke accident.  But when the other replays started churning and there was more time to watch closely, things changed for me.  There is one from a backside camera that sealed the deal for me.  This was not an accident.   I don’t believe Cooke had an intricate plan to exactly position his skate and then drive it down to sever the tendon,  but he was doing something very reckless and dangerous and he knew it.  He has known it his entire career.

This morning I am hearing and reading from players, former players and experts with their thoughts.  There seem to be just as many who believe it to be accidental as those who believe it is not.  Everyone is allowed their opinion and mine is,  this was not accidental.  Simple mathematical odds tell you its not accidental.  If this leg positioning and forward down stroke with the skate is such a common practice when trying to pin a player on the boards,  then why don’t we see it all the time?  Why don’t we see more of these “accidents?”  Players pin opponents hundreds of times each night in dozens of arena’s for over a hundred years in this league and yet, Matt Cooke is the only one to be involved in this “freak accident”.   The odds of that are roughly the same as being mauled by a polar bear and a black bear at the same time, while standing on one leg, holding a golf club during a lightning storm.

I am reading tweets from Cooke supporters pointing out that the lack of a suspension proves this was nothing more than a terrible accident.  Supplementary discipline in the NHL is not proof of innocence.  When Cooke hit Marc Savard and ended his career there was no suspension but it did cause the NHL to completely revamp the way they call such plays because they are cheap, dirty and dangerous.  Grabovski last week was not suspended for biting,  but everyone on the planet knows he did.  In this case,  the NHL can not prove intent unless they have a mind reader on staff,  thus they chose not to suspend giving Cooke the benefit of the doubt.

What Matt Cooke has done to deserve anyone’s benefit of the doubt is beyond me.  His litany of  intentional injury to others is a matter of public record.  Simply go onto Youtube and see all the videos.  Slew footing, kneeing, head shots, hits from behind, boarding, late hits, elbows to the head, diving, running goalies and one of my favorites was the “accidental” kick to the head of Detroit goalie Chris Osgoode in game #3 of the Cup final in 2003.

Why would anyone believe Cooke’s claims when he all but admitted he has lied over and over again.  Each time he has been at the centre of one of these incidents his public claim has been “I didn't mean it” or “I’m not that kind of player” or both.  The fact is,  over a year ago when Cooke claimed he was turning over a new leaf,  that statement proved the other ones were lies.  In fact he did mean to injure players and he is that kind of player.

With his claims of change, also came stories that Mario and Ray Shero forced him to get counseling or he would not remain a Penguin.  I don’t know if this is true, but again it is difficult for the Penguins as an organization to be taken seriously when they call for changes in the game after Crosby’s injuries,  while they still employ one of the worst offenders in the NHL’s history if the scale used to judge is based on the number of people he has injured in his career.

The irony is,  Matt Cooke would no longer be in the game if the instigator rule didn't exist because he would have been taken out long ago.

Hockey fans no longer get to see Karlsson and his exceptional talent, but they do get to enjoy more of Matt Cooke’s “accidents” this season.  Which one would you rather pay to see?

See you at the rink.

Decertification for Dummies (and I'm one of them)

Ok lets talk about decertification.
I will start by telling you I know nothing about decertification.
Everything I am about to tell you comes from a conversation I had with a lawyer friend of mine.
He does not deal in sports law,  but rather international trade law, anti-trust law and a good portion of his practice deals with free trade law.
All the comments, and assertions below are a result of the questions I asked him and none are my own interpretation.  I would not want to pretend in any way that I understand any of this.

The end result of union decertification in North American Pro Sports is still completely unknown because no case has even been taken to its full conclusion.  Any time in the past,  decertification in baseball, football or basketball has been threatened or the process begun,  a collectively bargained deal has been reached before true and final decertification took place.

Perils for the owners.  Union decertification for lack of a better term,  makes every single player in the NHL a free agent all at once.  The rules are,  there are no rules.  No CBA, no draft, no salary cap, no union to deal with.  Each player and his lawyer would have to represent themselves.  Decertification would also likely force owners to lift the lockout and allow the independent contractors to earn a living.  It also means the owners may be subject damages the players incurred during the lockout.  Those damages can be subject to "treble" association which apparently means triple the amount of the damages.

