The National Hockey League could have sent a strong message to the players' union by allowing the Ottawa Senators and Buffalo Sabres to fold last season, player agent Brian Lawton said yesterday.
"I really think that the NHL bent over backwards to keep them going, and I'm sure they had their reasons, but something like (contracting the teams) would have really got the players' attention," said Lawton, speaking on a panel with fellow agents Rich Winter and J.P. Barry at the Canada Sports Forum at the Lac Leamy Casino in Gatineau yesterday. "Could you imagine how players would react if there were potentially 60 fewer jobs out there?"
Lawton's comments, on the final day of the two-day forum presented by Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, added spice to a lively discussion about whether NHL owners will lock out the players for the 2004-05 season. The existing collective bargaining agreement expires on Sept. 15, 2004.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has said repeatedly the league needs "cost certainty" for teams to survive, but Lawton said yesterday players have a "distrust" of management.
The attitude would have been different, Lawton said, if the NHL hadn't stepped in to help prop up the Senators and Sabres. Both teams finished the 2002-03 season under bankruptcy protection, with the NHL helping bankroll both franchises.
The Sabres were sold in April to B. Thomas Golisano for $92 million.
With Rod Bryden owning the club, Senators players didn't receive paycheques on Jan. 1. The team needed to secure $33 million in emergency financing to cover its payroll, financing costs and legal and accounting fees. The Senators and the Corel Centre were sold to Eugene Melnyk for $130 million last month.
The Senators' financial problems stemmed from the overwhelming debt on the Corel Centre and not the burden of an enormous payroll.
But the agents argue that NHL owners, in general, are their own worst enemies, unnecessarily driving up the price for players. For instance, Winter says he doesn't understand why the Detroit Red Wings gave Curtis Joseph $8 million U.S. last season, the same amount as Dominik Hasek had made in 2001-02, when Joseph hadn't won a Stanley Cup or any Vezina trophies as the NHL's top goaltender.
Considering that the Detroit Red Wings had a $70-million payroll last season, compared to the Minnesota Wild's $20- million player budget, the agents said there's a dramatic difference of opinion on what's acceptable.
"Some teams are so quick to accept what they think the marketplace is without understanding it," Winter said. "I don't get it. That's the other side of it. Sometimes (teams) want us to correct the problems they create. There have been management personnel in place for eight or nine years who have never got anything right, and they are still employed."
Barry, who represents Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson, says owners have done a better job of using the collective bargaining agreement to their advantage in the past few seasons, following several seasons in which salaries went through the roof.
In 1993-94, the last season before the collective bargaining agreement was signed, the average NHL salary was $572,000. Last season, the average was $1.79 million.
While the agents say players understand they are well-paid and fortunate to be playing in the NHL, they insist they'll stick together if the owners lock them out next season.
Bob Goodenow, the executive director of the players' union, has been criticized for being too powerful and not sharing enough information with agents and players, but the agents say they trust his role as union leader.
"Our challenge is very difficult and Bob's challenge is difficult, and he represents the collective," said Winter, who admits Goodenow and the agents have to better inform players of what's at stake.
For all the tough talk, Lawton said he has some sympathy for Bettman, suggesting the current collective bargaining agreement, which has been in place since January 1995, could have worked in the owners' favour.
"My dream is for one day to sit on the other side, just to feel what it's like, because the pressure on management is ridiculous," he said. "Owners and presidents of teams should be looking at the long-term. I think Gary Bettman did a good job on the CBA. He must be going home at night and asking the owners, 'Why are you doing this'''?
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"I really think that the NHL bent over backwards to keep them going, and I'm sure they had their reasons, but something like (contracting the teams) would have really got the players' attention," said Lawton, speaking on a panel with fellow agents Rich Winter and J.P. Barry at the Canada Sports Forum at the Lac Leamy Casino in Gatineau yesterday. "Could you imagine how players would react if there were potentially 60 fewer jobs out there?"
Lawton's comments, on the final day of the two-day forum presented by Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, added spice to a lively discussion about whether NHL owners will lock out the players for the 2004-05 season. The existing collective bargaining agreement expires on Sept. 15, 2004.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has said repeatedly the league needs "cost certainty" for teams to survive, but Lawton said yesterday players have a "distrust" of management.
The attitude would have been different, Lawton said, if the NHL hadn't stepped in to help prop up the Senators and Sabres. Both teams finished the 2002-03 season under bankruptcy protection, with the NHL helping bankroll both franchises.
The Sabres were sold in April to B. Thomas Golisano for $92 million.
With Rod Bryden owning the club, Senators players didn't receive paycheques on Jan. 1. The team needed to secure $33 million in emergency financing to cover its payroll, financing costs and legal and accounting fees. The Senators and the Corel Centre were sold to Eugene Melnyk for $130 million last month.
The Senators' financial problems stemmed from the overwhelming debt on the Corel Centre and not the burden of an enormous payroll.
But the agents argue that NHL owners, in general, are their own worst enemies, unnecessarily driving up the price for players. For instance, Winter says he doesn't understand why the Detroit Red Wings gave Curtis Joseph $8 million U.S. last season, the same amount as Dominik Hasek had made in 2001-02, when Joseph hadn't won a Stanley Cup or any Vezina trophies as the NHL's top goaltender.
Considering that the Detroit Red Wings had a $70-million payroll last season, compared to the Minnesota Wild's $20- million player budget, the agents said there's a dramatic difference of opinion on what's acceptable.
"Some teams are so quick to accept what they think the marketplace is without understanding it," Winter said. "I don't get it. That's the other side of it. Sometimes (teams) want us to correct the problems they create. There have been management personnel in place for eight or nine years who have never got anything right, and they are still employed."
Barry, who represents Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson, says owners have done a better job of using the collective bargaining agreement to their advantage in the past few seasons, following several seasons in which salaries went through the roof.
In 1993-94, the last season before the collective bargaining agreement was signed, the average NHL salary was $572,000. Last season, the average was $1.79 million.
While the agents say players understand they are well-paid and fortunate to be playing in the NHL, they insist they'll stick together if the owners lock them out next season.
Bob Goodenow, the executive director of the players' union, has been criticized for being too powerful and not sharing enough information with agents and players, but the agents say they trust his role as union leader.
"Our challenge is very difficult and Bob's challenge is difficult, and he represents the collective," said Winter, who admits Goodenow and the agents have to better inform players of what's at stake.
For all the tough talk, Lawton said he has some sympathy for Bettman, suggesting the current collective bargaining agreement, which has been in place since January 1995, could have worked in the owners' favour.
"My dream is for one day to sit on the other side, just to feel what it's like, because the pressure on management is ridiculous," he said. "Owners and presidents of teams should be looking at the long-term. I think Gary Bettman did a good job on the CBA. He must be going home at night and asking the owners, 'Why are you doing this'''?
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