Perils for the players.  Each player must now negotiate every single protection into his own contract.  There is no singular body to argue and lobby on your behalf.  There would be no salary cap anymore but there would also be no guaranteed contracts or minimum salaries anymore either.  The rich players would likely become a great deal richer and more protected while the other half of the players would be subject to what ever scraps and security they could negotiate for themselves.

Apparently in the NFL dispute,  the 2 major court challenges during their decertification process were both lost in court by the players and specifically in the Brady vs. NFL case.

It also appears that where the case is filed and adjudicated is a major issue.  New York is the NHL’s American head office,  so that is where any filing would have to happen and New York is very owner friendly when it comes to decertification and anti-trust issues,  or so I am led to believe.

The scary part of decertification as it relates to pro sports is the fact that there is next to no track record of knowing how a case would turn out for either side if it were ever pushed to the very end.  Owners fear that kind of mayhem and only players who perceive they have no other choice,  would ever choose decertification because it means blowing up the industry.

One thing is certain.  If this is the route the players choose to follow,  it will be a painful learning experience for all of us to watch and any reporter in the NHL without a law degree might just as well start looking for a new job now.

You could not get a more remedial explanation of the basics of union decertification than this,  but it’s the best a play-by-play broadcaster without a law degree can come up with on a Friday.

See you at the rink

Mother Nature is NHL players best friend.

Who is this new CBA for?
Players say they are fighting for the next generation.
Very admirable and very misguided.

The players concerns should be reversed.
Take care of the players before you who built the union that you have benefited from.  The number of former players who are currently destitute, living below the poverty line and struggling just to live,  is shameful.  A simple deduction of 0.5% each year from every NHL player and a matching amount from the NHL would solve the problem but they both refuse.  Its not even a discussion topic in CBA talks.

Look at the NFL’s Legacy Fund where both sides contribute to ensure players who were union members prior to 1993 are properly taken care of.  The current emergency care program the NHL has is a way of easing their conscience making them believe they are doing something important to help.  The fact is the current NHL program falls woefully short.

The future players are the ones to be taken care of?   The ones who can not be paid less than half a million dollars per season by rule of the CBA?   The ones who inherit the highest average salary of any NHL generation?   The ones who will gladly take your job (and if current habits continue) he will forget anything you may have done to improve the game or his place in it?

After the last CBA dispute caused the cancellation of an entire season 240 players didn't play another NHL game.  The season lost ended their careers.  Each year about a thousand players play in the league.  At any given time there are about 750 members of the NHLPA.  Currently 667 of them have contracts.  After this year only 398 will have guaranteed jobs.  After 2014/15 only 198 have jobs and after 15/16 only 124 have jobs.  Everyone else is rolling the dice.

A few things we know for sure.  No matter what the financial system is in the NHL,  the best players will get paid about the same amount regardless of the system.  The Cap System proved that.  Another thing we know for a fact,  owners and GM’s can not control themselves.  Give the new system a year or two and owners and GM’s will find all the loopholes to circumvent their own system just like they did last time.  That is the inadvertent bonus the players can always count on.

In the last CBA players had to give back 24% of their salaries and submit to a cap.  Appears to be a complete loss in the negotiations world.  Turns out 7 years later, revenues grow by a billion dollars a year and the average player salary rises by a million dollars a season simply because owners cant control themselves.

Players lamenting having to give up 24% back then,  ended up getting raises over the course of the last 7 years of 300%, 400%, 500% and some,  thousands of percent within a Cap system.  In other words,  while it is not written in the CBA, the most important thing for the players is Mother Nature.  The “nature” of owners that is,  and their complete inability to control themselves.  That’s what makes players wealthy, not the printed words within the CBA.

Players should not hate the owners who have made them millionaires.  They should instead prey that as a group they don’t ever change their “nature”.

See you at the rink.

The End is Near

Is this the signal we have all been waiting for?  After all the body language interpretation and pressure point guessing could it be simple, juvenile tantrums that signal the end of the CBA negotiations and the start of the season?

If you remember back in 1994,  Chris Chelios threatened the life of the Commissioner and his family and then a deal was signed.  Maybe Versteeg and White are the outward expression of the players breaking point?  Early in this process Zach Parise and Ryan Suter both slimed the owners as each considered the possibility that their 98 million dollar deals might be clawed back and lets not forget Krys Barch’s boozy twitter rants.

Now Kris Versteeg says Bill Daley and Gary Bettman are both “cancers” in this process.  Ian White says Bettman is an “idiot” and the reason for all the bad things that have happened in the NHL including having teams in markets Ian doesn’t believe should have NHL hockey.

Lets deal with the obvious first.  If Versteeg considers Bettman and Daly to be the “cancers” in this process because they wont give him what he wants,  he may want to consider the opposite possibility.  Maybe the NHLPA executive director is again the problem.  I say again because every single executive director in NHLPA history from Allan Eagleson on,  has left the job and either been charged with a crime, accused of security violations and/or ethical violations within the NHLPA.  There are plenty of things I disagree with Gary Bettman about,  but this type of comment is simply juvenile.

Now Ian White.  After you stop laughing, lets deal with the obvious again.  Bettman is still the commissioner because NHL revenues have risen every year of his tenure.  Franchise values have risen steadily as has the players average salary.  Ian believes Bettman is responsible for franchises being misplaced in markets which Ian doesn’t believe can support NHL hockey.  That certainly has legs as a debate but lets be honest.  If there weren’t 30 teams in the NHL would Ian White be in the NHL?  Ian has made 9 million dollars playing in the NHL.  That type of money is generally not available in other leagues for players like Ian White.  Again his comments are simply juvenile.

I am not saying I don’t agree with many of the NHLPA’s assertions and proposals in this negotiation, but the name calling by frustrated players makes all players appear spoiled, out of touch and childish.  I can assure you all players are not.

What current players are right now though is stubborn in their contention that they don’t want to hear from ex-players.  They are traitors to the union cause.  Maybe just maybe they are very loyal to the union cause and simply want to urge current players to avoid mistakes they have made in the past.  240 players never played again after the last lockout.  The loss of a full season meant that 240 players lost their careers.

So far Recchi, Guerin, Hull, Lafleur, York, Therien, Donovan, O’Neill, JR, Mowers, Modano have all made comments which are not considered by current players to be complimentary or supportive of the NHLPA at this stage of negotiations.  Chris Phillips specifically believes Mark Recchi’s comments don’t hold water because he is ignorant of the day to day goings on with the NHLPA.

I have not seen any quotes from any of the former players who believe the owners offers are either good or fair but simply contend that common sense dictates that the deal isn’t going to get better the more paycheques current players lose.  That is not siding with the owners but rather the common sense that comes from the experience of going through lockouts and the perspective a former player gets after he leaves the bubble pro athletes live in while they are in the midst of their careers.

If I were a player three things would bother me greatly right now.  The former players who have been willing to speak publicly have all said basically the same thing.  Can they all be wrong?  Can they all be turn coats?  Secondly as Chris Therien has said, “If I were still playing I’d want to know what Fehr’s Plan B is”.  What is Plan B?  Just keep saying “NO” until the entire season is lost?  Thirdly I would want to know about the true motivation of Donald Fehr.  Former Major Leaguer and Blue Jay Greg Zaun when asked about his former MLBPA boss said “He did not come out of retirement to lose”.


For Donald Fehr;  is protecting the players, their careers and their incomes the top priority or is it protecting his personal legacy?  Players have always tried to insult Bettman by saying he knows nothing about hockey and then the NHLPA hires someone who knows less.   There are some who contend the only reason he came out of retirement to work for hockey players is not because of any particular love of hockey or its players, but rather the love of his brother Steve.  Some believe when this ends and Donald goes back to retirement,  it will play out that Steve will be portrayed as the one who brokered the deal and not Donald.  Steve Fehr being the hero for the players means a guaranteed offer to be the permanent Executive Director of the NHLPA when all this is over.  Only time will tell if this is true,  but if securing a job for his brother is even a part of the motivation for Donald then the players will have been betrayed by their leader again.

Versteeg and White would be very happy to be sure,  but I can also see Gary Bettman leaving his post after this is over.  Those who defend him point to all the growth for both players and owners during his reign.  Those not in Bettmans corner will point to the damage to the game with all the labor strife during his tenure with him as a central figure.

I am in favor of what ever changes need to be made to bring stability to our game.  You can only abuse the patience of fans and sponsors for so long before they decide they just don’t want to dance with you anymore.

See you at the rink.

Shame on both sides.

There are no major reasons for this NHL lockout. As Ken Dryden says in the Globe and Mail, this is fighting for the sake of fighting.

Who doesn’t believe this will ultimately end with the players and owners getting a 50/50 (or close to it) split of revenues with increased revenue sharing amongst the owners?

Do Bettman and Fehr believe the end result will be different? No they don’t. So why is the NHL about to lock out its players? It’s the ridiculous dance this league does every 5 to 7 years. Garry Bettman looks for the cost certainty his owners need to protect them from themselves. Donald Fehr is looking to put up a fight to make players feel like they are partners and not employees. Make them feel like they actually have a say in how 29 billionaires run their hockey teams. It has never been a partnership and it never will be. No owner is ever going to allow the employee to tell him how to run the business.

If players want to have a say in how ownership works, then buy a team. There are many, many ownership opportunities currently available in the NHL. Full ownership, partnership, equity investor, all these opportunities exist. If the NHL is such a great investment why haven’t any active players bought in? Because players know how many teams lose money and that’s ok as long as its not their money.

If owners ignore common sense in the name of stubbornness it only drags this on longer. When only a third of the teams in your league make money, it is obvious that increased revenue sharing is needed to end the cycle of franchise bankruptcy stories which seem to come out during the same week the NHL is bragging about league revenues going up. If 10 teams make a lot more money it doesn’t mean the bottom 10 teams are any better off. Just because changes to revenue sharing was the players idea and not yours doesn’t make it a bad idea.

The last lockout was about fundamentally changing the economic model for this entire industry with the implementation of a salary cap system. A massive legal and philosophical battle. This battle is nothing like that. It is simply about percentages and balancing the financial playing field between the big money making teams and the big money losing teams.

There is no good reason for this work stoppage.
Both sides should be ashamed for their role in this.
Neither side is innocent its only different degrees of guilt.

See you are the rink (some day).





























As the NHL CBA talks continue toward the September 15th deadline, I would like to add a clause to what ever deal is finally reached. The “Time” clause. Time is at the centre of every debate. Is there enough “time” to get a deal done?



A hard deadline is a bargaining tool both sides use to pressure each other. I would like a clause in the CBA which benefits neither side but may benefit fans, who are the forgotten partners in this negotiation.



The clause would be a simple one. The two parties would be bound by the CBA to begin negotiations one year before the expiration of the current CBA. The leaders, in this case Bettman and Fehr would be required to meet face-to-face for a minimum of 2 hours every 5 working days until the expiration of the current CBA. This would prevent either side from simply sending lawyers and emissaries to discuss each others stall tactics. Within the first 30 days of these meetings the NHL must present a legitimate proposal and the NHLPA must make a legitimate counter proposal within 15 days of receiving it.



There is no guarantee this clause would eliminate the possibility of a work stoppage, but if the 2 leaders are forced to talk to each other about only CBA issues, it is more likely the CBA won’t be an issue when the deadline arrives and hockey is threatened.



The owners knew exactly what their first proposal would be months before it was actually presented. After it was presented the NHLPA took over 3 weeks to respond to it. During that 3 week period union head Donald Fehr went to Russia and Spain to “update players”. While he was there he also worked out the basic guidelines for an exhibition series with KHL All-Stars in case NHL players were locked out. Should his emphasis not been on the task of getting a deal done instead of planning for the eventuality of it not getting done?



The deadline is now exactly 1 month away and the NHLPA has just now made their first response to the owners opening proposal.



The time crunch is only a factor because both sides made it a factor with their foot dragging and complete lack of consideration for the fans who are being pushed to the edge of this cliff unwillingly.



My idea will never see the light of day for 2 reasons. Neither side wants to relinquish the bargaining power that a deadline holds and secondly despite claims to the contrary, neither side truly considers the fans in this CBA process.



See you at the rink.

A clause for the fans in the new CBA.

As the NHL CBA talks continue toward the September 15th deadline, I would like to add a clause to what ever deal is finally reached. The “Time” clause. Time is at the centre of every debate. Is there enough “time” to get a deal done?


A hard deadline is a bargaining tool both sides use to pressure each other. I would like a clause in the CBA which benefits neither side but may benefit fans, who are the forgotten partners in this negotiation.

The clause would be a simple one. The two parties would be bound by the CBA to begin negotiations one year before the expiration of the current CBA. The leaders, in this case Bettman and Fehr would be required to meet face-to-face for a minimum of 2 hours every 5 working days until the expiration of the current CBA. This would prevent either side from simply sending lawyers and emissaries to discuss each others stall tactics. Within the first 30 days of these meetings the NHL must present a legitimate proposal and the NHLPA must make a legitimate counter proposal within 15 days of receiving it.

There is no guarantee this clause would eliminate the possibility of a work stoppage, but if the 2 leaders are forced to talk to each other about only CBA issues, it is more likely the CBA won’t be an issue when the deadline arrives and hockey is threatened.

The owners knew exactly what their first proposal would be months before it was actually presented. After it was presented the NHLPA took over 3 weeks to respond to it. During that 3 week period union head Donald Fehr went to Russia and Spain to “update players”. While he was there he also worked out the basic guidelines for an exhibition series with KHL All-Stars in case NHL players were locked out. Should his emphasis not have been on the task of getting a deal done instead of planning for the eventuality of it not getting done?

The deadline is now exactly 1 month away and the NHLPA has just now made their first response to the owners opening proposal.

The time crunch is only a factor because both sides made it a factor with their foot dragging and complete lack of consideration for the fans who are being pushed to the edge of this cliff unwillingly.

My idea will never see the light of day for 2 reasons. Neither side wants to relinquish the bargaining power that a deadline holds and secondly despite claims to the contrary, neither side truly considers the fans in this CBA process.

See you at the rink.

PR lessons Goodenow never learned

With NHL CBA talks about to begin between the NHL and the NHLPA, new union head Don Fehr has already proven to have more PR moxy than former head Bon Goodenow. Millionaire players rarely have the public on their side in these types of negotiations. Its one of the few times where the much wealthier owners actually have the fans on their side. Players often come across as petulant, greedy and out of touch with the average wage earning fan. That is a PR hurdle the NHLPA in its modern incarnation has never been able to scale.

New boss Don Fehr has already started laying some very subtle PR land mines for the owners to step on. Rejecting the leagues plan to restructure the divisions and revamp the schedule. The NHLPA claims it wasn’t properly consulted. Odd since the former union boss Paul Kelly said publicly that the plan the league came out with was almost exactly the plan the players wanted and asked the league for during his tenure.

Fehr claiming the league could easily start on time without a new CBA but simply operate under the old system until a new deal is reached thus guaranteeing fans their hockey fix. Smart play since if a lockout did occur in October the NHLPA could claim the owners are the villains who shutdown the game and not the benevolent players who offered to endure under the old system which pays them 57% of league revenues.  The projected floor for the cap this coming season is 54.2 million.  As many as 10 teams will lose millions just getting to the floor of the cap.

Fehr is very smart to have over 30 active players on the negotiating team. That will go a long way in alleviating player fears of the past, that a small pack of insiders within their group controlled everyone’s fate while having their own personal and secret agendas. Players are wise of to be skeptical of their own leaders since the NHLPA is 100% perfect in having both corruption and/or controversy at the top. Since the onset of the NHLPA, every single executive director has departed amid controversy. Some went to jail, some dismissed for contravention of internal bylaws and procedures and others simply because there was a rift amongst members because of the actions of the executive director.

In this CBA negotiation the players have some great points. They made major concessions in the last CBA and the owners inability to control themselves has again put many franchises in financial trouble. The lack of true revenue sharing means that despite a business model which has seen revenues grow from roughly 2.1 billion seven years ago, to the estimated 3.3 billion per year now, we still see too many franchises in financial trouble. The players can rightly point out that revenue generation is not the problem but rather the leagues wealthier teams unwilling to truly share the profits with the weaker teams.

What does not work in the players favor is comparables. In arbitration, free agency and almost every facet of NHL life, comparables are used to decide everything. Yet players will try to deny they compare to football or basketball. Players in both those sports receive roughly 50% of the leagues revenues in sports which generate far higher total revenues than the NHL does. It is still difficult to convince any working person that an employee deserves to make more than his employer who has to take all the risks and provide the entire infrastructure for the athletes to perform their magic.

What has been proven true in almost every sports labor dispute in the last 25 years will ultimately occur here too. The only question is how much will the players lose and the fans suffer to get to that reality. In the NHL up to half of the teams owners will lose less if there are no games than they would if there are games. Until the owners are facing true financial hardship across the board, why would they stop until they get the deal they want?

Sadly my guess is there will be another NHL lockout in October and my guess is the player (just like last time) will end up agreeing to something extremely close to what they were offered at the beginning of the process. We will again all be left wondering why the game had to stop and the players will be left wondering how they will ever recoup the money and (for some) the careers they lost.

See you at the rink.